The other day, I was eating Tostitos Hint of Lime tortilla chips--the ones covered with lime flavored salt. As a digression, when I was in middle school, some of my Mexican classmates brought in packets of lime flavored salt that became all the rage. This was the mid 90's, when super sour Japanese candy was the coolest thing in our middle school. The Asian kids, budding little entrepreneurs, would buy the candy at the Japanese market and make a profit selling it to kids who had no idea that there were other ethnic markets around. The lime salt was something that you would slowly eat, or eat all at once to experience the extreme sour taste that kids at my school were obsessed with. Later, the practice of seeing who could withstand the sourest candy and salt (in some cases, pure citric acid crystals) turned into seeing who was brave/stupid enough to snort the crystals. Rest assured, no one could snort a whole packet of lime salt, and those who snorted too much exhibited such signs of agony that the practice was soon abandoned all together.

Back to the Tostitos. There is a thin layer of lime salt coating each chip. As you eat it, a progression of tastes and textures ensues. Sweet, sour, salty, crunchy, corny, mushy. The Sweet, sour and salty tastes peak shortly after the crunch and before the chip is chewed into mush, and mixes tasting like...

...something unexpected from my childhood that I could not put my finger on. I tried chip after chip, closing my eyes and concentrating on the taste and texture. The memory would flash in and out so quickly, I couldn't make out its form or any details. The only thing I had to go on was a fleeting, faded impression.

When I was five, we often had food-based projects that we worked on together. Making stone soup and gluing beans and pasta on to construction paper come to mind. My favorite activity involved making cereal into necklaces. I brought home my colorful necklace to show my parents my work for the day, and they admired it I'm sure. They told me that, although I was not allowed to eat sugar-loaded kids cereals (once, I got a box of Mr. T's breakfast cereal as a kid and almost died of happiness. Mr T. on the box + peanut butter crunchiness make for a kickass cereal IMHO) I could eat my necklace.

I chewed off the colorful loops and enjoyed this rare treat, to the point where I still remember the taste of the thin cotton string that had been threaded through them. This was the cereal with Toucan Sam that in the slimmest of moments when eating a Tostitos Hint of Lime chip had burst forth from the dusty cobwebbed recesses of my childhood, but only after about 20 chips eaten in quick succession.

It sounds ridiculous, but I maintain that there is a split second when you eat a Tostitos Hint of Lime chip, that it tastes almost exactly like Froot Loops. Try it--it may just blow your mind...

Though not very good for the many sea lions around here, I am enjoying the warmer water up here. I've been seeing comb jellies and senorita fish cruise around the kelp forest in front of Lover's Point, and tons of juvenile rockfish. The alga and surf grass are so thick and verdant that the waterscape looks like a CG created environment -- especially with the light cutting through the water at polarized angles, sharp as a razor.

The other night, we went diving off of Breakwater when it started to get dark. The ocean was as calm as a lake, and we passed a small sea lion hiding in a cave in the concrete -- the Marine Mammal Center had already checked the little guy out.

On a side note, the MMC are completely swamped with calls right now. El Nino, the same phenomenon that makes the water a more pleasant temperature for us, is driving all of their food further offshore, resulting in a famine. The MMC must help the individuals who are in the worst shape, while helping the greatest number (just as Community Emergency Response Teams look to serve the greatest good for the greatest number of people during an emergency event). Though emaciated, this one at least is responsive and is able to take care of itself for now.

Out several hundred feet past the shore, we tuned on flashlights and descended next to the jetty. Turning off the lights, bioluminescent plankton lit up "lightsaber blue" whenever we moved. Some of the glowing chunks were a couple of millimeters in length, and I think simply swooshing water back and forth between my hands was the most fun I've had in a long time. Ooh! Sparkly light! I could have spent hours doing this, honestly.

The animals were out in force - rockfish, gobies, sculpin, sand dabs and perch seemed stunned by our flashlight beam. Moving slowly, I was able to get a half an inch within these fish. I think they only knew something was up by feeling the disturbances in water pressure as my hand got near.

Normally, I don't get excited watching sea cucumbers and sea start, but watching them on the dive was like being inside of Dr. Seuss' brain. Their branched feeding tentacles were stretched out like some sort of weird tropical plant. One by one, they inserted the feathery tentacles into its mouth, sucking off the plankton and other detritus-y goodness (mmm!) and then pulling the tentacle out (reminded me of the rabbit-in-the-hat trick for some reason. The sea stars seemed to be galloping about the rocks around anemones and other inverts, in search of food or something.

We moved out into the sand at around 20 feet of depth, amongst the tube anemones and worms. I dug in the sand and found a decent sized shrimp. A sheep crab the size of a child's head came bounding past us, looking like the giant mutant creatures that come out of the Fog in Stephen King's book. And then they appeared...

I had always wanted to see octopus on a dive -- on this night I saw probably 15 individuals.  We found them crawling across the ocean floor. The light seemed to partially stun them, slowing their reflexes, but one of them shot out a mini-cloud of ink. Once they found a nearby hole in the sand, they sunk their arms in first and very slowly drew their whole body down. Reverse rabbit-in-the-hat trick. Contortionist masters of sleight of hand and deception -- Houdini could learn from these cephalopods.

Though the warmer waters are not so good for everything, they do bring warmer water species further north than you would normally see them. It would be awesome to see dorado around here (in deeper water), and yellowtails and sheepheads as well.