Reading: Frank McCourt, Angela's Ashes

Listening: Man-o-War Popping

Viewing: a determined sea-kayaker

Moving: A walk on the beach

3 January 2000: Last full day

DMB had a virus or was otherwise run down (I can't imagine why) so stayed home from work to sleep instead. So RDC and I borrowed her car and visited his grandmother, returned some clothes at Burdine's (the definitive South Florida department store), went out for lunch, and then took another walk on the beach. All of that was very pleasant and illustrates why it is imperative we rent a car from now on. There had been talk of our being able to borrow someone's Cherokee and DMB having oodles of time off work, but neither of those things happened. We spent entirely too much time at the house. Next time, we won't stay at the house, or at least not for two weeks without transportation.

Excuse me.

Today the ocean had many more man-o-war than it had Sunday, when I wasn't stung at all. And it was much windier. I didn't consider swimming but instead we popped jellyfish.

I wrote to ASZ:

Subject: whapping moles or voles or whatever varmints

In NYC the summer of '86 you introduced me, who had never been in an arcade before and didn't get it, to mole whapping. Or prairie dogs or whatever those were.

We spent Christmas in Florida and I swam most of the days we went to the beach (not enough) and did not swim the days the man-o-war were all over the place, in the water and washed up on the beach. The cool thing about them is that after they've been beached for a while, the big float balloon that shows above the surface dries out and becomes brittle enough that when you whack it with a Teva, it pops with a sound much more satisfying than your basic balloon and even better than poppy wrap. Unfortunately you can't use your hands as you can with poppy wrap, unless you're insane and enjoy pain. So anyway there I was at the high tide line, whapping man-o-war and thinking of you.

He replied:

Subject: re: whapping moles or voles or whatever varmints

Not only was that an outstanding story, but your major was showing and you presented it in a far more literary style than I think I could have related the same joy I felt (only 2 years after indoctrinating you into the cult of "whac-a-mole") when popping the giant blue ballons which must have washed ashore after a cuban/asian/south american freight ship exporting these ballons must have sunk off the coast of Florida. Unfortunately I was not aware of the toxicity inherent in the infamous "blue ballons" and failed to remove my tevas. (yes we science type people do often miss "the big picture") And so the trip to the beach was followed by a very much less pleasant trip back to my grandparents' condo, and a bottle of benedryl. The take home message being, although some "whackers" can not speak of their preferences in public, the majority may prefer men-of-war, but some still have a preference for plastic moles.

ASZ cracks me up. This is what he wrote after I told him penguindust had gone kablooey:

Oh but for the passing of the penguins
They were always such sweet little grains of black and white dust
And now they are no more
O only swirls of mist in the mind and questions on the tongue
We shall miss these penguins
But we shall not let them stand in the way of saying. . .
Yahoo for Lisa and Rich
They are still where we can find them

Yes--soon to be back in Colorado where we belong,