The White Menace
I think as much as anything, this blog is about living in California. When it's not about politics, of course. Or popular culture. Or other blogs. Or my kids. Or the Catholic church. Or MPH. Really, it's troubling the amount of space and link-action that guy gets around here.

So really I guess this blog is almost never about California. I do vaguely recall making lists of things about California that are interesting, beyond the obvious things like the constant horrifying unknown of earthquakes and/or race riots.

I suppose I could go back and check, but really, no one who reads this regularly thinks that is likely to happen.

No, instead I'll just say that if you've ever read in this blog something about "The best part about living in California is..." just disregard it because I was in all likelihood talking directly out of my ass.

I can say that with confidence because I am about to tell you what is really the best thing about living in California: being able to call friends and family living in the east or the midwest during 80º fall or winter days and laugh at them as they slowly freeze to death waiting for the truck to come around to deliver the kerosene or coal or cord-wood or whale blubber or whatever it is you people burn to keep the hypothermia at bay.

Imagine my shock and horror, then, when I woke up this morning to find the very low surrounding foothills covered with snow.

I'm not saying there was any anywhere close to the ground where I live, but it was inappropriately close, like a sweaty man in an elevator when you're the only two in it. Except this was more awkward.

The problem is, I paid way too much for this house. That's OK though, because so did all my neighbors within a 200 mile radius. The median house price here in Riverside County is about $330,000. In neighboring Orange County it's between $500,000-$600,000 (shoreline bogarting motherfuckers, the lot of 'em). The reason people will do something as stupid as buying into this market is to avoid the snow. Snow is something that happens to other people. If we want snow, we have to make a conscious choice and a subsequent physical effort to find it up in the surrounding mountains--way way up in the surrounding mountains. There we can visit it, ogle it, wonder at it like we would the Bearded Lady or the Dog Faced Boy and then leave it behind. It's not supposed to follow us home.

How bad was it today? The high was 48º. The high. If I try to look at what the low was, I get suicidal, so I won't risk it. By comparison, it is currently 41º in Detroit, 40º in Chicago, 47º in Indianapolis, 46º in Wichita and 41º in fucking Omaha Goddamn Nebraska. I mean yes, we do have the fall-back position of lack-of-mountains and tendencies toward redneckedness with which to mock most of these places, but come on. The Earth and it's damned weather system is robbing us of our ace in the hole. In terms of both weather and property value, today was an unmitigated disaster.

The only logical conclusion I can reach is that the Earth is somehow angry at me personally. So for the record, I would like to say publicly that I am sorry I do not drive a hybrid car. I know, the minivan is not the best thing to be driving back and forth everyday to my kid's school, but the wife and I were waiting for the prices to come down a little bit as more hybrids reached the market. We will buy one, Earth, we promise. Just as soon as the time is right, we're going to be right on that. We're looking at 2006 at the latest.

So enough with the fucking snow and its companion coldness. I want to be sitting in my in-laws' backyard on Thanksgiving in a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, breaking out in sweat-beads from the heat as I talk to my dad in Detroit. I want to be able to tell him what a dumbass he lives for living so close to the Arctic Circle.

Isn't that what the holidays are all about?



This post on the Narcissus Scale: 9.0


Pops


PS: Please, no "Californians are such wusses" comments. We know. We really do. In our defense I'd like to say we are very tan.

- posted by Pops @ 9:29 PM