Living in a postcard

Last night I threw a Vodka and Latke party (renamed at the beginning of the evening as the (Frozen) Vodka and Latke party, because I was for once smart and decided to not do everything the hard way, and bought Trader Joe's frozen latkes in lieu of standing by a stove frying all night, and boy, let me tell you it was the right decision). It was pretty good, although greedy-for-numbers hostess that I am, I kind of wish more people had showed up. The problem with a Friday party is that people are tired at the end of the week, but there's this band that I adore that I really want to see tonight, so I tried to squeeze it all in to one weekend and smaller attendee numbers is just the price I had to pay, I guess. So I got to bed at like 3:30 and was recently awakened at around 8:30 (nothing like a poke in the head that says "feed me!"), and while I am waiting for the digestion of some leftover latkes, just consumed for breakfast, to kick in and maybe get me back to sleep, I thought I'd do some blog catchup.


J-ka was in town several weeks ago -- actually, she was in San Francisco for a wedding and then kindly detoured back to New York via glamorous Hollywood -- and on one unusually warm day of her brief visit we headed to Venice Beach for some r-and-r, in short supply in both of our lives at present.

We were happy to not be working.
And to be catching up on the already-several-days-old New York Times.
The beach was nearly empty, despite it being a perfect mid-November day (80 inland, 70s at the shore), and we imposed ourselves happily on the open spaces.
As always, there were lots of excellent shorebirds to watch. These ones below are so cute that they kind of make me all gooey and teary-eyed, they're like wee little squeaky animated cotton balls with wings and did I mention how cute they are?
With help from a colleague I have learned that they are piping plovers. But better than knowing the name is watching them run:

Are you getting a sense of the cuteness? There were also willets and wimbrels gracing the shore, lots more of the former, and finally remembering to bring my binoculars meant I was able to see them in more detail than usual,
although sometimes the faraway view was more aesthetically pleasing.
Perhaps most exciting, given my mammalocentric nature, was watching a pack (herd? pod?) of dolphins frolic just past the wave break. There were four of them, and they swam about for hours. I think the fishing must have been good that day, because the pelicans seemed to be living it up in the same spots as well -- in fact, sometimes I would see a splash and quickly focus in with the binoculars and see that it had "only" been a pelican, and then would feel guilty that I was more excited to see a dolphin than a pelican. And then feel ridiculous for feeling guilty. Ah, the humanity!
Other, less animate, sea creatures were also aesthetically pleasing.
We took a walk around sunset,
when the light did all kinds of amazing things to the low-tide zone,
(I like how you can see the faintest remains of earlier footprints here)
and things started to get absurdly beautiful in this cliched, picture postcard kind of way. I mean, really, it's like a joke.
I wonder if the seagulls could tell how beautiful it was. But I'm pretty sure the surfers knew.
All that picture taking seemed to do something bad to my hand. I'm glad I was able to drive J-ka back to the airport on time! It's all better now, btw, if less fragrant in a citronly kind of way.