Cooped

It's raining today in Los Angeles. This is no surprise, because it's the big marathon tomorrow. The weather is perfect or nearly so every day of the year except for one in which it's terribly important that it be so good. One must expect that, and one must also expect that I would have mandatory or virtually mandatory engagements on that day as well. I'd love nothing more than to stay in bed all day long with nothing but bathroom breaks, but it's not in the cards.

Of course I was up late carousing last night, and am presently nursing a 'wounded soldier' left over from that. What better way to head off a hangover than to head out into driving rain at 8 in the morning, then to attend a Toastmasters contest? I may have won, but I owe that to my lack of an opponent more so than my very disciplined preparatory work. I wish I could have slept until the parties started in the evening.

Rain, rain: Should it stay or should it go now?

One might think that someone accustomed to a very low frequency of rain throughout his life would have little to say on the matter compared to someone of an opposite background, but I do have some thoughts. It has been raining about all day here in Los Angeles, which is the obvious explanation for "Why rain, why now?". I suppose that most people don't experience it the way I do. Of course, if it happens when I'm inside, then it is the same. I hear it constantly and occasionally glance at the window. It substantially influences my mood and state of mind in a way that can be good or bad. Ideally I don't have to go out in it, but that isn't really practical.

On Rain

It's raining here in LA. LA feels a lot like Phoenix in the sense that it doesn't feel terribly well equipped for a rainstorm. In many places in every neighborhood, the water pools in the worst places. Actually, this can happen even when it's not raining, so much do people here love unleashing their hoses on the hapless landscape.

There are certainly those who dislike the rain, and it can be a severe inconvenience even for the rest of us. One of the last times that it rained, I was on my way to a shoot, and had no intention of being delayed by the weather. On this occasion, I needed to get across the street to catch a bus. Unfortunate, there was a torrent of water rising above the sidewalk, and something like a foot deep on the street. With the bus visible on the other side of the street and no apparent alternative, I rushed across the street, utterly soaking my beat-up sneakers. It was a little like fording the river on Oregon Trail.

I love the rain nonetheless. The precarious health of our environment depends on it. It feels ok to stay inside and do little when it's raining. I don't like it when the Dodgers get rained out or delayed, but delays have been seldom and cancellations have happened about never. I guess that's all that I felt moved to write about the rain.