Birds Eat Off of Your Shoes in Capitola

So, today is Veteran's Day and for the first time in my working life, I have the day off. Whoo hoo! I've had a really great day so far. After breakfast with Miriam, I lied around in bed until about 8 contemplating the day. When I realized I could lie there ALL day, I got up, cleaned up a bit around the apartment and set out on my bike. Car insurance was the goal for the day. It took about an hour, but I got it done and now I'm ready to get my car registered here tomorrow. Then I decided I'd ride down to the beach and grab a sandwich and watch the water. It's SO beautiful here today. Really sunny and when you are in the sun, you are nice and warm. There is still a slight chill in the air which is also pretty nice.

As I was riding down 41st towards the beach, I passed a bicycle shop and stopped in. My brakes have been really weird, my gears aren't shifting very nicely and, as much as I don't want one, I need a kickstand if I'm going to put the ol' C-dale into our bike storage room. So, this really cool guy hooked me up. He adjusted a cable on my bike which has fixed the shifting problem, installed a kickstand for me and I made an appointment to get my brakes worked on. All for $10. I love bike shops!

I kept cruising down 41st and then did a little loop around and got onto Portola to head down to Capitola Village. Miriam and I had gone down there yesterday after working out and got some coffee at pastry at Gayles. Gayles is kind of like Zingerman's, just on a smaller scale. They make all of their bread (which they sell around town at groceries) and pastries, plus they have a deli and prepared food section, coffee, etc. It's really really good. Today I went to a place called Capitola Kitchen and grabbed a sandwich and some lemonade. Over by the beach they have a ton of benches that you can sit and eat and watch the ocean. Man, it was just gorgeous and a perfect spot to have lunch.

You're probably wondering what the title of this post means. When I was done eating I put my feet up on this concrete wall and was just relaxing. This little black bird came hopping by and was getting closer and closer to my feet. I wondered how close it would get and then all of a sudden it pecked at the bottom of my shoes and flew off with some kind of food product that was stuck in my shoe. Ahahaha, pretty gross and pretty weird and very funny.

On my way back to my bike I passed by a candy shop with the largest jelly bean wall I've ever seen. Yeah, I pulled out my BSG credit card and loaded up. I can't wait to go in on all the new flavors. YUMMY! Luckily it's really expensive per pound, so I will not be frequenting this place, but it's nice to know it's there.

So now I'm just chilling at the apartment. This weekend, among a million other things, Miriam and I put together her stereo and it's so fun having radio again. So, I want to figure out what the good stations are here and get the local NPR station and program those in. I think I'll take a little nap and then I'm meeting Miriam at CrossFit at 5 for a workout.

This weekend was really awesome. We made some good progress at getting our apartment in even better shape. Put stuff away, set things up and rearranged a bit. I think it made us both a lot happier . Soon we'll tackle getting stuff up on the walls.

Well, that's about it from Santa Cruz. Write back and tell me what's going on with you. I'd love to hear from you. For those in AA, I'll be back in town on December 27 - December 31 and would love to see you. Hopefully you'll be in town.

OK, love you!

Neile