Oceans freak me out. They are so massive; they go from here to there. (Points towards horizon.) When you get into them, they flip you over, then try to drown you. #sandfacial

They are full of deadly beasts (not as scary as the sharks in swimming pools swum in alone, but I digress… some of you know what I’m talking about).

And salt water? Blurg. Great for cooking pasta, but lukewarm, sore throat gargling liquid for me to freestyle through? No, thank you.

Rivers, though? Ah, rivers… Bliss. Doesn’t this look nice?

Cool, refreshing water. Tree swings. Inner tubes. Shade.

I don’t care how far rivers actually stretch, so long as I don’t have to squint out towards watery infinity. Seriously, that still sounds good to you? An endless blue expanse, placid on the surface but teeming with monsters underneath? Yikes. All yours. Water you can’t drink that buoys you up – harshly exposed to relentless sunlight – until you give up, and treat yourself like a bag of unwanted kittens, or a Mafia snitch, or a failed poet? Ugh. Give me a snaking river any day.

Which of these is scarier?

My vote? The eel. (Full disclosure — that is inside an aquarium behind a bar in Las Vegas (Golden Nugget). So what? I watched it watching and hiding. It’s huge, and creepy, and scary. The bartender said she hadn’t seen it in months.)

Where were we? Oh yeah, rivers also try to drown you, but at least they have the courtesy to numb you and/or knock you out on a rock first. Rivers: Nature’s dentists.

…yikes, have I gotten off topic. (I’ll have to save the rest for a future showdown: rivers vs. oceans.) This was supposed to be a continuation of a previous post. I meant to tell you what was around the corner of the river. Here, I’ll show you now, and tell you more later:

Ripe, ripening and green blackberries

(photo courtesy of Ragesoss/Wikipedia)