Wonderful Windy Evening

When I came home and got out of my car, I was instantly greeted by the smell of an incoming tide, salty sea air and an ocean like breeze coming from our lowly Old Hillsborough Bay.  The aroma brings on a natural high!  Some days when the tide is just right and the bay water is clear, the shabby ol' mucky water in front of our street looks just like the grass flats of the Bahamas.  And I live here!

I survey my kingdom.

There are white caps on the bay and their direction indicates the wind is coming from the northeast toward the southwest.  Despite the wind and waves, the water isn't churned up like its usual chocolate milk color...it's teal and aqua and royal blue, and...


It was red and yellow and green and brown
And scarlet and black and ochre and peach
And ruby and olive and violet and fawn
And lilac and gold and chocolate and mauve
And cream and crimson and silver and rose
And azure and lemon and russet and grey
And purple and white and pink and orange
And red and yellow and green and brown and
Scarlet and black and ochre and peach
And ruby and olive and violet and fawn
And lilac and gold and chocolate and mauve
And cream and crimson and silver and rose
And azure and lemon and russet and grey
And purple and white and pink and orange
And blue!


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A loaded freighter in the distant shipping channel motors along with its white bridge, rust colored hull and containers stacked three high.  The space between our neighborhood's newly greened up oak trees keep my view of the open bay water framed and now the vessel is out of sight.  


A lovely spring rain with giant soaking drops has rinsed off all the pollen and then encouraged new growth.  The leaves and branches sway with the gusty winds.  The palmetto tree on the corner has spilled all of its berries, now there's just fronds and naked clusters of brown twigs where berries used to be.  The trunk, built for tropical force conditions, is tilting ever so slightly.


I look over my right shoulder to see my daughter mimicking me:  feet up on the pillar and tapping away on an electronic device.  Is it nature or nurture?  

Ooo an osprey just flew over... brown mottled feathers on his tummy.  And then I spy another osprey gliding above our dock, the breeze keeping him aloft with only minor wing adjustments.  


As I look out over Bayshore Blvd. I am just now aware of the cars driving by.  The sound of wind in the trees mutes the car engines.  Score one for Mother Nature.  Rock on Mama!


Then, a man with two labs, one black and one yellow, comes on to our street.  He is carrying what I assume is dog poop in a nearly transparent aqua tinted bag.  After completing the loop on his exit of our cul-de-sac, I see that he is using my neighbor's garbage can to toss his dog poo.  I actually think that I heard that using someone else's garbage can is "unlawful".  Oh well.  What do I care?


My daughter chimes in that the lab-walking-man is the owner of the new house a few down from us.  One day when there weren't any workers present, we toured ourselves in his home while it was under construction.  (Also unlawful).  Yin and yang.  I walk through your empty house and you use my neighbor's can for poo.  Seems perfectly balanced to me.


The sun will be down soon.  It's almost 8:00 now.  Three little wispy puffs of clouds hang in the sky and act as a canvas for the setting sun.  The canary yellow on top looks almost neon and then gracefully the colors begin fading to a purple grey on the underside of the cloud.


My neighbors are pulling into their driveway, they haven't been gone for long.  (I saw them leave as we went outside to see the kite surfer zip around earlier.)  I wonder where they went.  The mom has a styrofoam cup in her hand and as she gets out, goes around to the back seat to carry her sleepy daughter inside the garage and then into the house.  I bet they were at the Y...for basketball practice...she was wearing a jersey or a penny.


A lone pelican soars over our street.


The kids have swapped now.  The son needs company while he completes dilly dallies through his dreaded spelling contract.  He's complaining about how hard cursive handwriting is... so hard and that he can't even understand the words he's writing:  moose, wolves, cacti, oxen (it must be plural word week).  I caught him opening and closing the drawers and compartments of the lap desk - anything to avoid the task!  "What is crises?" he asks.  My response, "The plural for crisis."  (I guess.  I've never actually used crises myself.  If there is more than one crisis in my life, I'm checking out.)  His natural retort, "What's a crisis?"  I make up another slightly bogus answer, "A big mess of events."  


Oops.  It's too dark now to do any more spelling work.  I guess we have lost our "foci".