Nightglow Window

A Day In Three Acts, Part Deux

Part One: An Unwelcome Visitor. It's about 9:00 a.m. and two trash cans are full of yard clippings. Three more items on the front yard to-do list get checked off and I'm on the side of the house, raking leaves and getting ready to head in.

Then I feel something cold and smooth on my leg.

It's big.

I have no idea what it is.

I pull up my pant leg and it's a huge lizard, nearly a foot long, crawling up my pant leg. Something deep and dark clicks in the reptilian part of my brain and the next thing I know I'm in my garage, stripped down to my underwear, battling the big willies, and doing some sort of crazy dance.

But I deny that I squealed like a girl. No way. Wasn't me.


Part Two: The Cardiff Reef Roxy Jam. So with my enthusiasm about yard work gone (gee, you think?), Sydney and I jump in the Vanagon and drive south. It's a stunner of a day. Perfect head-high surf and blue, sunny skies. We stumble upon the Roxy Jam at Cardiff Reef, and Sydney begs me to go.

She's not wearing any shoes, and the lot is full, but we park at Seaside Reef and then walk back the mile to Cardiff along the beach. I'm really glad we did.

Almost immediately we bump into Randy Hild, who kind of runs the whole Roxy brand. He's stoked to see us and hooks Sydney up with a T-shirt and then he grabs a board and bolts for the water (it's that good).

Next up I get a hug from Danielle Beck, Roxy's Marketing Manager (which is nice because I never know if she remembers me). She then buffs out Sydney even more, and Syd is completely beaming by this point. I take her to the face painting booth (where I ask them to paint a Roxy Logo on her cheek, of course) and then Syd gets a full fancy hairstyle from the Paul Mitchell tent (one of the sponsors of the event).

While Sydney is getting her hair done, Tobias Coffman, who helps with PR for Quiksilver and Roxy, hands us some wristbands so we can hang out in the athlete tent and get some lunch. We share a Wahoo's burrito as all the pro girls walk around and Syd looks at me and says "Thanks for taking me to the beach," and then gives me the most beautiful smile.

Sometimes my job really doesn't suck.






Part Three: What Should Have Been. It's early evening and Christy and I head down to the amazing La Paloma theater in Encinitas to see An Inconvenient Truth. Go see it. Please.

It is an incredible and sobering movie, expertly done, and watching it was just a tad bitter when you think about how the last seven years may have turned out so much differently if it wasn't for a few thousand hanging chads.

The night is warm and beautiful and we head up and down the great downtown of Encinitas, thinking about what should have been.

"The era of procrastination,
of half-measures,
of soothing and baffling expedients,
of delays,
is coming to its close.
In its place we are entering a period of consequences."
- Winston Churchill, 1936