Category Archives: ocean related

Quote For The Weekend (Tide Pool Edition)

Posted on February 12, 2012 by PB Rippey

“If a child is to keep his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in.” —Rachel Carson … Continue reading →

Posted in Avoiding My Writing, Children's Books, fish, ocean related, Quotes, Santa Barbara, Writer quotes, Writing, Writing Tips | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

I Told You So

Posted on January 16, 2012 by PB Rippey

We hit town late afternoon-ish and I immediately honor the request for the museum and its entertaining dinosaur footprints indented in cement, pgymy mammoth bones, taxidermied (the fraying sort) mountain animals and vultures, buttons igniting barn owl shrieks and snake … Continue reading →

Posted in Children's Books, Fiction, ocean related, Poetry, Santa Barbara, Writing | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Book Impatience (Stop It!)

Posted on November 15, 2011 by PB Rippey

Part of me is content with our preschooler’s current home library (I’m referring not to a digital library, but the kind housing the real things–colors, textures, scents, sounds of pages turning, imagine it) and I can be heard gleefully spouting … Continue reading →

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Dive, PB, Dive!

Posted on November 9, 2011 by PB Rippey

Funny—I looked in the mirror and there she was—deep-sea darling—my mind instantly obsessing on the Mariana Trench and how even though it’s the deepest spot on Earth I’m barely acquainted with it and how silly is that for an author revising a novel filled with … Continue reading →

Posted in Avoiding My Writing, fish, middle grade, ocean related, Writer's Angst, Writing Progress | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Wet Beach

Posted on October 25, 2011 by PB Rippey

Pashmina fog. You can’t really write that, but–“smoky” is cliché, the cat feet brilliance is spoken for and I have a gray pashmina I never wear that is the hue and untouchable texture of  last Saturday morning’s fog. You cannot write … Continue reading →

Posted in Avoiding My Writing, ocean related, Writer's Angst, Writing, WTF | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Quote For The Weekend (Early Edition As Leaving, Again, Briefly, For Cooler Environs That Happen To Include Beach-Whooping, Intrepid Anemone Poking (parent-monitored), Kicked Sandcastles And The Kind Of Fresh Air That Knocks Out Preschoolers And Their Mothers In A Very, Very Good Way)

Posted on September 22, 2011 by PB Rippey

“To stand at the edge of the sea, to sense the ebb and flow of the tides, to feel the breath of a mist moving over a great salt marsh, to watch the flight of shore birds that have swept … Continue reading →

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Llama Laugh

Posted on September 5, 2011 by PB Rippey

His laugh: Vaguely hyena, part labrador-loose-in-the-surf, not mocking, but the tiniest bit cryptic, comically so. He made me want to write. Since it was too wonderfully cold for sitting outside by the fountain and attention-sucking candlelight, for two nights we kept company, this llama and … Continue reading →

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Respite Rant

Posted on August 19, 2011 by PB Rippey

In the past 24 hours my youngest sister and family made it home to Iowa in what was supposed to be a 3 hour tour, I mean a 4 hour flight, but quickly morphed into one of those all-nighter/early-next-morning nightmares during … Continue reading →

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Notes From SW

Posted on August 14, 2011 by PB Rippey

Many research scribbles in my notebook, now a crinkled, battered thing from sitting in the soak zones at the marine mammal shows. When you see dolphins, pilot whales and orcas that close, when sharks glide right over your head, when … Continue reading →

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Quote For The Weekend: Sea World Edition

Posted on August 13, 2011 by PB Rippey

“Why does Sea World have a seafood restaurant?? I’m halfway through my fish burger and I realize, Oh my God….I could be eating a slow learner.” —Lynda Montgomery

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Sea World Antidote

Posted on August 10, 2011 by PB Rippey

As our trip to Sea World with my son’s cousins nears, I am compelled to post a school of links that will hopefully offset the ocean of hypocrisy I am thrown into by paying steep ticket prices to view the … Continue reading →

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Reveries

Posted on August 9, 2011 by PB Rippey

I’ve been seeing so many people from my past lately—I mean the past past, hazy-rocketing back to elementary school and working up from there—and it’s affected my dreaming. I have hosted reunions in my dream homes, welcoming total strangers to parties … Continue reading →

