As I write this post the last hours of Official Summer are whizzing past. The alarm clock has already been dusted off and inspected for operability and now we’re just killing time on our way to its first rude squawk since school let out in June.

I always get pretty depressed about the end of my summer. Not so much the weather part of it. That is guaranteed to hang on for another three months in these parts. I’m a little bummed about the end of Official Summer during which there is no school, no PTA and therefore no obligation to set down the tequila or put on clothes. I’m not ashamed to admit it: summers around here are kinda sorta clothing optional. 

Not strictly speaking of course - we don’t run completely naked through the hallways of Matulich Manor - it’s just that short of a presidential visit, I rarely find occasion to dress myself or my offspring up in anything more formal than swimsuits. I even managed to start my own salsa company last July wearing nothing more complex than a stringy tie-dyed number.

Pajamas. Bikini. Pajamas. Bikini. Pajamas. Bikini. Sunrise. Sunset.

Therefore I figured that I’d mark the final morning of Official Summer by jumping into the ocean for a swim over and through the massive kelp forests of Monterey Bay. 

I even wore a bikini for the occasion because I’m sentimental like that.

And I wore a wetsuit over the bikini because dude, that water’s freezing.  

If a better way to spend time has ever been devised I have yet to discover it. There is nothing more enjoyable than treading water offshore in the lift and roll of swells, pulling oneself through kelp beds in a half swim half crawl and watching the tourists watch the sea from the sea. Where else but a kelp bed can you lay around and watch the harbor seals pop their cat-like heads up close enough to cop a whisker feel?

And when it was over I was kinda bummed that this really, truly was IT. The End. Adios. Over. Gone. The period at the end of a well-loved quote.

I tried to be ok with it. And I was for a little bit, until I found myself sitting at the top of the stairs at my in-laws house in Santa Cruz where I could still smell the saltwater and seaweed coming off my sand-covered flip flops.

And that’s when I realized that I need to sell a ton of salsa or begin a life of high-paying white collar crime so I can just hang out at the beach year round.

Well, last night I was able to throw out the rest of the meds that I was prescribed when I tested positive for the tuberculosis. Meds that I’ve taken for six months. Meds that could not be combined with a variety of foodstuffs that - if typed in 10 point times new roman - would form a list that could wrap around the earth four and a half times.

Now that the six months are up I’m taking my newly chemically-cleansed liver out for a little recontamination session involving red wine, sashimi, beer and unprocessed cheese. I’ll probably be gone for a few days. Red wine and I have a lot of catching up to do.

Therefore I’m going to be lazy and do another photo post. I figure I have way too many photos piling up in the ol’ Flickr account lately and who better to put to sleep than the fine group of alcoholics who read my blog? Not that I believe for a second that all of you are alcoholics. I’m guessing that quite a few of you are potheads. I may even have a handful of closet painkiller addicts in here.

…but who am I to judge? I’m off to the nearest barstool where I plan on slurping margaritas until my liver is brought to its fleshy brown knees, so trust me when I say I’d be the last person to condemn the Mormon housewife up the street for popping a few vicodin in the morning to help her get through another day without abusing her seven offspring.

Anyway. Photos. Here.

I’m throwing you a bone Jay, since I know you are an enjoyer of the feminine curve. This bellydancer was dancing on the sidewalk in front of her studio as part of a larger community art festival held once a month in Sacramento.

A starfish adhered to the side of an aquatic column.

This one’s for you Neisel, I’ve never been able to go to an art show without thinking of you. This is a close-up of a gorgeous metal sculpture on display as part of Second Saturday.

At first I had wished that this photo had not been so horribly out of focus but after a while I came to like it better this way. A soupfin shark circles directly above my head while a bat ray and yellowfin tuna tool about closer to the water’s surface.

My local readers should recognize this vantage point immediately. It’s an east-facing view of the J Street Corridor taken from the north side of the street at Caesar Chavez Plaza.

Sunlight glints off a school of mackerel as they swim around and around and around and around and around and around. Hey, anyone else dizzy?

Detail of the hood joint on a Morris Minor parked as part of a larger display of vespas and unique automobiles at Second Saturday.

 A gaggle of stuffed snakes hang at a game booth on the boardwalk in Santa Cruz.

This one’s for you LL and DNR. This Harley was parked as part of a larger display illustrating how these bikes double as moving art.

Speaking of moving art, these fleshy little jellyfish are part of a display in Monterey in which the movement and color of the simple-minded invertebrates was highlighted.

A telephone box hangs next to a posted plea on the Golden Gate Bridge as part of an unmanned effort to waylay potential suicides. The text of the sign reads: Crisis Counseling - There is hope make the call - the consequences of jumping from this bridge are fatal and tragic.

Early morning in Pajaro, California.

A view during a luscious bike ride along the Pacific Coast Highway.

A banner commemorating one of my favorite authors.

That’s it, I’m out. There’s raw fish to be eaten and tequila to be swilled. See you folks on the other end of the coming weekend.

A couple of weeks ago, just before I seemingly abandoned my blog, my husband and I decided to take the kids on a family vacation. Since he and are alike in that we find the prospect of taking a two year old on a plane about as inviting as performing home dental surgery on one another, we decided to vacation close to home.

