Welcome aboard, Molly!

Through one of those odd chains of email, I heard from Anna that there was a border collie in the San Diego Central Shelter who needed to be sprung. Pam, a shelter volunteer, sent the following description of her:

"She is not doing well at the shelter and is very frightened in her kennel - this isn't good at all - it means some of them think Molly isn't good enough for adoption. However, the truth is she is just afraid and comes around more and more each day with various volunteers who are working with her. Unfortunately though, Molly needs to get out of the shelter quickly because they wont keep her there if she feels so afraid.

"She is a 10 month old female Border Collie. Shy at first but warms up to people quickly and bonds very quickly with people she gets to know. Knows "sit", "come", knows her name, housebroken, loves to play and run around. Good with other dogs although if a dog barks at her she will bark back."

Well, by today (Tuesday) Molly was here as our first foster dog.   She is just as affectionate as can be, and she's quite a pretty dog!   Pam's description turned out to be accurate.  She could be a mix of border collie and something else.  She is going to be adopted out through Southern California Aussie Rescue, and she might even get a chance to be on television.   Becky, who runs the San Diego Chapter, is on tv once a week with a rescue dog who needs a home.

Whew!

The holidays are over and we are tired!

New Year's Day, afternoon chill time

We did our Christmas Day stuff on New Year's Day this year, because that's when Lil and Jon were with us. It's all here. The tree, the sunset and palms, the unwrapped gifts and wine strewn about, and the football game on the tube. Gotta love it!

And yet another....

The magic hour of four o'clock has arrived. At 4:00 PM dogs are allowed on the beach! C'mon, let's go! The tide's low, and everything!
We even have Lillian and Jon to help with frisbee throwing!
Hey, let's not dawdle to look at birds!I mean, there's not much frisbee time left!
Sure those birre pretty, but there isn't much light left after four this time of year. Better not waste it!
Because soon it will be dark!
And the Christmas Tree on the end of the Scripps Pier will glow.

Christmas Dinner -- oh, the strangeness!

Dinner was at our house this year.
What a strange conjunction of Germanic kitsch -- the Yule Tree -- and SoCal ambience!!
It just seems strange....
Daisy had her friends here too. It was the very first dinner party that Rocky had been invited to! He provided percussion with that thumping good tail of his. He was happy to be here and just as good as gold.
Sunny was also a very good boy, unless you take points off for each octopus leg amputated...

Another walk on the beach

The tide is low...C'mon already, let's get with the frisbee!
The tidepools make it that much better, especially with friends along.

Kylie the Australian Cattle Dog.
And Bailey, the Kelpie.
Sunset came all too quickly!

Why we love really really low tides...

Last week we had a series of what we call "minus tides." A minus tide is a low tide that reads as a negative number on the tide charts because the water level is below the reference point, the "Mean Lower Low Water." MLLW is defined as the average of the lower low water height of each tidal day observed over the National Tidal Datum Epoch. The previous Epochs were 1960-1978 and 1983-2001, pretty large aggregates of data. Hmm, maybe my "number of Scripps Pier pilings whose bases are exposed" is a simpler measure! At any rate, we were having 14 pairs out of the water, so the tide was about as low as it ever gets here. And the point is ... the frisbee playing is superb!




And best of all, we can look forward to these evening low tides again over the Christmas week!