The Police, a Kitten, Swimming

"Some may say
I'm wishing my days away
no way
and if it's the price I pay
some say
tomorrow's another day
to stay
I may as well play"
Gah I was listening to The Police earlier today and still have a bunch of lyrics floating through my head.  I don't mind at all!  Makes for great singing-quietly-to-yourself music, esp. when bicycle riding.  I took a quick ride around 7 tonight as I wanted to get some pics of purple martins for my bird field notebook project.  I was going to ride down to the house of a family I babysit for on the channel side of the South end, as they have a martin house..but there were several purple martin houses before that and I got some good shots of them.
I forgot to tell Mom that I saw flocks of glossy ibis like 3 different times in the past 2 days, flying both over Banks Channel and along the ocean on the South end.  I was staying at this suh-weet house for the past week as I was housesitting & catsitting for another great family I babysit for.  Great birdwatching, I tell ya, when you can watch the ocean, the inlet, and the channel all at once.  The amazingness of the house was enough to overwhelm me, of course.
But I calmed down pretty quick and had a lovely time listening to music and cuddling with the kitten who happens to have no tail (it was amputated when he was a newborn because of an infection).  Seriously,  this cat had such personality! I really miss him taking me away from my self-oriented tasks to stroke him or talk to him.  Or spray him w/ water if he was wrestling the older cat..haha.  My fav thing he would do was perform acrobatic leaps over things (including the other cat!).  I found myself thinking that I would really like to get a kitten, like could  I do that?  Yes, yes I could..something to think about for sure.
I went for my first swim of year 2011 today.  It's crazy, I haven't even been swimming in a pool yet this year, and my first swim was in the good old Atlantic.  It was definitely a crisp water temp, totally refreshing after a 6-mile run in the afternoon sunlight (note to self: get Rx sunglasses!).  I had debated doing a 10K race this a.m. that was taking place to raise money for a great cause, the WB farmers' market, but decided against it in favor of having a slow Saturday a.m. (and my last in the awesome house!)  I tried out a pumpkin scone recipe, drank coffee on the fourth story porch, and did got into some reading material for a class instead.  I'm reading from 3 great books that takes me through the ozone hole discovery and recovery, as I am presenting and writing about the Montreal Protocol for my environmental studies seminar.