Other Summer

[Mach123]

The hurricane is going by out to sea. It'll bring the fall in behind it, that's how the weather works around here.

Link Removed

We went to the end of summer dance the handicapped center puts on. I actually had fun?
I danced with my daughter and some of the other girls. I'm the only man there that's not either severely handicapped or elderly so I'm popular.

I think I'll close this out in a few days like the 15th and move back into my diary. It was fun "spending the summer" and sort of staying on more upbeat things like exersize and the weather.

Therapy started up again after having most of August off and I'm thinking about starting a group again. I realized I have to be with women to be safe. It's hard for people to get their head around a sexual abuse survivors group that's male and female but it has to be for me. I met some guys online who are doing it.

My medical thing meaning prostate cancer, gets revisited later this month. It's almost fall. It was dark and windy and rainy last night but muggy. It'll probably blow in cooler this afternoon.

My wife wants to take the storm ride a family tradition from when we had the Dodge Ram. It was a giant 4WD rig and we were never afraid to go out for a ride in any weather.

 

[blackemerald1]

I will miss you summer/beach log. :) And the photos...

Your daughters must be so proud to have a dad that does stuff with them. I know that sounds ridiculous but I came from a generation of fathers who did nothing with their children at all. And that was exactly how society expected them to be.

All the best with your next visit to the doctor too. :hug:

 

[Mach123]

We walked today an hour. 2 1/2 miles. It was windy out of the NW so you get pushed down the beach on the downwind leg and wind blown and potentially frozen coming back. The summer wind is SW. The winter wind is NW and the big storms NE.

The surf is massive, the beach is dramatic. We are going to take a walk back down at hi tide right around sunset. The surf should have the water right up against the dune even though it's not a big tide astronomically.

 

[Mach123]

I found a magical portent today on the beach and I'm all astonishment.

It was yesterday actually I picked up a rock at the far end of the beach. We always pick up beach glass and shells but ocasionally there's a rock and you just have to have it, so I picked one up.

I carried it all the way back up the beach in my hand and I kept fooling around with it and looking at it and I started thinking I don't want it it's not special enough, and how the last place we lived we had sort of a big collection of rocks and we didn't need it (my daughter likes bringing them home too) and I got like torn a little thinking about it, and I thought that was strange.

Then back at our beach I thought the hell with it and I tossed it in the water.

It's been very rough and high surf and we were walking back today and I angled up the beach away from the water and I was looking down to walk it was so rocky.

And there it was.

To say the chances of this happening are infinitesimally small is an understatement. The beach changes overnight through the tide cycles to such an extent that sometimes all the rocks vanish and it's totally smooth sand the next day.

I recognised it instantly and when I picked it up I thought "it's just similar" because there are similar formations and colours and it's not unusual to find "like" rocks but there was a small discolouration on one side and it's the same one.

When I threw it in the water I remember thinking "that's it, I'll never see that particular rock again in this world"

I guess I was wrong.

You can't say "that's supernatural" because it wasn't impossible and it did happen after all. But what are the chances? Even that we went down there today, and that I angled off in the correct direction at random, because I wasn't thinking about it. and that I looked down just in time to see it? I'm pretty sure I was at least a block down from where I'd tossed it in the water.

Now I have it, I hope it's good magic.

 

[Mach123]

The seaweed persists, the whole town stinks since the breeze is off the ocean. We got some giant snail shells today the size of my fist. So weird we haven't seen those once this summer and today my daughter collected a dozen or so.

The tide will remove it all. It usually happens overnight. It'll just all be gone. The sea ice is the same in winter. It's inside (on the bay side) that the ice forms. It's been 5 or six feet high at different times. Then one morning it'd be gone.

I had a trauma thing today with a dog on the beach it triggers me badly. The police told me to call but it's just so upsetting to have to do that. It is a real trauma experience with me and I'm somewhat better. I wouldn't go talk to them or yell (both of which I had to obsess about awhile) but it didn't spoil my walk (totally) and I'm ok now.

I sorta made a pact with myself I'm going to call.
The dogs scare my autistic daughters and blah blah lol.

