11:38 a.m. - 2002-07-07
otter
I'm standing at the balcony of one of the Monterey Bay Spa & Resort's fine waterfront suites; having donned a plush, complimentary, bathrobe as insurance against the damp chill of an early summer's evening and with a pair of complimentary binoculars screwed tight to my eyes. My gaze is trained, as it has been for the last half-hour, on two sea-otters practicing the traditional sea-otter vocation of abalone harvest. Through the covertly intimate perspective of my lens I've witnessed shellfish fetched from the bay floor, chest pelts summarily flecked with ragged fragments of mother-of-pearl, paws licked clean, and satisfied after-dinner barrel rolls executed through the kelp. I've seen passing seals eyed with the quiet disdain reserved by members of one family of marine carnivora for members of another, and diving cormorants regarded with a suspicion merited, in my opinion, by their prehistoric demeanor. I've managed, from my dry and civilized vantage, to lose myself completely in the aqueous realm of my subjects...
The sound of a champagne bottle settling into its ice bucket pulls me back into more immediate focus and, as I pause to give my eyes a rest, I realize with a pang of regret that I may have missed my true calling, that of Gentleman-Naturist.
Missed it by like, 300 years.
