I will never put panties on my cookies, I promise.

But I thank the sick mind that did for his peaches.

It just keeps happening...

The Birds and the Bees

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Ha ha

Needed to get outdoors today.  Not outdoors as in selling cookies at the Farmer's Market, that was yesterday, and that is a different kind of focus.

There are still no waves (see above picture of Summerhaven this morning), so I dusted off the bike.  I haven't been riding much lately.  Too much of my time is engulfed with this whole cookie thing.  I talk a lot about it, and make that face like, woe is me, how can I keep up and have a life, but the truth is, my life is cookies and I like it that way at the moment.

I can remember standing in that kitchen in Pasadena, 7400 Hibiscus Street, or was it Way?  Anyway, when I was around 15, I liked to stand in the kitchen while cooking and pretend I had my own cooking show.  I suppose it is in my blood. I had just started surfing, had access to our old green VW bug now and then... spent hours listening to Canned Heat and The Beatles Sargent Pepper album in my bedroom that used to be a garage, staring at pictures of surfing in worn issues of Surfer, and wondering when I would surf again... and about all the waves that were out there in the world.

Had I known then, that I would surf many great waves around the world, and still be surfing at this age, I probably would have never believed it.  I also would not have believed that my mom would die of cancer just short 29 years later.

As I rode along A1A this morning, I decided to just slow down for once.  I am entitled to slowing down at this age.  My bike computer wasn't working, the dial had faded, needed a new battery, and I thought, screw that, I am just riding for the sake of riding.  No need to pressure myself into keeping at a certain average speed, that would only defeat the purpose of enjoying the ride.

I noticed a group of green parakeets, about seven of them, sitting on the telephone wire, and wondered about their life, a life of constant movement and struggle to survive.  Right now, though, they were just sitting in the morning sunshine, some of them snuggling into the wings of the one sitting next to them.

Love the one you're with.

I passed Quail Hollow condos, and looked back, like I always do, at that corner condo where mom lived for a few months after her cancer surgery and before she moved to North Carolina.  It always fills me full of regret, longing, wishing for those days to return, so that I could have spent more time with her... and less on a business that still runs on without me, that commercial endeavor I would abandon completely only a handful of years after she moved away and then left this earth forever.  That was the closest she would ever live to me, and it feels like a squandered the gift.

As I rode along the bridge at Matanzas inlet, straining my eyes to imagine there might be a wave out there that I could ride, no, not even on the tater, I saw a black crow sitting on the bridge rail, oddly hunkered down, staring back at me. It fluttered its wings, daring me to stop and stare so it could take flight and thwart me.

Onward, I went, the July heat not too much a concern, the sun felt good on my skin.  My ankle was covered up by my socks, but isn't really looking much better. I am determined to take ALL the antibiotics, this time, after failing to follow though like I always seem to do. Mom always said doctors were prescribing way too many antibiotics, and that we would pay for it one day. That stuck with me. But, I suppose I need to right now if I want to keep my leg.  Because without that leg, there will be no more surfing. If the surf ever does return...

What do you think, cousin?  Looks like a monster with teeth to me.

Getting better

I did not listen to the doctor and wait until Friday to surf because the sandbar at Mary Street has been too enticing.  Yes, I have been surfing.  It hasn't been much, but enough to temp me out there.  I think it is actually helping the wound heal.  See photo above.  Compare with just after surgery below.

Strike that.  I think it looked better just after surgery.  I am a dope.

But, come on, look at the waves!

Yep, I am a dope.

The Nanny Laments Summertime

Best Surf Photo EVER

Always

Always go with the choice that scares you the most, because that’s the one that is going to require the most from you – Caroline Myss.

My business model

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More amazement

I could not sell my cookies at the market today.  My incision feels like the world's biggest paper cut with someone pouring lemon juice in it 24/7.  I can hardly walk!  Yes... but my neighbor showed up at my door and said, "GIVE ME THAT CHANGE BAG, I AM SELLING THOSE COOKIES."  And, she did.

