With Rick away on business for the next week, I find myself watching movies that I queued up on purpose with his absence in mind.

I was watching an old B&W 1947 movie tonight and was struck by some differences that just stood out to me.

1) Everyone was in a suit (even women) to attend a picnic. Cary Grant had holes in his dress trousers by the end of the sack race. Silly man.

2) Men wore their trousers high waisted where their bellies protruded underneath their belts and sometimes made them look hollow backed. Today you would never see a man with the waist band of his trousers up around his mid-section. How fuddy-duddy-ish. Like Fred Mertz on I Love Lucy. Oh no, today if you have a big belly, the waist band goes underneath all that so as to make the trouser size smaller. Why haven’t women thought of that trick?

Clothing seemed so structured. I can’t imagine walking around strapped into a corset and suit from morning till night. No jeans, no sweatshirts. Please! I like to let it all hang out once I come home. Okay, so I never said I was June Cleaver. Not me. Well, maybe a bodice would be nice being the Renaissance girl that I am ...

From 1947 and B&W, I went to 1979 and ALIEN. It looks dated to my eyes of today with their “Mother” computer spewing out binary code. How archaic does that look? But, that’s all we knew back then; bits and bytes. God Sigourney Weaver looked so young ... and they called their fellow crew member a “robot” instead of the android that he was. Geez.

Other observations include the fact that our pool is DONE. Its temperature has bottomed out. No swimming; no way. I “saved” a tiny frog the other day, but I’m not entirely certain he was very appreciative of my saviour expertise. I just didn’t want him in the pool and not able to get out on his own. Frogs and moles “swimming” belly-up are not my favorite thing to find in the pool. Next week it will be closed for the season, which is sad considering how little we used it this year. Not a good pool year. Bummer.

The trees are starting to change. Squirrels are busily knocking acorns down from high atop the oak branches. Those trees that aren’t physically showing color have lost their fill for the year, looking pallid and washed out.

Tonight I think the sun set in what seemed like one half hour earlier than yesterday. I know that’s not possible, but it seemed so to me.

The seasons and times; they are a-changin’.

We just had an old-fashioned thunderstorm roll through. A pretty good one with lots of thunder and lightning, and I shut my computer down (for its safety) and went to sit in the glass-surrounded sunroom to enjoy it. It’s not often we have this kind of storm, and when we do it’s usually in the middle of the night. That’s another strange thing I can’t get used to here in New Jersey: a thunderstorm at 10 o’clock in the morning! I could hear the thunder long before the storm arrived, and it got as dark as night outside. Very creepy. When the rain finally started it was a cloudburst—I couldn’t even see the neighbor’s house across the street.

I took a photo of the radar after it had passed. If you look closely you’ll see a little pointer mark where our town is; just below the state line of New Jersey on the west side of that ominous red storm line! That’s what just went over us!

As I sat and took in the beauty of the storm, I felt the need to put down my thoughts. With the computer shut down I had to resort to pen and paper (gasp!). Here is what I wrote.

As I sit here in the sunroom surrounded on three sides by glass, we are experiencing a good old-fashioned thunderstorm. Something I’ve been craving for awhile. Lightning flashes all around me; thunder booms. Have you ever just sat and listened to thunder? Each clap is unique. Some are just a single earth-shatteringly loud BOOM! like those fireworks on the 4th of July that start out by being just an intense flash of light until the sound catches up and it ends with that amazingly loud BOOM! that you feel deep in your belly and shakes the ground beneath you. Very powerful. Others start fairly quietly and roll along seemingly forever until their sound just fades away in the distance, while others make a cracking sound that never amounts to much of anything.

Boy, I sure can type faster than I can write ...

Some people duck and take cover during thunderstorms, but I sort of relish in them (as long as they aren’t severe with hail or the lightning isn’t hitting too close). There is something exciting about the charged air they carry along with them. I know, I’m weird. Maybe I can thank my father for that. When I was little he used to hold me up to the window during a storm so we could watch the lightning display together so I wouldn’t be afraid. I remember it all so clearly; the Paul Revere curtains hanging at the living room window, the forks of lightning and the thunder, the warm secure feeling of being in my father’s arms.

The storm has been over us for about twenty minutes and Mother Nature is really having a good time out there—quite the drama queen today. But now the distance between the flash and the thunder is getting further apart and the storm is moving off, although it’s still raining.

