Seagulls & Baseball

I promised to tell you about the seagulls in Corpus Christi, so here goes...

We had dinner at Joe's Crab Shack, out on the water of the Gulf of Mexico, choosing to be seated outside. Seagulls were in constant attendance, watching carefully for handouts or theft opportunities. The waitress said they can be quite bold, sneaking up behind her and stealing food from plates about to be served. The gulls lined up on the railing, and they seemed to have a pecking order. One stakes out a spot and defends it against encroachers. These birds really make a lot of noise, too, but I found them attractive and endearing, probably because I'm not around them enough to find them irritating.

The Crab Shack has these wonderful corn biscuits, which looked like they'd be something the gulls would like, but there were signs everywhere saying "Don't feed the seagulls." So we didn't. But we did smuggle out some corn biscuits for later. :D

Once we got back out to the parking lot, I figured the gulls were fair game, but there weren't any around. It seems they were all behind the restaurant, begging for food from the diners there. I saw one fly far overhead so I tossed a bit of biscuit up in the air and the gull managed to swoop down to catch it. The next thing I knew, there were hundreds of seagulls surrounding me, scolding me and urging me to feed them. It was like a scene straight out of Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds."

It took me less than a minute to realize that the way things were going, the odds were in favor of me getting hit by a birdie dirty bomb, so I started tossing the biscuit bits away from me. It didn't take long to exhaust my biscuit supply and the birds wandered back to the restaurant to resume their vigil over the diners.

This week, of course, it's back to the salt mines; holidays can't last forever. Back to parking in front of my computer and drawing designer public water systems. Work has it's good points, however. One of the engineers came up with tickets to the baseball game Thursday night. They were good tickets, too. Front row, along the first base line. The evening was pleasantly cool and it was $1 beer night, which is a good thing, if you like beer. Why can't they have $1 margarita night?

Tulsa has a nice baseball stadium. The grass is like carpet, lush and green, just about as perfect grass as I've ever seen. The seating is on aluminum risers, which the kids have discovered, makes a satisfying racket when stomped with both feet, or when rolling a ball down the steps, or when running. Baseball attracts kids like biscuits attract seagulls, and there were plenty of them.

At one point, we couldn't see the game because of all the children huddled in front of us, leaning over the wall, harassing the players, begging for a ball or autograph. It made me wonder if there was a sign in the players' dugout that says "Do not feed the kids."