Jill Rants and Raves: did I hear you say thanks?

I'm in a total giving thanks type of mood this morning even if it is a grey damp morning in this state of grace known as California. Yesterday the sky was an ominous red in the morning and the rain started spitting just as I headed out for my walk with my gang and a couple of extras including a dog that makes me laugh just looking at him - Henry the cockapoo. This dog wags his whole body not just his tail, and then tries to run while doing it. And running dogs can make your whole day seem better.

Even in the rain. We headed along what is known as the upper road at the landfill from the plateau which the parks system has ruined with it's attempt at eco-engineering in the shape of a fenced off burrowing owl habitat - in spite of the fact that no burrowing owls have even been seen near the area. In fact the owls I know say 'Albany? Isn't that where the John Birch Society used to hang out? Wouldn't be seen dead in the place' - so as I was saying, we headed out along the upper road and the huge wingspan of a glorious hawk (was it a Red Tail, or a Cooper's Hawk, I'm not sure) ranged above us like a curious companion on our walk and then landed majestically at the top of a stringy bark eucalyptus (which under the native plant fanatics would come crashing down) where it could observe a menu of lizards, ground squirrels or rabbits from it's perch. The rain was easing, I smiled and looked over to my left in time to watch three pelicans plunge, like children doing a belly flop off a diving board, into the still calm waters of the bay.

The shoreline yesterday after a night of rain and a high tide was looking like a stadium after a football game, a mass of nasty debris and a film of grease atop it's shimmering surface. One of the beauties of the Albany Landfill, as it is right now, is that birds and a multitude of insects, reptiles and mammals make use of human discards. Shorebirds wade happily in the mudflats created by the additional landmass of the landfill, blue herons, cormorants and egrets sun themselves, wings akimbo, on a mass of concrete and twisted contorted rebar jutting out of the bay, lizards and snakes lay contentedly on the sun warmed gravel trails (they understand all about the hot stone therapies we pay exorbitant amounts for at day spas) and disappear under a thousand concrete blocks at the approach of human or canine. The gophers tease the dogs from the top of a stone column which might have graced a downtown bank 50 years ago before it was dumped in the bay, and then run contentedly into the warren of underground tunnels created by the mess. This is a kingdom of wild imagination, a place where adults get to act like kids at a themepark. And it never fails to make me thankful.

I came home yesterday and cooked a sort of strange and wonderful saute of italian sausage and romano beans, mushrooms, chard and tomato and sat surrounded by the dogs and cats who share this good fortune, and dug through the netflix. Today, another walk awaits this intrepid band of pioneers and then I'm going to the Castro theatre with friends to see 'Milk'. Susie says we can eat pizza later - has she forgotten I'm not overfond of pizza? I could get upset about what's missing, what I lack, what I wished for and didn't get, what I have lost, what I have wasted, what I fear, what I regret - doing or not doing, who I miss, who I have wronged or has wronged me, the endings, the failures, the lack of.

Or that could wait till tomorrow. Today, the sun came out in glorious festivity for my landfill walk and I'm definitely in a giving thanks kind of mood.