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Tra La La

Posted on July 28, 2011 by PB Rippey

And now there is no time to be afraid of anything as tomorrow my son and I once again head N.O.R.T.H. Our beach awaits. As do sisters and cousins and beachside cafes and grilled cheese sandwiches made by someone other … Continue reading →

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See World

Posted on July 18, 2011 by PB Rippey

Soon, this extremely amateur marine scientist, dolphin lover, anti-orcas-in-big-pools-putting-on-shows type, One Who Is Against Ray Petting Whether 2 Fingers Are Used Instead Of Your Whole Hand Or Not As You’re Still Diminishing The Ray’s Mucus Layer And Once That Happens They Get … Continue reading →

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Watermelon People, For Instance

Posted on July 15, 2011 by PB Rippey

My head and my brain are still at the writing retreat, clicking away, processing vitals, etc. I hope they are enjoying themselves. I returned home with my son to a house packed with visitors both human and canine, dinner for 8 … Continue reading →

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The Baby Blessing (With Writers)

Posted on July 11, 2011 by PB Rippey

So the baby blessing took place in my mother’s faintly overgrown backyard, guests’ heads thunked by falling trumpet vine blossoms (they are as large and as heavy as some sandwiches), the mingling of shadows and vines and succulents forcing the … Continue reading →

Posted in books, Faction, Fiction, Me and Us, middle grade, ocean related, Santa Barbara, Writer's Angst, Writing, Writing Progress | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Retreat

Posted on July 6, 2011 by PB Rippey

Tomorrow I go off the grid and to my borrowed writing-house, get-away-pad, writing-retreat-with-fountain for a few days. Since there will be no wireless connection, I will revise sans the usual distractions (Facebook, The Pioneer Woman, Yahoo “News”, hulu) while my son eats … Continue reading →

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Quote For The Weekend: Holiday Edition

Posted on July 3, 2011 by PB Rippey

The American Flagfish (captured edition) The best way to enhance freedom in other lands is to demonstrate here that our democratic system is worthy of emulation. —Jimmy Carter

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Quote For The Weekend

Posted on June 18, 2011 by PB Rippey

PS. They’re real “I need an hour alone before dinner, with a drink, to go over what I’ve done that day. I can’t do it late in the afternoon because I’m too close to it. Also, the drink helps. It … Continue reading →

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Monday Tussle

Posted on June 6, 2011 by PB Rippey

Welllllllll…Soooooooooooo…It’s one of those mornings when you use that refrain as you do a Trader Joe’s run, a shoestore run for the little guy, a Target run and a Lowe’s run because you can’t live without knowing if they have … Continue reading →

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Notes From Here

Posted on May 30, 2011 by PB Rippey

Beach as mental equalizer (despite persistent wind). Impossible to crack open a book or uncap a pen here (though not because of wind). The way the sand is riled, looks as though whole, transportable cities (twirling towers of particles) are whisking … Continue reading →

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Gentle Jurassic Giant

Posted on May 21, 2011 by PB Rippey

Largest fish in the ocean Wonderful piece in the June Smithsonian about whale sharks. If, like me, you are an ocean fanatic (often more than just the armchair variety) and in the throes of revising your middle-grade novel that has everything … Continue reading →

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No Whining

Posted on May 6, 2011 by PB Rippey

No whining when it’s hard to write/revise because: 1. because a dog charged your cats at 6:00a.m. and in her haste to control her animal, the owner, lunging across your front yard and bashing into the wall below your kitchen … Continue reading →

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Ocean Magic

Posted on April 24, 2011 by PB Rippey

If, like me, you are mad about the ocean and all manner of marine life,  like googly transparent things with 10 stomachs that live at extreme depths and if you, too, receive the Holy Viperfishes, Batgirl! reaction when viewing a 35 … Continue reading →

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Tides

Posted on March 20, 2011 by PB Rippey

Amazing minus tide Friday in Santa Barbara (coinciding with—or because of?—the Super Moon). I forgot my camera, but my sister had her phone and all its very cool, very smart apps. The wind was up, so we couldn’t stay long—my … Continue reading →

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