Seal Beach

has a very cute little Main Street. Bakeries, pet shops, and bona fide barber shops - the kind with the striped spinning pole outside the door. Strangely enough, it's a bit lacking in surf shops. But, also strangely enough, the few surf shops it does have are ethnically-diversely staffed. Yay Seal Beach. Mostly, these establishments appear to be patronized by the almost-elderly. I met one such couple dining on a patio, and they had the most winsome of puppies with them: a ten-week-old yellow lab.

And yet, even with its adorableness, there was something unappealing about Seal Beach. A. I had to take the 405 to get there. B. It looked grubby, for some reason. Could be actual litter, could be a certain unrefined quality of the sand, could be that I just came back from Maui. C. They weren't lying when they said, "that's some damn smelly water." D. The waves sucked today. Surfers I saw not a one, though there were a ton of people doing that parachute windsurfing thing, whatever that's called. It looked fun. Nevertheless, the water stunk.

In conclusion, would I go back to Seal Beach? Probably not. I realized: maybe I actually do like nature, just a little bit, and maybe I'd like my beach to look (and smell) a little more natural than that one.