Ugly Santa, Pretty Tale

Funny how things so often work out for the better.

Last Saturday night I attended a crab feed & participated in the charity raffle. Lucky me (= sarcasm) I won a ridiculously hideous wooden wind whirligig Santa. He was decked out with wind-whirling Christmas trees and as a result of aging shellac – old Santa stood on YELLOW SNOW! In addition to pee-pee Santa I also won a Mr. Potato Head toy set. You thought that ancient toy had ceased to exist with the dawning of the Age of Aquarius? So did I. Eventually I got over the shock that I won none of the really cool raffle prizes – gift certificates for Nordstrom’s and Orchard Garden Supplies, 2 lb boxes of See’s Chocolates, pots of flowering hydrangeas, etc.

 Eventually it occured to me I can put aside Mr Potato Head for next year’s Christmas toy drive. Hurrah! Come 2007, Mr Potato Head will make some needy child happy. Further it occured to me the dreadfully-hideous-Santa would make a 'lovely' white elephant gift for a little end-of-6-week--frustration-class at Curves, which was held last night. Note: class was frustrating because after the 6 weeks I've had no net loss and oy am I pissy about it!
So last night after preparing a nice though boring green salad and after dumping poor Sandy Claws into a gold gift bag with pretty red tissue I went off to our potluck/white elephant gift grab at Curves. Is it ironic for a weight loss center to host a food fest? Anyway, each of us drew playing cards to set the order in which we chose our white elephant gifts. I was number three and I picked a small & plain bag that contained a not-too-awful burgundy scarf. As allowed, someone nabbed the scarf (hurrah!). That gave me a second shot at choosing either a new gift or nabbing someone else’s prize, which I did. I took someone else's very lovely, prettily wrapped gift basket. The basket was actually a small galvanized tub in which I discovered lavender shower gel and lotion, a nice scrubby sponge thingie, a massage brush and a perfectly lovely hand mirror. Even the ribbon it was tied up with was a treat. For the charitable among you, the lady whose tub I nabbed next chose a nice big box and got a gift wicker basket filled with cookies, chocolates and such which honestly - I have no use for and if you believe that I have a lovely golden gated bridge to sell you - its in San Francisco. You'd like it.
So, it turns out my hideous Santa (which ended up being the ONLY white elephant present left un-picked) went off to a storage closet somewhere and I got a really lovely present in exchange for him. I thought white elephant gifts were supposed to be perfectly ghastly but all the gifts last night were lovely - except for the pissy Santa. Thank heavens no one was stuck with him. There - a suitably happy ending for all, unless you are a pissy Santa stuck in the broom closet.

A Sunday Stroll to the Stratosphere

Sunday I went birding with Don and another birder Sue (a new Birdin' Buddy for Don) in Butano State Park. It was cold, foggy and rather dismal - as coastal forests usually are this time of year. Sue had checked and found a nice ‘easy trail’ for us to hike, with the purpose of finding Pileated Woodpeckers. It was a beautiful forested trail, that wound its way up the hillside which after reading about the trail Sue assured us had only a gradual rise in elevation. Uh… right. The only gradual rise was my heart rate. Hummm… no the rise in my heart rate wasn’t gradual, it was sharp. The person who thought the trail was ‘easy’ had to have been a strapping six-foot park ranger, because he sure as hell wasn’t a 5 foot five tubby woman like me. Early on in our hike we were visited by a cute little Winter Wren that sung its bubbly happy song for us. That was when we started the accent, and that is when all bird life on the mountain ceased to exist. That’s how it goes sometimes; a great effort to hike doesn’t necessarily pay off in an abundance of birds. Life can be annoying like that. We did hear a Hairy Woodpecker but at the top of the hill there were no Pileated Woodpeckers waiting for us uphill; boogers.

The rear sled dog only sees the pink bouncing butt holes of the lead dogs; I can relate.
A Snag (dead tree) covered over with Christmas silvery Spanish Moss

Same snag viewed from way up the hill

One advantage of stopping to sweat and pant is you have time to admire the wildlife and the flowers, like this Indian Warrior.

Banana Sluggie

Don and Sue headed back down the hillside.

After the hike, we headed to the little town of Pescadero for a great lunch at Duarte's Diner. Later we went on a hunt for a Ferruginous Hawk; a particular bird that Sue often sees on the route we took. The hawk had other plans and we didn't find it. Then our little trio broke up; Don and I headed for Thornton Reserve. There we went on a short walk that paid off with a surprising event.

Don pointed out a chickadee that was flitting around in a tree and a Peregrine Falcon flew in, alighting on a tall tree not too far from us. Peregrine’s are always a treat but this one even more so. I was puttering around and Don shouted. I turned to look and see the Peregrine dive bombing toward Don! WHOMP! The Peregrine miss judged its dive and smacked itself into a tree branch! Beautiful poofy blue-grey down feathers floated earthward. Tee hee… the poor Peregrine must have been making a dive for the little chickadee but it misjudged its own trajectory. The Peregrine flew off dazed and probably nursing a headache, but otherwise unharmed. Must have been a young bird, not too familiar with the concept ‘hey, is that branch there between me and my lunch?’

Waking Up Goofy

Woke in the wee hours of the Saturday morning and began to prod and poke my left hand, trying to find and read the LED (light emiting diode) light panel built into the flesh of my hand. At the time it seemed a perfectly sensible thing to do. I lay sleepily running my fingers over my palm and along the front and back of each finger, but could not find the built in LED panel so I could read the numbers. I knew my hand had electronic numbers on it but why couldn't I find it? It took a minute or two for my brain to click out of dream cycle. ‘What the...?'

Strange things happen when I open my eyes while most of my brain is still in deep REM sleep.