A new record was made yesterday, another sell-out, and by 10:59 am.  69 cookies.

What is happening, little Bluebird Cookie Company?  Let my dad joke about me being the CEO of my little cookie business.  Let's just see what happens next.

Prepare to be blown away.

The most amazing thing happened today

I went surfing again this morning, like I have the last three days.  There had been barely enough waves to get to your feet, but the tater makes anything fun.

So, I am just sitting there watching Andy get another one on his longboard - when I see something surfacing, right in front of me.  Instantly, I realize it is what I have hoped to see for years.  A manatee! And, it was a big one.

I yelled for Andy to look, and he started paddling over just in time to see me start blubbering like a baby as I stared into the eyes of the huge but docile creature as it pulled up right alongside me, as if to say hello, and turned just enough so that I saw both its eyes looking into mine.  There was much more blubbering and disbelief as Andy began laughing and freaking out, as I reached down into the water and stroked the manatee's back, unexpectedly slimy, its massive girth just inches away.

Then it disappeared beneath the surface, but the swirls were still evident as Andy called out to look where it was, but in my haste to see it again, to touch it, despite worrying that it might approach another human again who wasn't as kind, I was twisting and turning and looking everywhere but where it was. Andy called out, "To your right, you dumbass!"  There is was!

Oh, joy, the moment was the best of my entire forty-five years of surfing, I swear to God it was.

Nothing has moved me to feel such emotion as I did today, just minutes before surgery on my leg from that cut I got in Jamaica. Only moments before, I had whispered something to my mom... please tell me everything will be alright, because I am really really scared - and feel so alone going to have that cancer cut out of my leg...

...and then it happened.

Happy Birthday, Dear Cousin!

My most faithful reader and best person in my life has a birthday today!  I know you want to forget it, but there is no escape.  You are alive, find a way to laugh at yourself.  That is my secret.

Yesterday I made a volcano out of clay for the kids.  Wow, it is great to see the excitement you can elicit in a kid with just some baking soda and vinegar.

Then we went to Coco Mango's and I put Joe under the hand dryer.

Enjoy life!  It will all be over soon!

Really miss my mom these days...

So many things have been happening that she would be thrilled about.  When I look at my niece, Sarah, and see how much she looks like her at that same age and how she, too, was in nursing school... it is heart-wrenching to think she is not here to see that.  None of her children had the slightest interest in going into that field, the sight of blood sending us all over the edge.

Sarah, I like to think she is watching.

I found four pennies the day before yesterday, and I like to think it is her letting me know.  Why would there be one right there, where I was washing my car, as I thought of her and how my tears were mixing with the car wash water?  Why was there one right there, heads up, on my doorstep, right in the middle where I would not miss it, as I bumbled back inside afterwards?  Then two more - the very same day?

I like to think it is her.  There is nothing like a good mom. Nothing. No one will ever love you more.

It came in today!

The Double Agent...

Come on, waves!!

New board on the way...

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June 3rd... do not forget this day

Everything changed today, thanks to Tropical Storm Arthur... and to Andy for deciding we should ride out bikes down to the point today.

It would have been far easier to just park at 8th street and paddle out.  There was a decent sandbar there, breaking harder than the pier was. Mark had primed me for the swell dropping overnight with a dawn patrol report.  He was sorely disappointed, but part of me could just not believe it.  There was a tropical storm just off our coast, blowing at 70 mph, and although not in the optimal position to give us the best possible swell... it was certainly producing something somewhere. After a brutal stretch of nothing, I was going to find it.

So, then Andy texted the word. "Point?"

I didn't have to be to work until 11, but if he had the whole day off, I did not want to be the anchor pulling him in to shore when the waves were going off. You see, I had to ride with him because I have yet to put my bike rack on my car. A bike is key for the point, or you are just not going. There is Andy's jet ski, but that is an ordeal.  He was up for picking me up and going... Damn! Let's go!