Also, the in-laws had taken their RV and skipped town, thus leaving their Santa Cruz County digs, fully-stocked liquor cabinet, porn collection and cache of guns lonely for company.

Kids? Meet Mr. Tequila and Mr. Glock. They’ll be your babysitters for the next two weeks.

Before our vacation I decided to try my hand at triathlons which means enduring the Pacific Ocean’s sub-Arctic conditions which means purchasing a wetsuit which means that somewhere between the words “Honey” and “I’m thinking about doing triathlons” my husband shelled out a few hundred bucks to cover his wife from neck to ankles in neoprene with nary a blowjob to show for it.

But he got even. And how.

So while we’re in SC we decide to take the kids out to the beach. He picked Sunset Beach; a lovely stretch of sandy coastline that shelves gently into Monterey Bay. It is quite a relaxing spot if you are, in fact, intelligent enough to remain on dry land.

At any rate, we arrived at the beach. I had my wetsuit. My husband and kids had parkas. We were ready for an authentic Northern California beach excursion minus the hypothermia that seems to plague bikini-clad tourists who’ve watched too much television.

I’m not going to bother going into detail about the ambivalent signage everywhere that indicated that yes, while it was true that one could technically swim at this particular beach, it was not generally advisable. Not that there were signs that specifically said “Keep Out” or “perhaps you should reconsider” or even “update your life insurance.” Instead, there was a plethora of directions on how to survive should the ocean throw an undertow, sleeper wave or riptide your way.

I’m also not going to bore you with details of waves several feet taller than me, jellyfish and kelp infested swells, or even the fact that I would have had to swim halfway to Japan to get beyond the surfline.

Sufficed to say, things were not going well. I was taking a ton of foam in the face and within ten minutes I felt like I had eaten a salt lick. Have I mentioned that I’m terrified of water? These are but a few of the reasons why - when I saw the nice boy with the lifeguard gear waving at me from the beach - I was more than happy to pack it in.

“What’s up? Is there a problem?” I asked the kid, not that I didn’t know the answer. Of course there was a problem; some idiot at Fleet Feet had set me loose with a wetsuit.

“Um…” The kid started to hem. He didn’t need to talk. His expression said it all, Lady, there’s a whole list of reasons you have no business being out here but you’re a sasquatch and I’m afraid you’ll rip my arms off before I reach #50.

“There’s an awful riptide comin’ through here today.” The kid stammered. He pointed to a red warning flag that was most definitely not there before I’d gotten in the water. Not that it wouldn’t have been helpful to know. “Could you, uh, just swim closer to the lifeguard tower?”

“Do you mean swim closer to it or get out?”

“Um…” The kid looked at me and then looked at his feet.

“Look, what would you do?” I asked.

“Well, I wouldn’t be swimming. Not out here anyway.”

“Can you just tell me that I’m being kicked out of the ocean?”

“You’re being kicked out of the ocean.”

“King Neptune thanks you.”

My family and I have been on vacation. Or more like a “staycation” since our time away from home wasn’t exactly far from home.

Still, my online presence has been next to nill and I have been neither posting nor visiting other blogs which, I realize, makes me A Very Bad Person And Flaky Blogger and really? After such prolonged neglect who could blame my laptop if it decided to break up with me and move on to a more dedicated end user who would caress it with soft kisses and a tender upgrade to Windows Vista? Not I.

But I’m back now and boy, I have to say that after several days of choking on smoke and ash from wildfires in Monterey, Big Sur, Watsonville and Santa Cruz it sure was refreshing to return to the Sacramento area and find that it too was a charred and smoke-filled bowl of Hell.

…and I’ll bet a $20 Starbucks giftcard that every televangelist in America is gleefully proclaiming that these wildfires are proof that God is still in the smiting business and legalizing gay marriage is as good a reason as any for him to convert every Californian’s home to ash.

At any rate, I’m back. But not that back since I am going to have to further neglect my laptop while I complete a huge project for my summer accounting class and if the words “summer accounting class” didn’t cause whatever was in your hands to fall to the ground and shatter while you crossed yourself and said a Hail Mary for me then you are a black-hearted and soulless being beyond salvation.

Also, in case you’re wondering, that top photo is a rather large jellyfish that my husband and I found washed up on the beach in Marina last week. I’d love to say that I picked it up and relived my glory days by starting a jellyfish fight with my husband using that hamburger-sized monster but I’d be lying.

Nah, I was feeling rather kind that day so I picked up this little half-dollar-sized jobber and hucked it at him instead. 

Jellyfish fights… good times!

Around eight tonight I shimmied into my favorite jog skort and went for a run through Watsonville - an act which I realize now is an open invitation to every migrant worker on the central coast to catcall the bloody hell out of my blonde ass.

Thanks to my evening jaunt about town I now know sixteen ways to say sit on my face in Spanish. Not that there’s anything necessarily wrong with being invited to sit on someone’s face, I suppose. I would just prefer the proposition be made over a candlelight dinner and not, say, by a bunch of short dudes swilling Budweiser and plugging quarters into jukeboxes that only play that annoying Mexican polka-sounding music.

Then again, I suppose I should just be grateful that I was wearing my iPod. Otherwise the relatively innocent propositions aren’t the only phrases that might have been introduced to my already colorful repertoire.