We Come to the Beach

We Come to the Beach,

To Watch the Sun Disappear

To pray at the altar of sand and foam

Seeking something from the briny sea God

Some to reflect

Some to exorxcise demons that have overtaken them

All seeking a cleansing spirit

We come to celebrate

We come to mourn

We come to the beach

Good Friday

Lent is coming to an end. Unlike most Lenten seasons I didn't give anything up this year. I decided to do little things to make me a better person and hopefully make the world and God a little bit happier. I had six goals. I achieved five out of the six mostly. I am somewhat sad that the season is coming to an end.

I have had fun tracking my progress. There are two goals that I think have made me a more thoughtful person. The first goal was to pray daily. I know as a Christian/Catholic that this should be automatic, but it wasn't in my life and just taking those few minutes a day to be thankful to God for all that I have and to ask for his guidance in my life has been amazing. The second goal was working on being a kind and generous person. It made me look for ways each day to be nice to someone. I don't think I was a mean person before, but rather insular and wouldn't step outside my comfort zone to do that little extra that will make somebody else's day. I am sure that this Lent lessons are going to stay with me.

Completely off topic - I had a mid thirties crisis yesterday and ordered all of these books that I read as a kid off of Amazon.
"B" Is for Betsy, Back to School with Betsy, Betsy's Little Star, All-of-a-kind Family, Special Girl, and Bunnicula. The Betsy books bring me back to sitting in the library aisles at Glen View Elementary with Sue Shepard as the librarian. I remember my sister and I both being into these books at the same time - a little odd since my sister is four years older, but I always was precocious. All-of-a-kind Family made me want to be Jewish living in New York during the early 1900's. I wanted to celebrate Yom Kippur and make Purim baskets. This book has made me also want to be able to buy sweet potatoes from street vendors. I know bizarre.

Special Girl was a tween romance that made me want to be diabetic. Does anyone ever outgrow the need to be special/different? And then Bunnicula is the best book of all time. I mean what is there not to love about a vegetarian vampire?

Evil Eye

Had one of those mornings that makes you feel like you have supernatural powers. I was driving on my way to LA going about 85mph near Camp Pendleton when a grey van flew up behind me. The driver had to have been exceeding 100mph. I obviously do not have an issue with speeding, but this driver was weaving in and out of lanes and driving aggressively.

The van swerved out behind me and I had one of those moments when you think bad thoughts about another driver. It is when you wish there was a policeman present. I just wanted this guy to get caught. Not five minutes after having these less than Christian thoughts, traffic came to a crawl as a large plume of smoke came across the freeway.

Even before coming across the accident I knew that it was the van. And sure enough there it was. Fortunately it looks like it just hit an empty car on the freeway. That Mercedes was pointed in opposite direction on the freeway with its bumper removed. Driver of that vehicle was nowhere to be seen. The van driver looked like he wasn't going to stop, but two Marines had stopped and had opened his door. Go Marines!

I don't think anyone was seriously hurt, but from now on I am going to think only pleasant thoughts about my fellow drivers and hope that my Catholic upbringing will protect me from the Wiccan karma of it coming back on me three times. The guilt is bad enough.