This could be just like a twitter--or what I think as a twitter, since I've not tweeted, nor read the sounds of birds (but right now I hear a trio of crows cawing from the top of the Chinese Elm on the corner across the street.   Of course, when the streetlight comes on, their spotlight, they'll surely quiet down.  And I occasionally hear wild parrots--they squawk horribly but make up for it with their iridescent green feathers and I can't forget to mention that as I walked out to my car Saturday afternoon I heard ducks quacking and sure enough, there they were, sitting on the asphalt,  just barely under a neightbor's car--a couple, male and female--mallards...my favorites!  They'd wandered blocks and blocks away from the canals.)  

 By mentioning that tweeter-twitter, I'm just acknowledging that this could be just another self-indulgent thought put up somewhere for someone to see.  So, I'm sharing.  Here goes:

I just got back from a bike ride that took me out to the Marina Channel to see a whale!  I've got no fancy photography equipment and a phone shot just wouldn't do so here's the link (from a once prestigious, once world class, now muddling, sinking newspaper--but hey, they got a picture and I didn't...hmmmmm.....)   

I've not taken myself down to the beach in ages.  I'd forgotten how big the ocean and the sky are.  

 I used to skate on the bike path everyday after work pretending I was in an ice rink, but without the fancy tricks.  Frank Sinatra and Buena Vista Social Club is particularly good to skate to, though at first I was a purist--only the crashing waves and seagull screeches for me.  Before I lived here in Venice, right after I got divorced and moved away from my landlocked foothill life of fifteen years, every change I got I'd park in a parking lot next to the Casa Del Mar (a pretty old beach hotel) at sunset and go on walks as the sky changed color.  There were always other people there marveling to be in that place in those moments--it was like being in a special club.  "Isn't it gorgeous?" strangers would walk up to each other and say.

Well, today is was:  "Have you seen the whale?"  And you'd think there'd be a huge crowd--and you'd see a gigantic creature.  But it was a relatively small group.  There were fishermen on the rocks.  Some weren't even looking at the whale anymore.  There were a few children walking hand in hand with parents.  A couple stood next to me speaking Argentine Spanish.  A little boy speaking a just south of this border version yakked with his sister.   Three Brits kept me company and timed the whale as it spouted water out of its blow hole.  A bit later they were replaced with a Russian or Polish couple--I recognized the jgggzz zjggzzz gza, but none of the words.  A tall dark and handsome thirty-ish man engrossed in a discussion about a financial deal he was having with a trim, shorter grey haired man almost missed the whale.  "Hey!  There's a whale over there!" I said.  "You are going to miss it!"

"Is it lost?" they asked.

 "Beats me, you'll have to ask it yourself," I said. 

I pointed to a kayaker.  There were two different guys who'd paddled out to get a close look.  I wanted to jump in and give the whale a hug and a kiss too, but if I were in a boat out there with it, I'd have given it its space.

 The strangest thing.  You could you hear it.  Funny spacey noises would come from under the water.  Then its back--or maybe it was its head, like in the Times' photo--would peek out under an umbrella of nasal whale spit.