RHOADES LESS TRAVELED:

Warning: This is a cobbled-together column. If you’re looking for logic and continuity, Tony Dodero’s “Taking Notes” appears in this spot next Monday.

At any rate, sharks have been on my mind ever since that retired veterinarian was ambushed from below by a great white in Solana Beach and several miles of Orange County beaches closed as a precaution.

I dreamed of a “Jaws”-like scenario in which I met the fate of Mr. Quinn.

I thought I’d forged past all of that. Then I saw a fisherman in Newport Beach hoist up a leopard shark over the weekend. In actuality, it was about 2-feet-long, but tell that to my subconscious. I had a second dream and that mama must have been 30 feet.

OK, I measured, it’s official. The “soccer prevention boulders” — installed to turn Paularino from an active to a passive park – are 51 yards from the sandbox, which means a well-kicked, errant soccer ball could wreak havoc, but then again, so what?

Do we have to safeguard everything?

As a child, I got bonked on the head by soccer balls, basketballs, baseballs, stones, you name it.

On second thought, I could be the poster boy for “passive” proponents: Don’t let this happen to your kid. Zero tolerance on soccer.

The last time I talked with Skosh Monahan, he took me to task for allowing a letter-writer to call him “leprechaun” in the Daily Pilot. I agreed. Below the belt, in a manner of speaking.

Now that Monahan has declared his candidacy for a Costa Mesa City Council seat, however, I wonder: Will he be lucky? Will he be charmed?

And I can’t get that 1960s cereal ditty off my mind.

Took a tour of the Costa Mesa Senior Center and some of the seniors seemed miffed at the scrutiny the center is under.

Councilwoman Wendy Leece is either a busybody or doing due diligence, depending on to whom you talk.

Aviva Goelman, who runs the place, couldn’t have been kinder nor more graceful — yes, I mean graceful not gracious — when I asked questions and brought up Leece, who is investigating after a handful of seniors complained.

I shouldn’t have been surprised. Goelman has a big screen-sized rendering of Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly in her office.

She’s a former ballerina, and the irony is not lost: With Leece checking under this and that rock, Aviva better stay on her toes.

BRADY RHOADES is the Daily Pilot’s managing editor. He may be reached at [email protected] or at (714) 966-4607.