Flipping for Joy
This morning I went on my first exercise excursion since injuring my back seven weeks ago. I took a walk along the beach in La Jolla with my Saturday morning group. It was warm, cool, overcast, serene, noisy and joyful as we all plodded through the sand, seaweed and smooth rocks freshly cleaned by a receding high tide.
We had a pod of dolphins following us just off shore, and as we climbed along a rock ledge for a better view, the dolphins started to flip in the air. They were quite the showmen and for an instant I wondered if they were refugees from nearby SeaWorld. Maybe this is how they fish in the wild. It was definitely something I'll remember for a long time.
We celebrated someone's birthday at a Del Mar cafe afterwards, and I forgot how the morning can carry you well into the day when it starts out this way. On the way to get groceries, I stopped for gas and encountered a huge fight at the pumps between a lone woman in a silver sedan and a family in an older model mini-van. I'm not sure what started the fight, but by the time I arrived it had devolved into a decidedly different argument.
An older woman standing next to the mini-van charged at the younger woman, pumping her fists and yelling in part English and part Vietnamese or Laotian. The younger woman yelled back, "You can't even speak English. Why should I pay attention to someone who hasn't learned our language after living here all these years."
The older woman's grown daughter came to her mother's defense, speaking perfect English but with a heavy accent. She was rebuked by the sedan woman too, for not learning to speak the same kind of English as all other Americans.
"What is good English then?" the Vietnamese woman asked.
The Marine pumping gas in front of me shook her head and got back into her car.
I pretended to be back watching the dolphins during their shouting, still going strong as we pulled away.
Happy Mother's Day.
We had a pod of dolphins following us just off shore, and as we climbed along a rock ledge for a better view, the dolphins started to flip in the air. They were quite the showmen and for an instant I wondered if they were refugees from nearby SeaWorld. Maybe this is how they fish in the wild. It was definitely something I'll remember for a long time.
We celebrated someone's birthday at a Del Mar cafe afterwards, and I forgot how the morning can carry you well into the day when it starts out this way. On the way to get groceries, I stopped for gas and encountered a huge fight at the pumps between a lone woman in a silver sedan and a family in an older model mini-van. I'm not sure what started the fight, but by the time I arrived it had devolved into a decidedly different argument.
An older woman standing next to the mini-van charged at the younger woman, pumping her fists and yelling in part English and part Vietnamese or Laotian. The younger woman yelled back, "You can't even speak English. Why should I pay attention to someone who hasn't learned our language after living here all these years."
The older woman's grown daughter came to her mother's defense, speaking perfect English but with a heavy accent. She was rebuked by the sedan woman too, for not learning to speak the same kind of English as all other Americans.
"What is good English then?" the Vietnamese woman asked.
The Marine pumping gas in front of me shook her head and got back into her car.
I pretended to be back watching the dolphins during their shouting, still going strong as we pulled away.
Happy Mother's Day.