I'd go on but, you get the picture. It becomes an episode. The cops must've enforced it this year because in August we saw virtually no dogs. They told me they would come and they would ticket. I hate having to feel like this but I'm definitely better (believe it or not.)

So we also went to the Y today all 3 of us together and it was nice. We swam about 34 min. I go off hours. It's not quite clean enough for me but we are doing what we can. We are moving to a home based program for one of them jer program currently is remedial or custodial at best which, she deserves better.

We are doing what we can.

 

[blackemerald1]

Do you collect seaweed for your garden? Is that legal?

 

[Mach123]

I'm not much on collecting seaweed though you can have it by the truckload right now. : )

 

[Mach123]

Holy crap I just came back from driving up the beach to where I picked up that rock and putting it back. It was magic alright but the wrong kind. That was some bad mojo!

I almost got run over, run off the road, every time I parked people were parking right on top of me, everyone in front of me was going 5 mph under the speed limit, couldn't sleep, I thought someone was outside the bedroom door and jumped out of bed, anxious and unhappy, then I drove to my therapy appointment and she didn't show up!

She had fallen and broken her arm! Her office was supposed to call me but I had no message from them.

I was like, is this for real?

I drove home brought in some stuff I bought, picked up the horrid thing and drove it back to where I got it, dam!

I remember in the Don Juan books he was like don't go picking stuff up (around the old ruins) and bringing it home you'll get an evil spirit. I guess there are evil spirits in the rocks at the beach too sometimes.

The seaweed is gone except what was above high water so just a long crescent down the legnth of the beach. It's nice. I hope we go walking later.

The lady's border collie next door is barking it's head off, then she yells at it so you get a two for one lol.

They are nice neighbors though, could be worse.

 

[Mach123]

I feel better this morning God I'm glad that's over. I never experienced anything like that. I remember years ago, I knew this guy and his wife in the church and he told me they picked something up once around an Indian burial ground, something like that, and when they got home the house became haunted. They said (and it was both of them) doors were opening and closing and stuff wouldn't stay where they put it and doors were slamming. I thought they were crazy. They got rid of it and it stopped they said.

I didn't totally disbelieve them but I was like I'm not sure. Now I'm a little more open to it. I couldn't wait to get rid of that thing.

 

[Mach123]

We faced some cold weather yesterday, what I thought cold anyway lol. My daughters are serious walkers! Shorts and a sweatshirt. I was all bundled up and i still froze my skinny ass off. Nobody was on the beach. We did the short version, a little over 2 miles, the bathroom was closed. I think he probably went home because nobody was around. There was a good stiff breeze off the water. We took it on our backs on the way down. It made your eyes tear up behind the sunglasses on the way back. Nobody complained though (except me)

 

[Mach123]

Yesterday was warmer. The seaweed is all gone like the beach was vacuumed. We got a couple good pieces of sea glass. My daughter got the best one it's light purple. Walking back the angle of the wind was behind us and the sun was nice and strong. I had on my winter coat which for the past few years has been a Woolrich shirt and a hooded sweatshirt underneath. We all had on shorts and bare feet. We walked about 2.5 miles, beach is empty.

Those are piping plovers I'm pretty sure we call them sandpipers. Much of the "dune" is reserved for them to nest.

 

[Mach123]

Yesterday was freezing! I had on my leather jacket which I only wear in winter. It's funny because only a little six foot high sand pile separates the beach from the road, which they plant with sea grass and call a sand "dune," but it's about 20 degrees cooler and windy on the beach some days. So I'm walking down the beach in a winter jacket and everyone else is in shorts and t shirts. I'm always cold though. The people on the beach run the gamut between bathing suits, actually swimming, and winter clothes.

There is another hurricane blowing by to the east'ard and the "high surf and rip current" warnings are up.

We took an extra long walk yesterday about 4 miles. I was thinking we could walk up to this bathroom that's supposedly open all winter about which I can get no info at all it's being run by a park department state agency where they don't have to bother answering the phone or maintaining a web site.

I can do 3 miles no bathroom. We will stick with that for now.