If I Could Talk To The Animals

Today was the day we communed with the animals.

We needed to check out of our hotel around 11am but the ferry wasn't leaving until 3:30pm so we had some time to kill.

First we wandered over to the library again so Tarzan could return two of the books he'd already finished - how does he DO that? - and outside of the building a cat passed by who looked exactly like Mikey - one of my cats. While Tarzan perused the books I petted the cat, scratched her head, she rubbed her face on my leg and just as I was about to take a picture - so as to compare to my own cat when I got home - a crazy old fisherman wandered by, scared the cat away and started talking to me about how the cat doesn't ever stop and talk to him and we continued on through the lack of fish in the waters this year and hoping that 2011 will be better for him.

We spent some time at the beach, enjoying the quiet, eating some really nice ice cream and Tarzan pulled out the leftover pizza from last night. The crust was kind of dried out so I crumbled it up and fed the pigeons, seagulls and sparrows who were hanging out. The seagulls had a sort of power struggle going on and I was reminded several times of the scene in Finding Nemo with the "mine! mine! mine!" chorus.

Birds must have some kind of telekinetic powers because before the crumbs hit the ground there was an entire flock at my feet begging for more.

This guy showed up, first in the tree:

Then right next to me on the bench:

I dug out all the crumbs I could find from our bag for them until we spotted the sign saying "please don't feed the birds."

Oops.

Of course there was a guy playing with his two dogs right under the sign reading "no dogs on the beach" so I didn't feel too guilty.

Fortunately birds also have a short attention span and they flew off to find other things.

Except this one:

I think he was hoping for a fish rather than a cracker.

Then on the ride home there were two dogs on the boat - poor things have to wear a muzzle - and their owners were all over the care and keeping of chocolate labs.

This is me with the end to a really relaxing vacation.