And we were rewarded with one of the best days ever.  Compared to the pier and everywhere else I looked, the point was a heaving tubular miracle for me after a month of nothing.  There were two waves that stood out, that I must not forget.  The left that ran aground shortly after I paddled out was one.  A long wall, one of the bigger ones for sure, just heaved up and, after waiting so long for real waves, I was not going to let it slide by without me.  I paddled hard and realized soon enough it might be a mistake, the ledge was already pitching with me engaged in the lip.  Too bad!  I am going!  And I did, just slid into it and dropped into the pit, vertical and churning and... BOOM, I made it!  Right in the pocket I was, flabbergasted at my luck as I slid into the tubing wall that rolled into a ball of foam that I popped out of eventually on down the line, hooting like an idiot.  What in the hell was that?  Andy was smiling, had seen the take off, and confirmed the treachery I had felt.

I watched Andy get wave after wave today on that tater and swear he gets better every damn day. What fun we had!

The best one came near the end, with Walter there, riding his new dominator imitator and looking like he had shaved ten years off his age.  A big wedging thing, it was.  Glassy, groomed to perfection by a perfect west wind... sucking off the shallow sandbar, the wall bigger than most all morning, just bloody perfect, rising up, and Andy yelled: GO!

I paddled into it, knowing it was going to be a good one.  The wall had that taper, steep and long, but with enough forgiveness that begged to have its face etched just so.  I was standing up, looking at the line and stepped back on the tail so the nose lifted up just enough to put me right into the barrel, looking out and grinning from that happiness that only this moment can bring, the moment where it all comes together and you just know there is nothing better on the entire planet, no drug that could compare.

Is that you? Yeah, you.

Dropping Joe off for his Tae Kwon Do class yesterday afternoon, I walked into that gym-smelly place, smiling as Joe showed me the punching bag. I told Abby to pretend it was her brother, Ben, and she slammed her fist right into its middle. Nice.

I walked into the main room where some little kids were already practicing their moves, little tikes all focused and looking bad ass.  I noticed a man sitting with what looked like his daughter.  He stared at me when I walked in, like he wanted to say something, like he recognized me, and I backed away back into the room I had just emerged from, instinctively.  I didn't recognize him, and sensed I was in for some more feeling bad stuff. I emerged once again, after I had finished pretending to forget something, and he was still staring, smiling, and said, "Diane?"

"No," I said, "I must have a twin because this happens a lot." He said, "You surf, right?" And I smiled. "Yep". He looked at his daughter and said, "She is one of the best surfers you will ever see!" His daughter, about thirteen, looked up at me, but it wasn't with that look of: RIGHT, DAD!  It was more of a look like she believed him, for some reason.

He apologized for getting my name wrong and I told him it was Nancy, and said he knew Dave from the surf shop, and for whatever reason, after his divorce, realized he could remember guys names, but never their wives or girlfriends.

He began recalling an epic day at Tenth St.  saying we were the only ones out on a really good tubing day and how he recalled I kept getting barrel after barrel, how it was so early that the tubes were pitch black, and he had never forgotten that day. I felt pretty sickened that I could not.

It was an unexpected gift on a day that I was feeling aggravated, from the lack of surf and the overwhelming responsibility and test of my patience as a nanny to four kids in summertime.

His smile that was so genuine and was a connection to all that that is surfing and goodness and what I need in my life that has gone missing for too long.  Tropical Storm Arthur has formed just off our coast, and continues to frustrate with its proximity, causing the wind to be so strong you can't surf unless you want to be blown south to Ormond Beach in fifteen minutes.

Oh, July, please bring something better than June has given us.  Please?

More cat art, then.

Okay, we get a storm off the coast, finally

And all we get is junky chop!  This has to be the worst summer ever, right?  Time for more cat art.