Amazing things turn up on the beach.  Puzzling things.  This algae is attached to this rock.  I don’t know what it is, either of them.  The rock itself beckons, with its face-suggesting indentations.  I love the purple hair.  Maybe I should get a wig like that.  Someday soon?!

We walked down to the beach with our neighbors and their friends.  They were going surfing.  I don’t think I’ll surf.  It seems like a lot of standing and waiting and just a little of riding the wave.  Snow skiing has a better ratio of doing to waiting.  And surfing in the winter seems a bit too chilly!

The friend is a coastal geologist and he confirmed that the pods on the kelp are air bladders, and keep the kelp upright.  They do pop with a satisfying crack when you step on them, but somehow I feel guilty stepping on them.   It’s a little like crunching leaves in autumn.  Is the kelp on the beach still alive?  Is it stranded and desperate?  It certainly seems bedraggled, abandoned, sad.  We walked mid-afternoon and it was very cloudy and yet it never really feels gloomy.  Maybe I just can’t feel gloomy at the beach.  No gloom at the beach, no gloom.  “Gloomy” sounds gloomy, yes?