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.