Summertime

Well, yesterday was my first week-day of Summer vacation. It was very nice. It began with Jonathan and I going for a run together at 5:30am. That was fun. Actually, the running part wasn't that fun, but it was nice to spend time together in the morning. Plus, I felt great afterwards. It gave me so much energy throughout the day.

Then, after Jonathan went to work, I read some of Adam Bede, swept the house, and did a load of laundry. Then I read some more, confirmed our reservations for this weekend in Monterey and got all the directions we need, walked to Albertson's for a couple of things, and read more. Then, I made some totally awesome sandwiches, packed them with some other goodies in a plastic grocery bag and walked to Biola to have lunch with this handsome guy I know who works there. After lunch, I headed over to the Biola bookstore to check out their Summer sale. I didn't find anything I really wanted, but I did see that they had a copy of Adam Bede, so I sat down in a rocking chair and read a chapter of that. Then I walked home, played around on the internet for a little while, and then read until Jonathan came home. You're probably thinking to yourself, "Isn't she done with that book yet?" But no, it's actually a fairly long book, and I'm taking my time, enjoying every word. In fact, before I began creating this very post, I was reading. And when I finish creating this post, I'll read some more.

After Jonathan came home, we got ready to go pick up Bill and Becca for the Angels/Astros game. Which was awesome. The Angels got a quick lead, and by the 4th inning they were up 4-1. But by the 7th inning stretch the Astros were up 9-4 and we were thinking maybe we'd leave after the Angles had one more at-bat. Well, the Angels scored 5 runs during that at-bat...thanks, in part, to the Rally Monkey. So of course, what we thought was going to be a painful loss turned into a tie within one half of an inning...and we couldn't leave then! The 8th inning was scoreless on both sides, and then the Angels got through the top of the 9th without allowing any runs, though the bases got loaded. That brings us to the bottom of the 9th. Angels up. The score's tied. The first two batters flied out, and it looked like the game would be going into extra innings. Then came a solid single from Reggie Willets. And the next batter up was Chone Figgins. Figgins had come through for the team all night long. And this time was no different. He punched a triple to the right field corner, bringing Willets home. Angels players streamed onto the field, mobbing both Willets and Figgins.

Player of the game: Chone Figgins. Let me tell you about this guy. He got six hits. Is that enough? First of all, I don't think I've ever seen a game where any player got six at-bats. Both teams went through their line-ups more times than is normal. But to get a hit every time? That's incredible. And he made some great defensive plays at 3rd base as well. That's a good, solid baseball player.

We got home about 11:30 and then fell into bed.

And that was my first day of Summer vacation. :-)

Mississippi Kite

There's been a Mississippi Kite at the South Coast Botanic Garden in Palos Verdes for the last week or so. He's way off-course, and who knows how long he'll stick around, so Jonathan and I drove down yesterday to see him while we still had a chance. We tried taking several pictures and none of them turned out very well, but you can get a pretty good idea of what he looks like:
After perching for several minutes to allow us ample time to get a good look, he put on quite a show. He would fly around catching insects and eating them on the wing. That is, he would grab them with his talons and then bring his talons to his beak and eat while he was soaring. Insects-to-go! He also showed us his diving and swooping skills, which were quite impressive.

We met up with several other birders there, one of whom we actually had seen at Big Morongo a few weeks ago. He records bird songs and had his equipment with him this time as well. We all chased a familiar call that we couldn't identify, until the bird finally showed himself to be a Robin!

Here's a cute little house we saw near a meadow where a wedding reception was taking place.

We left around 5:00 for our next destination: The Point Vicente Lighthouse. On our way, we saw a White-tailed Kite. And when we got there, we saw another wedding reception. So, two kites and two weddings. Not bad for an afternoon.

We saw several cool things besides the lighthouse. There was a colony of Brandt's Cormorants on the side of the cliff, an unidentifiable pelagic bird, a couple of people who claim to have out-of-body experiences and want us to do the same, and a sea otter. The last was clearly the most exciting. We set up our spotting scope and got some good looks at that cute little guy, but eventually he dove and we never saw where he came back up.

That's right. We're not just into birds. We like marine mammals, too!