Of Fire, Rain, Praying Manti, and Bitchin' Quads

Strange things are afoot in Sonoma County, friends. Portentous omens. Unsound eventualities. Weird shit.
Example 1: fire. And rain. In the same week. In September. For those familiar with the climate of Northern California, or familiar with our four-year drought, it's strange.
Example 2: I left my house last week, as I do on just about every day that I've lived there (once, I was super sick and didn't leave the house for a week. Another time, I shaped surfboards straight through for three days while my family was in Yosemite without me). Something on the sidewalk drew my eye. I had to inspect: a humungous praying mantis.
I'll refer to her as 'she', but really, I have no idea. As I squatted down (no small feat for someone with knees like mine) she moved her head to watch. I leaned to one side. She moved her head to follow. I leaned to the other. She did the same. It was a strange feeling to be connecting with an insect. To experience her cognitive powers. She was watching me. I held out my hand and she slowly crawled onto it.
I called my girls over, and we all checked her out. She took turns looking at each of our faces. She didn't move into an offensive or defensive position. I held her close to the ground, but she made no motions to escape. We were in each other's thrall for a solid three minutes, which to six-and-eight year olds may as well be an entire day.
Then I dropped her to the sidewalk and we squashed her with a satisfying crunch.
Just kidding! We put her in the garden in the backyard.
As you know, in these trying times we seek out the constants. The dependable. The comfortable. The fresh baguette in these most carbo-free of paleo days. The pull of the moon and the splatter of stars. The tilt of the earth as we enter our autumnal solstice and the deep gold evenings of a Northern California fall. The waves that grace our rocky shoreline without thought, and without cease.
Shredders, like nonshredders, need the comfort of routine--to pull into parking lots in the chilly pre dawn, stamp our feet, squint toward the ocean, wrap our hands around a hot drink. We need to check, check, check the buoy readings at work all day, then finally make the call, drive to the coast, and marvel at the feel of the ocean around us, the sudden calming of the mind as the light turns pink.
And surfboards need to be made for this. Not only the shredding, for we come for the shredding, but for the everything else, too.

This particular instrument of engagement is currently being schralped by new homeowner, corduroy enthusiast (I'm guessing here, but he seems the type), and bicoastal (if you regard San Diego and Sonoma as two different coasts, which I do) surfboard enthusiast, Eric.

Lovely two-tone resin tint by the good folks at Almar, led by their affable, mustachioed capitan, in Santa Cruz.

Still life with dog-scratched wood floor, dog-haired Persian rug.
I believe it to be a 6'4" Clover.

Glass-on wood fins are just as satisfying to foil as they are to lean into a hefty bottom turn with.
Nota Bene, blog enthusiasts: while never exactly 'prolific', these blog pages were updated with some regularity. Not anymore! These days I'm stretched thinner than an ironic t-shirt at a hipster convention, and something's got to go. The good news is that it's not Princess Dress-up Time with my girls. The bad news is that the board porn might be a little light this fall.