We're not starting our days quickly, or at least I'm not. I'm a little sick, nothing much, but there are bits of yellow-green phlegm and coughing involved. It takes me about two hours of hot tea and hacking to clear my passageways, all while feeling pretty well.
Today, at least, we did something. At about one o'clock, with the sun high in the cloudless sky and the temperature at 92 degrees, we drove to Nokomis Beach, just slightly north of here, with the top of the convertible down. This short trip through the sunshine at the hottest and brightest part of the day was enough to turn the tops of Erin's thighs pink (though we didn't realize this till later).
The water at the beach was warm (76 degrees, so warm to us). There weren't many people in the water, mostly the usual suspects: children and their childlike fathers. But we enjoyed a little swim, and Tim and I returned to the water more often than Nancy and Erin did. The beach was busy but not crowded. Some of the people were elderly white folk who appeared to be regulars on the beach since their skin was a rich coffee color. There was little wind. A dolphin curved out of the water a few times. And the sun shone continually.
For a better view of the dolphin, Erin and Tim came out into the water. I tried to take a picture of the shy mammal, but it always managed to disappear beneath the waves before the shutter of my camera clicked, and this was while out in the water with an underwater camera.
While Tim and I were in the water, I took a few underwater pictures, but I had left the camera on the wrong setting for such photos, and the water was a bit too turbulent to allow me to do much.
Besides, there wasn't much to photograph save for Tim underwater and the sea floor.
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Tim and I walked up and down the beach a few times, circling, like caged animals, between the signs marking the end of the public beach. On our first circuit, we ran into one black man, alone, with long dreadlocks, sitting on a stool and facing the water. What was most remarkable about him was that he was black, and I realized he was the first black person I'd ever seen on one of these beaches, transforming my experiences on the beach into segregated experiences. Later, I saw three black kids in a multi-racial group, which was a bit of a relief, but I wonder if this is somehow a strangely white area of the South--and why.
On our trips over the middle sand of the beach, Tim and I were in search of good areas to create and record sandglyphs. Tim served as my assistant. I continued to make some movie glyphs along with the regular still-picture ones.
Aunt Joan sold her house today, so she's joining us for these next two nights, which will mean that seven people are sleeping tonight in this small two-bedroom house. But it's great to have her with us, and I made a big spaghetti dinner for us tonight. The making of dinner was a chore, because there was nothing to work with: no spices (save for a couple I snagged from Joan before she left them behind in her cupboard), no garlic press, no mushrooms, no bell peppers, no olive oil, and few cooking tools. But I made do, and the meal was okay, though not at all great.
After dinner, we went to that part of Polynesian Village where we were most likely to find armadillos. We didn't see any, but as soon as we arrived where we expected to find one, we heard the familiar sound of an armadillo crashing through the brush. Try as we might, we could do nothing more than hear armadillos.
As the search progressed, Nancy decided to return home, since she's also sick. The remaining three of us continued the search, but Erin became increasingly nervous. The discovery of three golf balls laid out in a triangle creeped her out, and Tim started talking about The Blair Witch Project. But the triangles intrigued me. Of course, they suggest a triangle, but they are precisely the "therefore" symbol, which appears prominently in the novel Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, who has just recently died.
Quote of the Day:
I realize that this dress is the color of my skin [bright pink], but I have nothing else to wear right now. (Erin)
ecr. l'inf.
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