I Like To Take Pictures At The Beach:

I like to take pictures of my feet in the sand.

I like to take pictures of the man who wears jeans to the beach, asks for cigarettes and then falls over and takes a nap.

I like to take pictures of the man who straps a lawnmower to his back and hang glides perilously close to beach goers while waving to them like a paid entertainer all with a never ending incessant buzzing.

I like to take pictures of the woman who spends the day collecting shells which she takes home to fill jars and make lamps to sell to tourists and motels.

I like to take pictures of sea gulls having sex.

Shell Shopping:

The Florida Panhandle has been suffering from months of beautiful days. I hear you all pity me. Sunday the rain rolled across the sky drenching the area and Monday morning it was gone. The plants were satisfied, the grass less crunchy and the beach was gorgeous.

After a storm the beach has a special quality to it. The water is smooth as glass with a light emerald green cast and the shore is shallow. It’s like the Blue Lagoon. I become Brooke Sheilds in a loin cloth surveying my aquatic kingdom. Skimming the water’s surface with my feet and splashing my blond teenage husband with the spray. I cover my geisha giggles with an over rehearsed coquette hand gesture.

Ack Ack…Ack Ack…I say to the dolphins, communicating with them in a telepathic sonar who then turn flips at my command. The seahorses and starfish hop onto the sand, dry themselves and beg to become my nautical jewelry and adornment for the day. The fish light a bonfire then jump into a kettle and cook themselves for my lunch.

Then I go shell shopping. Not just any shells will do mind you. They must be just so. THEY MUST BE PERFECT! After I have collected the perfect shells, I curl up on the beach and act coy while the sand crabs weave them into a tapestry.

It’s an idyllic paradise.

Just When You Think It's Safe To Go Back In:

Last weekend my brother and I headed to the beach for an afternoon in the sun and surf. The two go hand in hand as the heat is unbearable and requires frequent dips in the water to cool down. This was made impossible by the jellyfish per square inch of water ratio. There were millions of them and not a single stretch of water could have been enjoyed without fear of a serious sting. It would seem that the Gulf of Mexico is not alone in the jellyfish invasion. Massive swarms of the poisonous creatures are moving and relocating to a beach near you.

“From Spain to New York, to Australia, Japan and Hawaii, jellyfish are becoming more numerous and more widespread, and they are showing up in places where they have rarely been seen before, scientists say. The faceless marauders are stinging children blithely bathing on summer vacations, forcing beaches to close and clogging fishing nets.

But while jellyfish invasions are a nuisance to tourists and a hardship to fishermen, for scientists they are a source of more profound alarm, a signal of the declining health of the world’s oceans.”

The New York Times