Would you believe Pen,

On Sunday I was attacked by a seagall.

Let me explain. The day started innocently enough. Wendy agreed to be a champ and come with me up the coast. We get breakfast. She is ever generous with gas money and wildflower seeds. We stop and taste honey. The one I bought of course mom explained is the one everyone buys. Orange. I have already in the first slip fallen into mediocrity. But we venture on. We witness a bmw bike being knocked over at a gas station, (As another man who had been having a dialogue with himself rushes over in loose fitting leather pants to help....) and the man not being able to pick it back up. I feel that should be a requirement of purchase, but nevermind. Up the coast we go. I am already having second thoughts, not having thought this through and already so far along. We pull up and I can't bring myself to pay $10. I haven't packed a lunch. It is already near to 12. I ask the kids at the gate about seaweed. She's like, um, we like, totally have seaweed. I say, can i go look at it. She's like, um... yes? She says, Just park in the 20minute spot. So we do and I'm already a little down at the sight of hightide and already drying out clumps and twists. But there is some- it is out there. Though not in mass quantity and cleverly hidden like black uninteresting blobs. I am sad now i didn't collect more- of course- that i didn't keep going down the stretch of beach but nevermind.

We head back down to ventura. We get gas. I pull up on the wrong side. I have to enter the transaction at least 3x. It cuts me off at $50 but i leave it at that. There's no bathroom. But there's an in/out close and delicious fries await. We make it to the beach, find parking close and bring our bounty to sit on the rocky shore. We are distracted by the seal, distracted as it comes out of the water and seems to be having a dialogue with the 2 young girls. Too distracted to see that one by one large LARGE white gulls are beginning to perch by us. One by one. Talking to one another. We immediately bring up Birds. Wendy confesses a fear of them since but she recovers quickly as one dive bombs her head. We think that was close. I think odd. Bold behavior. I take a 3rd, maybe fourth bite of my double double and thats when it happens. Swoosh. And the bastard takes my burger. But the meat insultingly tumbles out into deep sand as they rip apart the packaging. Never in my life have I had to take revenge on mutinous mineminemine birds. But there are enough pebbles and rocks close by as one by one i take aim.

Wendy even lets me have half of her burger as I still angrily eye the birds who dare to flap back. Toss.Toss.Toss. Thud.Thud.Thud. The packs of dolphins feeding nearby eventually turn me from my hurling rock enterprise. We read poetry. We grow cold in the wind and decide to go but not before I get a few more shots in. Never in my life. I shake my head. We drive back down inland. We get cherries which are sadly not that sweet. I get fizzy water. And wendy gets purple licorice. We make it back into town and she drives off homeward. And then i think, what a curious day.

m-
ps.
My kitty cat Marley is holding steady. I think we decided to spoil him rotten with tuna and forgo dental surgery for now since the infection is gone, as we think he got into something which made him sick and just happened to uncover bad teeth. We'll see. Pampering may just continue into his future.

Also, I finished Hunger Games. It is a catchy read. I did find for all that the end dreadfully rushed and you know what I'm talking about. So SO rushed! COme ON. Kudos for plot twists though despite the somewhat  flimsy philisophical treatise on why war is bad and why peace is good-*duh*- BUT page-turner. I think it would make a good tv episodic on the sci-fi channel. I would totally watch.

ttyl.