Loroco blooms, Squid boats and Mortality checks?

Until relatively recently, I did not know what the hell a Loroco was. A few years ago while living in LA, I found a Salvadorian restaurant serving Pupusas. Good stuff! Kind of a 'turnover-ish' looking food - made with masa and a filling. One of the fillings was a 'Loroco y Queso'. I liked it right away. Who the hell can hate anything with a clump of cheese, anyway? After moving up to sort-of Central California, I had not really thought of Loroco at all. At some point, my wife related a story to me of a Salvadorian friend of hers. They were driving north on Pacific Coast Highway, when the Salvadorian lady excitedly started to point at something by the side of the road, and asked Pam to stop. Pam described the situation as a full adult regressing chronologically to a little girl. She went up to these long tall stalks with little flowers on them - and started to pick the flowers. 'Loroco' she called it. On one of our many drives between home and LA, she pointed out the Loroco flowers blooming along PCH between the northern end of Malibu and Vandenberg AFB in Camarillo. But they only bloom in the springtime. What the hell does this have to do with fishing or anything? Well, hang on and I'll connect it all. As I normally leave our house at 4 in the morning to go to LA, I am driving down PCH at 6 or so in the morning. Starting around August/September, the commercial squid boats are gathering off Point Mugu. You can tell they are fishing for squid from all the bright lights illuminating the water. Sometimes there are as many as 30 or 40 boats all clustered in a small area. Seeing this always reminds me of my days as a party boat deckhand in the winters. Putting out the big lights at Catalina Island and waiting for the squid to gather around thick enough to net them for use as bait - 'making bait' we called it. So finally, what the hell is this all about? Well, I make the drive to LA almost weekly, year-round. Sometimes the only things that remind me of the time of year it is, is when I see the Loroco flowers blooming on the long stalks......and the squid boats gathered up catching squid.

Lately, we have been having a lot of friends and acquaintances having health issues - heart problems and cancer. Not that the conditions are anything rare or extraordinary - just seems to have a stronger effect when it is YOUR friends and acquaintances having these issues. These are mortality checks of the most blatant kind. The kind of situations that change your life, buy things that you should not buy, do things that you should not or could not do. As most of us do not have luxury of knowing when and how the end is coming, we have to decide WHEN to do some of the things you should not do.

So, these are some of the things I think about while trying to decide whether to go on another long trip. Can I afford it? Not really. Should I go? Debatable. It is November. The Loroco blooms have not taken place yet. The squid boats are out in force in front of Point Dume. Do I send my deposit money to initiate another extravagant fishing trip?