shanmonster | Watersun

For 08:00 on a Saturday, it sure is busy! I suspect I'm the only English worker this morning. That would explain the hectic pace.

My dream last night was peculiar:

I'm at the beach in Nova Scotia with Justin from kung fu. The water is very calm and is coated with a thin white foamy film. Justin wades in, and I begin to as well but discover I can't break the surface tension. So I stride along the top of the water, splashing a little as I walk. I find a large pyrex measuring cup (capacity of one litre), and fill it up, threatening to splash Justin.

Then my alarm clock goes off and I wake up in time to hear

f00dave murmur "Pretty."

"What?"

"Pretty," he repeats.

"What's pretty?"

"In front of me," he says, rolling to face me.

I'm still not sure if he was awake or not....

We watched The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou last night, mostly with our mouths open in stunned silence. Although I found a couple of places in the film amusing, in a wry sort of way, I generally found the movie to be a self-pleasing, masturbatory bit of cinema. In the immortal words of Tom Servo, "MOVIE BAD!"

I went kayaking yesterday for a couple of hours under a relentless sun. I decided to go upstream for the first time this year. I was determined to get a heavy workout, and I did. My shoulders actually ache a little today, which hasn't happened from kayaking in over a year. Going against headwinds under a broiling sun will do that! At first, it was pretty uneventful. My wildlife spottings were limited to a few small fry keeping pace with me, but then the birds started to show up. My first sighting was a heron, flapping labouriously ahead of me, its legs dangling like streamers.

Then I finally made it to the shade of one of the sheep islands. I slowed my pace and took a swig of Gatorade, and that's when an enormous bald eagle exploded from the tree above me, flapping heavily into the air until an updraft caught him and he soared with apparent weightlessness.

Whenever I see an eagle at close quarters, I always feel blessed. They are magnificent creatures.

And I was blessed three times on this trip. Each time, he burst out of a nearby tree before circling high above me. I think he was following me. I made a video of the eagle, but haven't had a chance to see if it came out right. I'll have to check it out when I get home tonight.

I also got a chance to baa at a few dozen sheep. I noticed two dead lambs, which I thought rather worrisome. They couldn't have been dead long, because they didn't stink (and even live sheep are malodorous). I wonder what's wrong with the sheep?

Then, on the homestretch, I saw two birds soaring high above me. They were too small to be eagles, but were obviously not crows or gulls. I kept watching, and then I heard the thin, keening cry of one as it shot straight down. I was watching falcons!

It was an excellent closure to my boating trip. I still don't know if I'm going boating again tomorrow, or if I'm going biking. Either should be fine.... Want to come along?