Glory For Gloria At AOG!

What an exciting day! The Individual High Glide competition was held at Pacific Northwest Stadium and, you guessed it, Gloria Gull took home the gold. She beat out about 150 competitors from all over the area. Her gliding was perfection and she even had time to do a couple of spectacular hovers since her closest competitor couldn't seem to stay aloft and in perfect form at the same time. I think the look on her face says it all -- confident, serene, elegant. She was truly amazing.

The weather was in perfect form also. Rain this morning gave way to clear skies and high winds; conditions couldn’t have been better, which was good because I don't think Gloria was in any mood to tolerate anymore weather delays, nor was she particularly interested in how my back felt (better, actually). Her determination was obvious because she met me at work and accompanied me as I drove home, adopting a fairly threatening posture over my windshield. I changed clothes as fast as I could, grabbed three bags of chopped up bread and headed for the marina.

The wind was strong enough that it almost blew me over but the gulls were in their element and Team Gull brought home six medals in seven events. We won’t talk about that seventh event except to say that it involved a miscalculation by a young, fairly inexperienced gull.

After the competition the gulls zoomed off to see what else was happening and I took refuge in my favorite café to warm up. I dove off the edge of my comfort cliff and into a bowl of curried turkey and apple soup. Normally I don’t get any more adventurous than tomato soup, but this was actually good – different, but good. Then I bought a book and came home.

If there’s gull poop on my windshield in the morning I’m going to take the high road and assume Gloria was thanking me for my support, and the bread, in the only way she knew how.