A month later

It's been a while since my last blog. I've been still going to Ocean Beach to clean up a couple times a week, but was thrown a little by Life, particularly my Census job. Setting my own hours seems like it would leave me more time to beachandblog but between our morning meetings and our late afternoon/early evening window to do the work, and my talent for making 25 actual hours into more like 45, well you get the idea.

I was thinking about going early this morning but now I'm glad I didn't. A little while ago I read online that a couple got killed in a boating accident this weekend, and the man washed up on Ocean Beach this morning.

So much has happened this month. The Gulf oil spill is so vast, in so many senses, that I don't feel like anything I can say, at least right now, would add to what's been said, thought, or felt. One thing I will say is that I signed up with the Audobon Society to volunteer if I'm needed. So far they don't need unskilled people not from the area but they send us emails from time to time. The last one had some good advice. The birds at the site, a lot of them migrate. What we can do, one thing, is to protect habitat where we are.

So today I'll keep it local and talk about what I did on the day after Earth Day, while the oil was escaping into the Gulf but before most of us, anyone reading this, knew what was happening. I've been spending so much time on the beach watching and wondering that I decided to pay the money to go to the Aquarium by the Bay at Fisherman's Wharf. I was standing in line for a ticket when someone asked me if I were alone, and when I responded affirmatively, gave me a free ticket. I think he was holding it for someone who never showed up. At first I didn't understand, so I hope he knew how much I appreciated it.

I really wanted to see this aquarium because it focuses on the Bay. It has a few other exhibits but their jewel is a building-length tunnel of animals that live in the Bay. I stayed there a long time, watching shellfish and scaled fish, trying to learn who they were and what relation they had to each other. It is somewhat artificial in that they feed the animals well enough so that the predator/prey relationships that drive the animals in the wild don't exist. Although it's like a living museum more than a slice of life it gave me a picture of what it looks like under the water when I'm on the beach looking west, something I didn't have before. The other part of the exhibit I loved was the jellyfish, oh the jellyfish. They were in a ceiling-to-floor column and were mersemizing. It was hard to pull away.

There was also information on how much garbage goes into the Bay and what it does. Depressing and inspiring. I took notes but the particulars aren't with me at the moment but I'll post them. Really. Earlier in the spring they had a free week for residents and I have a feeling it's probably annual.

On the beach itself, the shorebirds are gone off to places like the Arctic to make more baby shorebirds. I'm understanding what I'm seeing more now and even with the shorebirds gone this included, so far, an ochre sea star early in the morning, right at the wave end of low tide, a raven on a sand dune about a foot from me, the same day a crow who looked directly at me, pecked at a piece of rope, and flew away. I felt like s/he was telling me about something to pick up. I don't pick up shells and rocks to take home but I made an exception for a dogwinkle turned into a rock.

Now that I'm back to posting again, I will post twice a week, with more about my attempts to live more in harmony. I do work next week for a couple of weeks, but it's regular hours and when it's done, it's done!

Until then...