Monday Smiles – 3/3/2013
The rain has finally stopped here in Socal but it’s foggy as far as the eye can see outside my office window. For weeks, the newspapers have been trumpeting the drought, the worst in 500 years, they say. We are offered almost daily pictures of shrinking reservoirs and dying crops. Politicians, from local to national, scramble to get in on the news-fest by declaring emergency and revealing plans. So, you’d think the storm would have been greeted with cheers but then, of course, our news media seems to have perfected the art of The Half Empty
Glass. After Forest Fires and Drought, Now Rains Torments Southern California reads the CNN weekend headline. And, of course, when I consulted my online news last night as the storm was tapering off, I found that Rain Gives California Little Drought Help (ABCNews) and California Faces Critical Drought Despite Recent Rains (Sacramento Bee). It turns out (if you are willing to read beyond the headlines) that the storm raised our annual rainfall from 10% of normal to 50% … in one storm. How much do the geniuses in the newsroom want in one storm? Don’t they remember Noah? I can see the headlines. Second Consecutive Week of Continuous Rain Brings Record Mudslides. Crackpot in Yorba Linda Builds Ark. Rain Does Little to Help Drought.
Personally, I enjoyed our rainy weekend. It brought solitude in the park on Saturday Morning and kept people in their houses on Saturday Night. BJ’s Grill, a restaurant I said I’d never frequent again because of poor service, was half-empty so we gave it a chance and had a nice dinner with good service. We saw Three Days To Kill, an odd mix of bloody violence, dysfunctional family humor and romance starring Kevin Costner in a half-empty theater. Recommended only for empty-headed entertainment. We went for lunch on Sunday at Schlotsky’s (Reuben sandwiches and Carvel ice cream for dessert) then ran errands at Trader Joe’s and Target. Yes, sundries. Yes, in the rain. And I still made it home for a long afternoon nap in my recliner to the sound of light rain. I grilled mahi-mahi with citrus olive oil and a citrus rub for dinner, then settled back into my recliner to catch up on some reading while Muri watched the Oscars. Personally, I don’t care much what the Hollywood elite thinks of their own produce but I was glad Twenty Feet from Stardom, perhaps my favorite documentary ever, was recognized. Darlene Love’s acceptance speech, which received a standing ovation, will be a classic.
And now it’s Monday. The rain has stopped. I actually have work to do as soon as I finish this post, which is why I’m in my office. Real work. What a concept. So, It’s Monday and I’m smiling.
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Older Eyes 
March 3, 2014 at 11:28 am
It’s that age old problem of “When it rains, it pours” ya know! A kazillion people in this area are now grumping like crazy at the weather forecasters because the big snow storm they had been predicting all week that was going to make this past weekend terrible with heavy snowfall and low (very low) temps through tomorrow didn’t materialize the way it had been moving. The forecasters kept mentioning that they were having a terribly difficult time predicting when, where and how much snow we would get because it kept changing in size and direction on them I’m perfectly content with the approximate 1-3 inches that it finally left behind! Funny, how the media does stretch things at times, isn’t it?