the nicest day ever

Thursday, January 12th  2012- mark it down.

We needed some things & headed to our favorite store, Sunshine Health Foods in Morro Bay.  Filled up a basket with delightful produce, raided the bulk bins & took our lunch at the inspirational Shine Cafe in the rear. Through sheer force of will I ordered the special, a Saitan Gyro, instead of my usual tempeh taco.  It paid off- spicy, delicious, on a pillowy cloud of flatbread with a generous side of some crazy green hummus.  

The down side was that by the time the food arrived Fuss was over the whole scene and deep into his new, irritating thing- whining.  So we're sitting there confronted by two plates of vegan glory, and three feet away is a toddler doing a fair impression of a bereaved Sicilian widow.  We eventually silenced the wailing by stuffing a giant cookie into his craw and promising we'd go to the 'boat park' (official title: Tidelands Park) after.  

We finished our meal in peace, enjoyment unsullied by our baldly self-interested child bribery, and then off to the park.

We'll start with the freakishly pleasant weather.  

The Boat Park has many things to recommend it, a ridiculously scenic panoramic bay view across abundant sailboat anchorages, not one but two pirate ships, plenty of boulders and sculptures to climb, numerous benches for idle parents.

It is also a wind tunnel Nonpareil, as like to blind you with flying sand & knock you ass over teakettle like a tumbleweed in a John Ford movie as allow enjoyment of its manifold attractions.

But Thursday?  In the middle of January?

Idyllic.
I was perfectly comfortable wearing sandals & a linen shirt.  Not windy, just a fluff of breeze to circulate the salty ocean tang.  The sun was mellow, the tide was retreating, clouds of seabirds drifted across the flawless porcelain blue sky. 

Fuss is about at the point where he'll play with other kids voluntarily and he attached himself to the sole child sharing the park, a 6 year old girl named Sierra.  They were the same size and she overestimated his communication skills, but they had a great time climbing around the pirate ships and later hanging out on the concrete steps by the boat dock, throwing leaves & vines into the bay "for the fish to eat".  A substantial flock of young Snowy Egrets was taking a life skills class along the shorline under the watchful tutelage of a lone, stock still adult- they stabbed at fish, took off and flew under the footbridge to the dock mere feet away from us, landing in the shallows and flaring at one another in feigned indignation.

Several baby ducks were paddling around the foot of the stairs, diving and popping back up like feathered bobbers, pelicans gliding overhead & one majestic Great Blue Heron wading through the shallows, deploying its yellow dagger of a beak with dainty precision, chop-sticking wriggling silver fish down its gullet.

There were several dog walkers, catnip for children.
And old gal with a bulldog carrying his own tug-of-war strap in a wide, slobbery maw kicked off the dog fest.  Sierra's mom eventually fetched a neurotic white ball of fluff from her car that spazzed out whenever another dog got within ten yards.
A retiree lady huffed away with her poodle, sniffing "I won't subject her to that!"   The hippy couple who'd sailed down from San Diego with their coon hound puppy exhibited a more accepting vision of doggie dynamics, and the kids and pooches rumbled around happily until the puppy got overenthusiastic about chewing on Fuss' shirt and we had haul him out of the melee.

Eventually it got late, Fuss got fussy and I loaded him into the car.
We pulled over by the golf course to watch the sunset, a bulging maroon orb drifting slowly down behind the ivory dunes while flights of birds veered and twisted over the glass flat water of the bay.

Then home to dinner.