end of summer

Summer in ending. The tell tale signs are everywhere. I went to work this morning in the dark (I don't care that it was 6 am, its wrong.), I have rediscovered my favorite fleeces and the fact that my hair falls flat in the face of drizzle, and finally that Edmonds, is once again beginning its annual 'shut the town down by 5pm' tradition. Ug.
So...a little ode to summer, it was a duzy. It has held incredible highs, and the terminal velocity hitting the concrete kind of lows to back them up.
Some of the highs included getting to see two of my best friends in one local for the first time ever, submitting my first fiction for publication, playing with fire poi, one cold skinny dip, and my most talented move to date; locking myself on the back balcony...and having to ask my valiant neighbor to break into my place, to get me off the back deck. And yes, this counts as a high for shear laugh factor.
Some of the lows included things like a death in the family, 3 rounds of spills on my back (two were the full air banana peel kind), and other stuff that shall remain nameless for quite a while. August got nicknamed the month that just wouldn't die.
So I would just like to take a moment of silence. The weather I will miss a little, the rest i will not.
Next week my roomy leaves for oz yet again, another dear friend leaves for Montana, and my new roommate moves in. This is defiantly the change in seasons. May the next 4 months bring rain, and the knowledge of a God that is still beyond my reach.

throwing rocks at the sea

So the other night in the middle of a talk a good friend had a grand idea. 5 min. later we stood on the beach in the dark (except for 1 ferry about to leave dock), with a small collection of pebbles. I went first. "you are never supposed to question God, EVER." I hucked the rock as hard as I could (it landed a pitiful distance but felt good). We took turns. Chucking some of the lies we have believed most of our lives into the sea. I felt amazing....and hurt like hell...and almost took out my shoulder. Turns out even when you say them out loud, and they sure enough sound like complete bollucks...they still hurt to pull up.
So we threw them really hard.
We had a couple over lapping. And a couple dusy's. And after half an hour we were done.
On the walk back up the beach I thought I saw a plastic bag billowing in the wind. I stop dead 4ft away when i realized it was a baby harbor seal. I went to Seattle Aquarium a couple weeks ago. And some how when they tell you 'these live right out here'...you really don't believe that means your actually going to see one. Let alone up close and personal. We got pretty close trying to see if the little guy was hurt. His reaction (all 2 feet, and round inches of him) was to look at us, yawn, stretch and promptly go back to sleep. We called about him only to be told by 911 that it was totally normal. The moms plop the little guys up on the beach so they can do some night fishing. Leave him be and he'll be just fine. So we did.
More trips to the beach should be like that one.