The life aquatic
Life is going really well here. Work is low-key but I've got my first real assignment tomorrow, in which I get to go to the aquarium and talk to some folks who study fancy seaweed. I've been going for walks by the beach every day, which is excellent: I get to check in on some nesting ospreys, say hello to the neighbors' assorted dogs, and go splash around after horseshoe crabs and other marine crawlies.
My penchant for beach-walking became the source of a misadventure on Friday. There's the public beach on one side of the point, but then a private beach owned by the marine science school on the other, right behind the boat basin where they keep the research vessels. The whole area is fenced off to prevent random people from coming in to mess with the boats or the experimental tanks, but the gate is unlocked during the day and you can come and go as you please. I get out of work around five and usually spend an hour bopping around down by the water, and I'd been doing that all week and exiting through the same gate, which had remained unlocked. Until Friday afternoon, where I suddenly found myself trapped in the boat basin, which is surrounded by barbed wire and water in a remarkably Alcatraz-like fashion.
There was absolutely nobody around, not even a passing boat. I was going to jump the fence, but I didn't have a towel or jacket to put over the barbed wire. I would have just jumped in the water and swum but I had my electronics on me, and didn't think trying to cache them in the sand dunes for the weekend was a brilliant idea. Cell reception is awful out here for some reason, but after several futile attempts I managed to call a friend and have them look up the number for security, who I then had to call and explain what happened in shame. The head of security was a tiny, fast-talking country woman with a giant truck, and she just laughed and laughed when she rolled up to see me trapped behind the fence. She was ridiculously nice and gave me a ride back up the road, and said she'd be happy to leave the gate unlocked if I mentioned it to her a little in advance.
(Turns out there's a gap in a gate way further down along the perimeter that I would have just been able to squeeze through, but it was impossible to see from within the basin. Good to know for future reference. Just in case.)
To my surprise and delight, living alone is actually fun. I've been doing a hell-ton of reading, a little gardening (bought some baby basil plants yesterday and they are precious), a lot of experimentation with new recipes (lemon-sage chicken! horchata! strawberry-mint popsicles! bananas foster! and all turned out wonderfully, if I do say so myself), quite a bit of art, and have finally, miracle of miracles, started to put some serious energy into a certain long story I should have written years ago. I'll make a separate post on that later -- I've got some writing thoughts I need to mull over.
There's something rather freeing about being able to sit around in my boxers drawing aliens and singing along with bad synthpop at any hour I choose. *laughs* I dunno, maybe the novelty just hasn't worn off yet, but this is pretty great so far.
My penchant for beach-walking became the source of a misadventure on Friday. There's the public beach on one side of the point, but then a private beach owned by the marine science school on the other, right behind the boat basin where they keep the research vessels. The whole area is fenced off to prevent random people from coming in to mess with the boats or the experimental tanks, but the gate is unlocked during the day and you can come and go as you please. I get out of work around five and usually spend an hour bopping around down by the water, and I'd been doing that all week and exiting through the same gate, which had remained unlocked. Until Friday afternoon, where I suddenly found myself trapped in the boat basin, which is surrounded by barbed wire and water in a remarkably Alcatraz-like fashion.
There was absolutely nobody around, not even a passing boat. I was going to jump the fence, but I didn't have a towel or jacket to put over the barbed wire. I would have just jumped in the water and swum but I had my electronics on me, and didn't think trying to cache them in the sand dunes for the weekend was a brilliant idea. Cell reception is awful out here for some reason, but after several futile attempts I managed to call a friend and have them look up the number for security, who I then had to call and explain what happened in shame. The head of security was a tiny, fast-talking country woman with a giant truck, and she just laughed and laughed when she rolled up to see me trapped behind the fence. She was ridiculously nice and gave me a ride back up the road, and said she'd be happy to leave the gate unlocked if I mentioned it to her a little in advance.
(Turns out there's a gap in a gate way further down along the perimeter that I would have just been able to squeeze through, but it was impossible to see from within the basin. Good to know for future reference. Just in case.)
To my surprise and delight, living alone is actually fun. I've been doing a hell-ton of reading, a little gardening (bought some baby basil plants yesterday and they are precious), a lot of experimentation with new recipes (lemon-sage chicken! horchata! strawberry-mint popsicles! bananas foster! and all turned out wonderfully, if I do say so myself), quite a bit of art, and have finally, miracle of miracles, started to put some serious energy into a certain long story I should have written years ago. I'll make a separate post on that later -- I've got some writing thoughts I need to mull over.
There's something rather freeing about being able to sit around in my boxers drawing aliens and singing along with bad synthpop at any hour I choose. *laughs* I dunno, maybe the novelty just hasn't worn off yet, but this is pretty great so far.