Sunset at San Simeon FES Dinner A Smashing Success

The Friends of the Elephant Seal held their annual fund raising dinner and silent auction late in March. According to numerous accounts, all participants had a great time. And despite the unprecedented decline in the economy and financial markets, net funds raised declined by only 11%, much above expectations.

Diana volunteered to be the event coordinator this year after a near disaster at last year's event. When she came home and told me the “good” news, I immediately picked up the phone and contacted Atascadero State Hospital to see if they could take an emergency admission! I thought she’d taken leave of her senses: She has never done this kind of thing before—not a dinner for 160 with a silent action etc., etc., etc.! Further more, she had vowed numerous times in the past that she’d NEVER, EVER do something like that. I guess never IS a long time after all!

Frankly Diana did a spectacular job coordinating this event; I think she opened a lot of eyes. I am so proud of her. She worked very hard, putting in long hours and she handled the many stresses directed toward her without losing her head or clear thinking. The management skills she learned during her career in pension account administration were quite evident. She assembled a team of committee chairs that had smarts and creativity that bursted with talent and dedication. A very impressive group.

Isn’t It Nice…..?

Now that Barack Obama had been elected and inaugurated the forty-forth President of the United States, I feel such relief knowing that he and his administration:

• Govern our county exuding confidence and hope, rather than arrogance and paranoia
• Fosters the notion of team building and inclusion, rather than the “good old boy” system and exclusion
• Makes us proud and optimistic when he travels overseas, rather than ashamed and embarrassed
• Makes his own decisions after really sifting and winnowing a diversity of ideas and he takes responsibility for of those decisions, rather than acceding to the agenda of a nearly sociopathic vice president and denying any responsibility for those actions
• Has a texture of real flesh and blood rather than plastic
• Is compassionate rather then self-centered
• Is truly interested in the well being of all people, rather than being interested only in the current score of a University of Texas Longhorn football game

It’s time to smell the daisies again.

Botched Nose Job...

Last we our Beachcombers Team did our monthly sweep of the beach from Leffingwell SP to just north of San Simeon Creek. Among several species of deceased birds we found a dead sea otter

The sea otter was a well-developed female. Notice from the photo below that she’s missing her nose, which caused her to bleed out and die, ultimately washing on the beach.

But what happened to her nose? Sea otters are in breeding season now. You can imagine that mating in the ocean can be pretty tricky, so the male otter grabs the female by the nose to hold her steady and then completes the process (use your imaginations here)! Sometimes the male’s gets a little carried away with himself and bites down rather forcefully. There goes the female’s nose.

This is a very serious problem for the sea otter colony because not only do you lose a female, but also the potter pup she would have born. But that’s nature and there’s nothing to be done.

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From the Roget von Tetzel Collection

This photoraph is of the interior stairway at the Point Sur Lighthouse at Big Sur, California.