Visit the kelpforest....

Well. I've already screwed up the July meme, because I forgot to write yesterday. Maybe there will be two today.

Anyway, yesterday was the 4th. And while I'm not overly patriotic, I do kind of like the holiday. My neighborhood completely changes; there is a huge influx of people who come to see the parade and many of them stay until the fireworks show in the evening off the pier. It's really better not to drive anywhere downtown (as I was reminded when I dropped off Gareth at his friend Connor's house), because the streets are crowded while huge numbers of bicycles - more than any other day of the year - and those who are driving seem to forget all the rules. Everyone is having parties that overflow into front yards.

runsamuck hates parades, so he escaped to his friend Jerry's for awhile. Gareth really wanted to see the NASA float in the parade, but despite getting an earlier start than usual, we still missed it. We never bother with staking out a sitting area for the route a block away from our house. Instead, we just walk down the sidewalk and occasionally stop to watch something - it's usually me who stops, because I want to take pictures, and then I get prodded to continue by Angus, who prefers to be in motion.

It's usually the same groups of people every year. The Pearl Harbor Survivors are becoming a tinier group every year, and now WWII is becoming a another war for the re-enactors, although as the wars become more recent, the reeneactors need bigger equipment and more technology. Maybe it becomes more an excerise in costuming than actually recreating the battles. The Shriners are taking the "old men in fezzes driving tiny cars" to new limits. I don't think they can make them much smaller. And I always like watching the horses; although,seriously, DON'T let your toddler come up behind the miniature horse to pet it.

And then the group Military Families Speak Out walked by. To complete silence; no one gave them encouragement (well, I whistled and gave them a thumbs up), no one cheered. And I puzzled over the next in line - the Orange County Chapter of the NRA. To be fair, they didn't get much applause either. It was near the end of the parade and maybe people were getting tired. Honestly, who scheduled that line-up?

We didn't do much the rest of the day - runsamuck BBQed, then walked up to the school to watch fireworks. Avalon amused herself by rolling down the hill we were sitting on. I was tempted to but, thought the wallet and keys in my pocket might hurt. By the time we got home, I was rather glad I didn't. I think all the walking we did the last couple of days has made me a bit sore.

In an out of the way corner of Fish Harbor, between the Al Larson Boatyard and the prison, I found a reminder of how Terminal Island used to be.



Engraved on glass and granite, I found a very sad story. One I was not aware of.

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I had been thinking I don't remember many dreams lately, and then this morning I had one.

Some friend of mine had signed me up to join the army. I definitely hadn't done it myself or I would have picked the the Navy or the Coast Guard. Not much happened except they put a bunch of us on a bus and took us to a motel where 15 of us were assigned to a room. The only problem was that there were only three beds. Most everyone took off for a last night on the town before boot camp, but I was tired and stayed behind with one or two other girls. I looked at the beds; two of them were king-sized, and the other was really an oversized patio lounger - a metal frame with plastic strip across it. I really wanted to go to sleep, but I knew I would have to leave room for everyone who was coming back. For some reason I picked the patio lounger, and settled down onto the very edge of it. Later I opened my eyes, and noticed my feet were in the middle of the bed, so I moved back over to the edge.

Unfortunately in the real world, John had wanted to snuggle, and got upset with me when I moved over. I was just trying to make more room.

I don't know why I dreamed about joining the military - maybe because John was watching "Private Benjamin" yesterday. I toyed with the idea of applying to the Coast Guard Academy when I was in high school, but when I found out most of the classes were geared towards engineering, I gave up on the idea. I was hoping they had more in the way of oceanography. They also had some policy at the time that you could not have any large scars. I have a large bald patch on the top of my head where I was burned very badlly as an infant - I guess I thought that would have disqualified me. I do remember that one disqualifier was "acne so bad as to be disfiguring." Guess we can only have hansome unscarred people as officers in the military.