living in pittsburgh for the past few months and devoid of any beaches (or ocean for that matter), bruce wanted to visit revere beach. jack and bruce met me outside at 11:00 and we needed north to revere. today was an unusually warm day, a winter springtime to kick off the new year, with temperature hovering in the 50's. i wasn't sure of the beach conditions and wore my rubber rain boots thinking there'd still be snow on the beach (there wasn't).

i've always thought of revere beach as the poor man's beach, completely free and accessible by subway. it's not the prettiest beach, running north-south with ugly beachfront condominiums blocking out the western horizon. i also heard a rumor that due to erosion, the city had to import sand to fill what was removed by the waves. revere beach, despite its supposed faults, is still however one of the closest beach to where we are in cambridge. there was actually a few dozen people walking the beach, like-minded folks who wanted to get out and take advantage of the warm january day. it just happened to be low tide, with the receding waves leaving a ribbon of beach debris: clam shells, crab husks, seaweed, and an assortment of colored beach pebbles.

bruce came to the beach with a roll of day-old-expired baguette. wrapped in its paper sleeve, it looked liked he was carrying in a bottle of wine. the bread was naturally to feed the birds, a fun activity bruce thought that would make our beach trip a little more exciting and give me some photo opportunities. we walked north until we were away from most of the civilians before bruce started tossing bread crumbs on the beach. at first there wasn't any seagulls, but as soon as one arrived, the whole flock quickly followed.

for the most part the gulls were polite but noisy. it wasn't the wild frenzy of flying wings that i'd imagined. they surrounded us but stayed on the ground, fly hopping only to fight for a tossed crumb. most waited patiently, while a few screeched loudly (that was a bad strategy, since throwing a bird tantrum will not get you fed). the majority of the birds were herring gulls, difficult to differentiate from their myriad of plumage variations. they were medium-sized, with pink feet. mixed in with this crowd were smaller ring-billed gulls, black beak ring with yellow feet. off in the distance, one or two great black-backed gulls, the largest of the gulls, and seemingly could've easily overpowered the other gulls, but their strength in physical size was no match for their weakness in numbers, and they didn't get any crumbs because of it.

bruce did most of the feeding, while jack and i joined in for a bit towards the end. bread crumbs don't travel very well when thrown i discovered. throwing a fistful of crumbs also didn't trigger a massive feeding frenzy that i was expecting. not sure if this is natural or not, but these gulls were so good at being fed that they could actually snatch the crumbs straight from the air.

the birds weren't the only thing flying; overhead, at a constant interval, were planes flying south to land at nearby logan airport. they flew low enough that we almost expected to see a beach crash. off in the distant, floating in the water, were some other birds. from the silhouettes (they were too far to make out clearly) i think they were eiders.

when we came back to cambridge i grabbed my things and left for belmont, taking my bicycle from the basement. with the weather still warm, it made for some nice riding. i went through puddles of melting snow, protected by my fenders. when i got to my parents' place, i found my father immobilized in bed, having pulled a muscle as a result of last night's work. my mother and sister were out getting some painkillers, but they didn't get back until much later. for dinner we ordered some domino's pizza.

in the very late evening (around 2:30), while still working on today's blog entry from the living room, i heard some rustling sounds coming from the side of the house. i went to the window and pulled the shade. it was definitely a person (as opposed to a wild animal), adorned with some blinking lights. i thought it was either a night burglar, or maybe just somebody trying to rifle through our garbage looking for cans. so i tapped on the window without seeing who it was and then pulled down the shade. when a few seconds went by and the person had left yet, i pulled the shade and opened the window to get a closer look. standing outside was a attractive young woman with her bicycle, her customized spoke lights blinking in the darkness:

with that i heard her stumble out of my backyard. drunk hipster chick on a saturday night. looks like it might be a good year!