TATTOO on the HEART

Sunday picnic…

// January 5th, 2009 // EVERYDAY LIFE

The family and I decided we’d do an outing to the beach. It was a pleasant day sunny and in the 60′s. We decided we’d make a picnic on the beach with tea, a few PBJ’s, and Doritos. Ocean Beach has this really neat stretch of beach where you can bring your dog aptly called, “Dog Beach.” It’s one of the most varied assortment of dogs you’ve ever seen in your life: big dogs, small dogs, slobbery dogs, mutts, pure breeds, special needs dogs – they’re all there. We don’t actually have a dog right now, but it’s cool to let the kids pet and play with any kind of dog they want and to be okay with the fact that they want zero responsibility with one and to be even more happy with the fact that their lack of responsibility doesn’t mean that I have to go pick up poop.

As soon as we pulled in the parking lot, I went to jump out but Jessica quickly directed us to the area on the opposite side of a lifeguard tower – the non-dog beach side. “You don’t want to try to have a picnic with a 100 dogs around,” she advised.

I thought that was a good plan, so we settled in a spot roughly 25 feet from dog beach that’s separated by a little hill. Moments later we had some uninvited guests – seagulls. But these weren’t the typical seagulls that just walk around and beg – these were hovering, diving, and circling us at a very uncomfortable altitude. I thought I’d defend my family, so I hopped up and grabbed handfuls of sand and chunked it at them. Hey, I would’ve grabbed something bigger like a jagged rock, but we’re in California. You can get incarcerated for life for something like that.

Jessica yelled, “Stop throwing sand, they’re going to think that you’re throwing food at them!” I don’t know how true that was, but the seagulls remained persistent. We all tried scarfing down our PBJ’s. That is, all of us except Jadyn – she was taking her time and kinda standing around. All of a sudden, one of the seagulls made this crazy swoop down to steal the sandwich from Jadyn, unfortunately, it totally missed the sandwich and snatched Jadyn’s thumb. Jadyn’s feet instantly left the ground and her body was being carried away by a seagull!…Not really, but that would have been an amazing story. Actually Jadyn’s thumb did get bitten, but stayed attached. She was pretty freaked out and instantly wanted to get that sandwich out of her hand. So I took it from her and heaved it about 10 yards away.

With the birds distracted, Jessica gave me the bag of food and I made a mad dash back to the parking lot. It didn’t fool the birds though – they all chased after me until I got to the van and slammed the door shut.

Looking back, I wonder what our chances would’ve been on Dog Beach. I noticed there were no seagulls over there.