Living here

I love living by the ocean. It was a lifelong dream that'd I'd forgotten. But when I went to spend a vacation in Oregon in a house on the Pacific, I knew what I had to do. Or as my daughter always put it, "You went on vacation, saw the ocean, thought it was pretty and ruined everyone's lives." That, of course was back when she was in high school. Now, almost nine years later, she's the biggest California Girl of them all.

But living by the ocean has been educational. Having grown up in New Jersey and vacationed in Nantucket, I always thought of beaches as being groomed, with huge stretches of white sand. And in California, the bigger cities and tourist destinations keep their beaches pretty pristine. Here in Ventura, we are trying to let the beaches behave as they want to naturally. The idea is that with beach erosion being a problem, how do we stop it from happening? Through trial and error -- a lot of error -- people have noticed that the beaches replenish best when we leave them alone. This means undamming the rivers, allowing the cobble to collect at rivermouths and letting the debris that washes up after storms remain as is and let the sand collect around it and bury it.

This isn't a pretty process and it makes the beaches harder to navigate. And it isn't certain that this is the answer because it's a pretty complex process. But so far, man-made solutions have proved unsuccessful, so it's time to let Nature take over.

Lesson aside, it was a great evening at the beach. I just love going down there with Rob and the dogs (one of them, Rascal is at the vets getting altered, poor guy). One of my new "things" is to look a lot cooler. After 50, this is a piece of cake :-). I want to be all quite the babe at the beach with my long tresses blowing in the wind, body like Jane Fonda's, dressed in cool casual -- jeans, sheepskin boots (NOT Uggs, after all, I'm not trendy), and cool dogs.

In reality, I keep my hair tightly pulled back so it doesn't blow in my eyes or otherwise get on my nerves. My body is, well, Jane Fonda? Not so much. I've got more of a Kathy Bates thing going. I do wear the sheepskin boots (they are SOOOO comfy), but not at the beach because I don't want them to get stained with saltwater. I wear my ubiquitous Teva sandals.

And my dogs? Well, my dogs are short and yappy. The chihuahua Fuser is all cliche, going after bigger dogs. My husband says he reminds him of Danny Bonaduce. And the dog does have a little, bow-legged, I-wish-I-weren't-such-a-short-putz bravado. The other dog, Brindle, is a poodle/shi-tzu (sp -- and I REFUSE to look it up because I hate that word.) She's a sweetheart who just wants loving. The latest guy, Rascal, who was a stray, is a poodle/terrier mix and is a real sweetheart, doing whatever he needs to to fit in and letting Fuser and Brindle boss him around even though he's the biggest.

But at least I'm at the beach, and that's cool enough in and of itself.