When I booted the computer up again I saw that during that twenty minute storm it had put down .65 inches of rain. Right now our rain gauge stands at almost one inch. Not bad. There was a very wet and bedraggled turkey hunkered underneath the big oak in the front yard when I came into the computer room. Smart turk!  We are supposed to get more thunderstorms later this afternoon ... we’ll see. I do love a stormy day! How about you?

We did lots of fun things this weekend, but the most relaxing thing we did was take the canoe out for a paddle. We stuck close to home at Green Turtle Pond. It was a beautiful morning—warm and sunny without being either too humid or too warm. The lake was calm and still. The only sound was the splash of our paddles as we made are way around the perimeter.

It’s a nice leisurely workout. Sometimes we just sit and float, watching the sun dance on the water.

The wooden hull of the canoe slips silently and effortlessly through the water. We always draw quite a bit of attention in our beautiful canoe. People going by in other canoes or boats always ask if we made it. We tell them, no, but a good friend did—aren’t we lucky to own such a thing of beauty?

Just as we rounded the corner at the end of our journey we heard a great deal of splashing going on. We decided to see just what was making so much noise.

It was a dog.

At first we couldn’t tell if he was chasing a ball that his owner was throwing out in the water or what. He was sure having fun diving and splashing.

It soon became obvious that he wasn’t chasing anything. He was entertaining himself by diving down and creating flumes of water that he then tried catching in his mouth.

It was the funniest thing we have ever seen. Every time he got out of the water his owner sent him back in to play some more. I could not resist taking photos.

There’s a dog in there somewhere!

Meet Tommy-Boy. His owner thinks he might be part pit bull and part lab. Definitely a water dog at heart.

And so ended another enjoyable paddle around our local pond.

Sitting on the beach we were a perfect captive audience for aerial display advertising. It gave us something to watch other than people and the waves. The small planes flew by slowly, pulling their fluttering ads behind them. This one was the only political one that I saw but it did hit home.

If someone hasn’t yet coined that particular phrase I will call it my own. Get me close to the beach and you’ll have difficulty dragging me away. I could wander for hours, head down, scanning for interesting bits that have washed ashore. Are there any career opportunities for beachcombers?

I like it best when the beach is deserted except for a few people out for their morning exercise. It’s quiet. The only sounds are the high-pitched cry of the gulls and the crash and boom of the waves as they come in, followed by their hissing retreat. So, every morning my feet propel me to the water’s edge. The sand is packed and wet here. My feet leave solid but squishy footprints and my big toe throws up a clump of sand that falls in front of me as I walk.

The sand is like a canvas that is continually in a state of flux. Every time a wave washes over it, objects on the canvas get deposited, rearranged, taken away, or erased. It’s fascinating to me and I never tire of it.  Each morning I am eager to see what the canvas of sand has “painted” for me. Let’s take a look. (Just for the record, everything is photographed the way I found it. No rearranging has been done.)

I call this painting “Three Organisms: Man: Bird: Jellyfish”

“CrabFest”

“Mussel Beach”

“Caught in the Tide Line”

“Jelly Jewel”

“Jelly Jewel Two”

“Hitching a Ride”

“Jelly-Belly”

“The Mermaid’s Necklace”

“Whorled Beauty”

As I stand at the water’s edge, the foam from the breaking wave laps at my ankles. I try to stand upright as the wave pulls back, sucking at me with all its might, trying to pull me into the ocean along with it. It seems to murmur softly, come on, join me in the deep blue sea. The water rushes backwards in a dizzying display, making me feel disoriented and off-kilter. My toes curl under in a desperate attempt to keep a foothold as the sand rushes out from underneath them. My feet sink lower into the sand as the wave retreats in defeat. Not this time old man Neptune—not this time.

I am not alone at the water’s edge. I have a few friends that like it here too.

I think I enjoyed the tiny sandpipers the most. They made me laugh. The constant scurry-hurry back and forth between waves in search of food seemed like a lot of effort for one small morsel. Can you see that it has something in its beak?

Here, look closer:

It’s hard for me to leave all the treasure I find behind. Here is what I took home with me. A shell that’s a bit battered but has a lovely patina to it; several small scallop shells; bits of shell that have been tumbled and polished like smooth stones; an intact cocina shell.

And last but not least, a beautiful wafer-thin piece of polished shell that just happened to have a hole in the right place to use it as a necklace.

Reminders all, of my morning strolls at the water’s edge.