Santa Cruz

Yesterday was our last day of freedom for a while, so we went to Santa Cruz. We had lunch at our favorite Sri Lankan place, went to the hippie grocery store, and then went to Big Basin. We took a walk and had a fire. It was healing and good to get out, though it's expensive with gas, and the drives are long. I wrote a letter to R. I read Figure 8 and some old Sea of Slime as well as the Santa Cruz weekly free papers before we burned them.

At one point I thought to myself, "In Santa Cruz, I'm normal," which was mostly about the liberalism, long hair, unshaven quality--but then I realized that isn't quite true because everyone seems a lot whiter than me. Like Santa Barbara but even whiter, and more beach-ish, more blonde streaks and sunglasses on the head. And the climate in general seems wealthier, not sure about that.

This morning when Erik was leaving for work we saw something Kitty left on the welcome mat for us: a dead bird. We thought he was too old for that kind of killing. There have been plenty of little mice over the years, but this is the first bird we've seen. I'm really not pleased with him, and I'm not pleased to have been wrong. Erik got a paper towel and threw it in the dumpster. Sorry, bird.