Birthday boy

We spent the last two days at Gulf Shores on the Alabama Coast. As Jilda and I stopped at a red light, a blinking bank sign that reports the time and temperature. I glanced over and it as 3:25 and the temp blinked 81 degrees. It was Friday the 13 of January. 

Last year when we were here, it was much colder. When we walked on the beach I had to wear my L.L. Bean windbreaker. This year, I probably could have gone swimming at sunset. It was a low-key trip. We drove around and looked at beach properties. "This one has a good view, but I don't like the floorplan," said Jilda. "But this one has a great layout and faces the Gulf, and out the back, there's a view of the bay."  "O.K., it's settled. When we hit the lottery, we'll buy this one" I said. It's a game we play each year.

Other than house hunting, we didn't have a lot on the agenda. We walked on the beach and got in our steps while listening to the pounding surf and squawking pelicans. Walking on sand is a good workout plus, as Jilda says, "The beach is a natural luffa." We practiced for a few hours on our upcoming performance working out some of the rough spots. We both are reading good books by Verlyn Klinkenborg. I'm reading A Rural Life and she's reading his book entitled, A Few Lines About Writing. Both came highly recommended and after reading about half of mine, I knew buying them was a good choice.

Klinkenbork wrote opinion essays for The New York Times about life in the country. His prose is simply beautiful. I'm thankful our friend Christine Olhman recommended him.
Of course, we ate seafood for dinner last night with key lime pie for dessert. The birthday boy was happy. 

Jilda caught some kind of crud late last week and it hit her hard yesterday so we decided to head out early this morning so that she could contact her doctor if needed. 

As the coffee brewed this morning, I stepped out onto the balcony. Off to the east, the sun was peeking out of the Gulf. I felt honored that it was there to greet me on my 66th birthday.