When I feel despair for the future of my country, and lament that one in seven of my fellow citizens now lives in poverty, and wonder how those Values Voters have managed to turn Jesus into an unrecognizable stranger, I seek refuge in Julie Andrews and one of the best movies ever made.
The Sound of Music is worth watching once a year, as is The Wizard of Oz. And nothing in The Sound of Music inspires me as much as “My Favorite Things.”
Call me a putz, but when I'm feeling sad, I simply remember my favorite things, and then I don't feel so bad.
And for a landlubber whose roots are in the Midwest, it doesn’t get any better than when the blue whales show up in your neighborhood in Southern California. These magnificent creatures, the largest animal ever to inhabit the earth, reach up to 100 feet long and weigh as much as 100 tons, in the Southern Hemisphere at least. In our neck of the woods, they are a bit smaller at 80 or 85 feet.
To put it in some perspective, a blue whale is as big as 40 elephants.
It's rare to see the blue whales near our beaches, as they are usually found farther north near Santa Barbara and the Channel Islands. But as many as 35 of them showed up less than two miles off the Redondo Beach pier a little over a month ago. Cooler weather here has produced a bloom of krill, the tiny shrimp-like creatures the blue whales engorge at a rate of four tons a day.
Best estimates are that only one percent of the population of the world has ever laid eyes on a blue whale, so I am now a member of an exclusive club.
So forget politics, turn off Fox News, stop arguing with me on Facebook, and indulge in a spiritual experience on the Voyager, if you happen to be in Redondo Beach any time real soon.
But hurry. The blue whales, like some hapless incumbents in Congress, might well be here today, gone tomorrow.
Watch the video from CBS News here.
No comments:
Post a Comment