Day One-Thirty-Two - Memory Gone.... Whales Good

A few months ago, I placed little notepads strategically throughout my house and car so that when I thought of a good blog topic I could write it down before I forgot it.  You know how it is when you start getting old.  The memory is always the first to go.  Mine left ages ago.  Yesterday I thought of a great topic in the middle of the day.  I didn't write it down because those strategically placed notepads are no longer strategically placed.  But it was such a great topic that I thought I would have no trouble at all remembering it.  Last night when I went to bed, it was still top of mind.  So, I was sure this morning I would get up and half of my blog would be written in my mind. I am sure that if I could remember anything at all about that topic at this moment, you would all get such great joy out of it.  You would all be reading along thinking to yourselves, "why didn't I ever know that Susan was such a genius before this?"  If there was a Pulitzer Prize for blogs, my name would be up for nomination right now.....  But alas, I haven't the slightest clue what that topic was now.  If I suddenly remember, I will write it down for future reference.

In the meantime, how about those Olympics, eh?  So I guess it all ended last night with The Spice Girls singing a disappointing song.  I didn't see it.  It's Shark Week just in case you didn't get that memo.....  I am currently consumed by sharks.  I wish there was also a Killer Whale Week because they are really cool too.  Last night while I was watching the sharks flying through the air chasing seal decoys I started thinking that this must be the biggest ratings week of the year for Discovery.  Otherwise, they wouldn't still be doing it after 25 years.

So, why don't they figure out that people are interested in documentaries about marine animals and parts of the world that we can't get to, like the bottom of the ocean, and televise more shows about that stuff rather than Mythbusters and Auction Kings and all kinds of car and motorcycle customizing shows.  I hate all of that stuff.  Discovery used to be a good "go to" channel when there was nothing else on. Now it is mostly geared toward unemployed white guys who have shut down the meth lab for the evening and gone into the house for a little entertainment.  I guess Discovery figures that they have to entertain themselves in front of the TV since their wives left them years ago.  So they air crap that will perform that public service for the meth lab owners of the world.  I can still watch Deadliest Catch, but when that became a big deal they started throwing other fishing shows at us like we just wanted to watch people fishing.  I think the attraction to Deadliest Catch is more about experiencing in some way something that most of us will never be able to do.  I have no interest in watching some guy with an obnoxious Maine accent fish for Tuna with a rod and reel.  Borrrrrrrrringgggggg!!!!!!

I used to work with a guy at the employer who shall not be named who was really freaked out by killer whales.  I had a picture of some that I had taken in the San Juan Islands on my computers wallpaper and he hated it. That of course, made me always call him over and show him other pictures of the killer whales.  When you are lucky enough to find something that a guy is afraid of you have to take advantage of it.  I mean, it's easy to find something that girls are afraid of since we are afraid of so much.  But with men you get commitment and then maybe one other thing if you are lucky and usually the one other thing is heights.  Heights are not an easy thing to throw at a co-worker unless of course, you are a window washer or something.  But if you have been on a whale watching trip in which you took hundreds of pictures of killer whales..... well then you have something to throw at a co-worker if you find out he is afraid of them.  So, I did!  It was fun and he could have stopped coming over and looking at my monitor at anytime but he didn't, so why not take advantage of it?  It wasn't as though I had pictures of the whales feeding on little baby seals or anything.  They were just swimming through the water.  But every time he saw them, he would get this funny look on his face and talk about how evil killer whales are.  By the way, he was wrong.  They aren't evil.  They are smart and they have to eat so they figure out ways to catch food.  Then they teach their young those methods, which is really smart.  I mean unless you are a vegan, you are just as evil as he believed killer whales to be.  We have to eat.  We choose to eat meat so we figure out ways to do so and teach it to our young.

I saw a killer whale show once where they were hunting seals that were sitting in the middle of a big piece of ice so that the whales couldn't get to them.  So, the whales would go around and bob out of the water looking for seals on ice.  One of them found one and went and got all of the other whales.  Then the camera showed the whales all putting their heads together in a huddle like they were drawing up a touch football play in the sand and then they basically clapped their fins and lined up.  When they got in a line, they all swam as fast as they could together toward the ice that the seal was sitting on.  Just before they got to the ice they stopped suddenly.  It created a huge wave that knocked the seal off of the ice and one of them grabbed it and they all had dinner.  Ingenious!!!!!  My co-worker thought that was evil.  He had seen the same show and we had discussed it.  He was horrified by it.  Here is an example of a photo that made him shutter.

Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you like that!  That is an evil mother and her evil calf.  I can understand how someone might be frightened by them.  It would seem to me that as long as you don't swim by in front of the mother acting like a seal, you are probably safe, but I could be wrong.  Below are a couple of pictures of the pod's patriarch, his name is Ruffles due to the shape of his fin.  With a name like Ruffles I can certainly understand the intimidation one might feel at seeing him.  The fin is approximately 6 feet tall.  So, he is a pretty big guy.  The whale experts there said he was in his 60's.  He spends most of his time with his mother who is over 80.  The pod that lives up there has been there for years.

Here are a couple of other of my favorite pictures from my day of whale watching.  It was probably the best vacation day of my life, even though I had left my purse along with my drivers license, credit cards, money and cell phone in a Starbucks in Lynnwood, Washington earlier in the day.  But that is a story for another time.  I think killer whales are pretty spectacular and I think they need their own week on Discovery.  The fact that my co-worker who was terrified of them watched the show where they were hunting seals on ice proves that the ratings would probably be better than some show where people in Georgia are auctioning off other peoples junk.

I want to live in a house where killer whales go by every afternoon.  If you live in a giant house like the one in the picture above and the heaviest traffic you see all day is that of the whales swimming by and the three boats following them, your life must be pretty amazing.  As we followed the whales all day, you would see some areas where a person was sitting on the rocks on shore watching the whales go by.  I think that would be much better than sitting in my living room watching the FedEx truck go by.  But I could be wrong.  I mean that FedEx truck is pretty magnificent!

Okay, time to stop the hallucinations for the day.  I'll keep thinking and try to remember that great topic that I was going to write about.  Maybe it will come to me before tomorrow, but don't hold your breath.  You might very well end up with another master piece like this one.  Sorry.....