Two "other stuff" items from my week away...

The first is this photo of half of a perfect rainbow. We were on the beach around 7 pm and could see an ominous cloud heading our way from the northwest. It reached our location in moments, poured rain and, by the time we got home, had already continued past us, leaving this rainbow behind.

It's been a while since I've seen a rainbow, so I figured I'd post it.

The next day -- my last morning on the beach -- I approached the boardwalk and found a firetruck with the crane extended and a crowd of about fifty people, anxiously watching the fireman on the crane.


Evidently, a seagull had fishing wire tangled around his foot and when he tried to take flight from the light post, the wire tethered him to the lamp. The poor thing was in terrible distress and watching the rescue operation was surprisingly riveting. Soon after I arrived, the bird was freed and flew, at first clumsily then with more confidence, to the sea. If the scene were in some quaint-small-town-life-movie, it would have seemed contrived: after the bird's ascent, the crowd clapped and cheered for the fire crew. After which, everyone confided to the person nearest them, 'Weird. 'Cause most of the time, I really do hate seagulls.'