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Dear Readers,
Sorry this column is a week late, but it’s my birthday month and
I don’t have to do nothin’ that I don’t wanna’ and dat’s da’
truth . . . b-l-l-l! (In case you’re under 50, that’s Lily
Tomlin from “Laugh-in” - a very old and very funny show,
wherein, she dresses like a toddler and sits in a gargantuan
rocking chair, therefore, making her look small).
I’ve been gorging on the purple ice plant carpet along Ocean
View Boulevard in Pacific Grove again and must continue to write
about it. It’s a microcosm of life, with multi-national tourists
gaping, gawking and rolling in the floral carpet, taking their
pictures in it and getting down on all fours to smell its sweet
musk.
Here is a scene from yesterday: a young man jogs by, hearing-aid
style phone in his ear, and I overhear, “Stocks going down . .
.” Can you imagine checking your portfolio while in the presence
of Nirvana? Sailboats skimming the gleaming water, their
spinnakers billowing, gigantic cumulous clouds riding high in
the spring sunshine and otters bobbing about the kelp . . .
Then a low-rider filled with teens passes, honks, and yells at
me, “slut!” “Manwhore!” Are they having fun yet?
I pass a Vietnamese gentleman who is grinning and looking around
hoping someone will see the large yellow-finned fish on his
line.
“Oh, good for you,” I shout, knowing that he needs validation.
“What kind is it? It’s sure a big one.”
He answers ling cod and I squirm as I watch him tear the hook
from the fish’s mouth.
“Oh, well, at least he’ll eat it,” I muse. But when he tosses it
into the plastic bucket the water instantly turns read and I
instantly turn green . . .
Oh, I have seen it all on this trail. Once, a man brought out
his two boa constrictors to laze on the ice plant and, loathing
things that slither on their bellies, I forced myself to pet it.
“Just get over it,” was my creed. I was taken aback when I felt
the firm muscular body (the reptile’s not the man’s) - not cold
and slimy as I had imagined.
Anyway, I stop and take photos of everything from a toddler
dressed in a birthday frock - dying her white dress purple as
she rolls in the plant - to a biker couple with tattoos up the
wazoo . . . And I feel sated, and oh so blessed to live in this
paradise by the bay. |
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