I live in Los Angeles. It doesn’t rain very often here. in the past couple of days, we’ve had the first measurable rain in the better part of a year.
I even had to turn on my windshield wipers. Let’s see, where’s that knob? Wow, they still work.
So after seeing pictures of the flooding back in Mass. over the past few days, I was amused by this sign on the door to our local super market. I guess they felt the need to tell people that the floors get slippery when they get wet. Of course, today the sun was shining. It may of course rain again this year. Can’t be too careful.
This post is intended for my friends on the east coast. It is raining in Los Angeles. It has been raining off and on for last couple of weeks. It’s been snowing in the mountains. This is good for us. That doesn’t mean that I like it.
So I am a “blow-in”. I moved to San Pedro in the summer of 2012. The term “blow-in” is a somewhat derogatory term used in many suburban towns in Massachusetts. A “blow-in” is some one who has blown in from somewhere else and insists that they know how things ought to be run.
The opposite of a “blow-in” is a “townie”. A townie is someone who has lived there all their life along with their parents and the parent’s parents. A townie has had the same teachers in school as their parents.
But I digress. Back to the subject at hand, rain. Up until last week, I hadn’t seen rain in the better part of a year. I had almost forgotten how to turn on my windshield wipers. I had to dig out the umbrella from the back of my Jeep.
One way, we can tell if we have had a rainy winter is that one can see green grass growing on the hillsides. The same grass will be golden brown by August. This rain probably won’t mean the end to the drought, but it will help.
As many of you have heard that our rain is due to El Nino this year. El Nino changes the jet stream such that low pressure systems that would normally turn left at the Pacific coast and head up to Washington and Oregon. Now the low’s head right for LA.
In Mass. one never sees any old VW beetles. They have all rusted away. In LA, 30 year old beetles are common. No rain means no rust.
The other effect of the rain is mud. After the wild fires in the summer, all of the vegetation is gone. So when it rains in the winter, there is nothing to hold the earth in place. The end result is mud slides. A very nasty mess.
I will close with a humorous video I recently found on youtube about how LA people react to the news of rain.
This morning while I was waiting for my darling wife Paula to get ready for the day I observed her putting on her socks and shoes. So she put on one sock and then one shoe, then repeat the process for the other foot. Now told her in no uncertain terms that this was so wrong. Any enlightened individual knows that one should put one sock, then the other sock, then the shoes.
So that brought back the memory of the routine done on the TV show “All in the Family” back in the 70’s where Meathead (played by Rob Reiner) and Archie (played by Carroll O’Connor) have a heated discussion on which is the correct way to put on one’s socks and shoes.
So (with thanks to Youtube) here is the clip from All in the Family
So dear readers, what do you think is the right way to put on your socks and shoes? Here is a poll to answer once and for all time this important question. I will update everyone in a week or two with the results of the poll.
Getting to hit the road again. Today we will be heading to Cary, NC. GPS says 320 miles. This is a bit less than yesterday. We should be off a little bit earlier than yesterday.
Free breakfast downstairs. then we get going.
We will be traveling through Baltimore, around DC, then VA, then NC.
I live in Los Angeles. It doesn’t rain very often here. in the past couple of days, we’ve had the first measurable rain in the better part of a year.
calherewecome 