On the Pier

One of the temp agencies I'm registered at called me this morning just after 8:00. They said there's an admin job in the area, and would it be OK if they sent my resume to the company? I said, "Sure!" Then I hung around the house, in case they called to arrange an interview.

By 3:00, I got tired of waiting and left for my usual spot at the beach. The watched pot and all...

The marine layer had moved in by the time I got there, blocking the sun and preventing a good sunset, so I sat on some rocks and read, in between people-watching. Up the coast, the Oceanside pier called to me, with its Ruby's diner at the end, so I drove over to the pier, dropped some coins in the meter, and started walking.

About halfway out the pier, I spotted this seagull and noticed only one leg. I changed my angle of view, in case the second leg was hidden by the first, but it wasn't, so I pulled my little camera from my purse and took this picture.

There was a guy near me, looking in that general direction, and I said something clever to him like, "You don't see too many one-legged seagulls." He agreed, speculating that the bird may have tucked one leg up where we couldn't see it. But then the seagull flew away and confirmed that there was no second leg hiding anywhere.

I said something else equally clever to the guy, and he said something about being from out of town. But when I asked where he was from, he said, "Somewhere east." Like an old co-worker of mine who moved to California from Arizona and always said she was from "Back East." East of Oceanside could be anywhere.

We chatted a bit more, about why I took the picture (for my blog) and about San Diego's un-prime time to visit (June), and I got the impression that he viewed me with great suspicion.

It was a strange reaction. I usually don't get that.

So I left him and went to Ruby's, where the waiter treated me like a sane person, and I got a Black Forest milkshake. When I finished it, I suddenly remembered that my car was parked at a meter, and I had only five minutes to get back there. I paid, went back to the table to leave my tip, then walked as quickly as I could in sandals over a worn-wood surface the third-mile length of the pier and a couple blocks over to my car.

The meter was expired, I was starting to feel queasy from exercising on a full stomach, but there wasn't a ticket on my windshield, and that's what mattered. I got out of there before the parking cops could find me.

Back at home, my answering machine had nothing new to report.