Rain and Racism

After a week of downpours, on Saturday, God once more smiled on Los Angeles.

No, the writer's strike didn't end. We just had a break in the seemingly never ending rain.

I hustled myself outside and took my sons for a five-hour jaunt around the neighborhood.

Yes, I said five hours.

We strolled in a very leisurely manner, saw gargantuan plants, hit up a couple of cafes and visited a few of those trendy boutiques that seem so ubiquitous around here these days.

Can I just say that if you're a boutique owner and you're trying to hawk liquid soap at $24 a bottle, you'd better learn to speak to people when they come in to look around. If I'm in your little shop for over five minutes, there's only one other customer in there besides me, and you can't speak, then guess what? Adios. Sayonara. Buh-bye. I'm not "The Terminator". I won't be back.

Seriously, in case you missed the memo, rents are crazy in LA. So, unless you're a trust-fund baby with money to burn, you better move some product so your shop can stay open.

Anyway, the great thing about walking around is that you can turn a corner and see... the local Jiffy Lube.

No, just kidding. There's nothing too special about that Jiffy Lube except that it's been the subject of one of those local TV news undercover investigations a few times. And yes, they do cheat people.

But forget about lying, cheating, scamming Jiffy Lube. Instead, check out those palm trees, and then those amazing, majestic, snow capped mountains in the background.

That snow's only 25 minutes north of my house. Well, 25 minutes if I don't hit any traffic, which would happen at, oh, I don't know, midnight maybe.

It's with good reason that my eldest asked me, "How come they got snow on the mountains and we don't have any here?"

What could I do but say, "Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in '84 and '88. Jackson ran a good campaign. And Obama ran a good campaign here."

I don't know why the kids seemed so confused by my response. I mean, my seven year-old had the nerve to say, "Mom, why are you bringing up Jesse Jackson when I'm asking you about snow-capped mountains? It seems sort of like you're trying to inject race into a discussion about snow at higher elevations."

Darn that smart boy, but I was careful to tell him that that was not my intention at all and that he's reading into my comments. Gosh, what is this world coming to when even seven year-olds are playing the race card?

I distracted him from his train of thought by telling him we'd go get a new hamster. I suppose I had to keep the promise, and now we have a fat brown hamster named Hannah running around in a cage.

Let that be a warning to all you parents out there that when your child thinks you're being a racist, you end up with a new pet!

**Note: Trust me, I did not really respond like that to my son! I'm just being sarcastic about Bill Clinton's ridiculous comments in response to an unrelated question about Barack Obama. If you click on the link you can watch the entire thing on YouTube, but if you read the comments in the YouTube post, well, you'll see just how much race really does matter in this country.

Sliding Down a Hill Into the Waiting Arms of the Neighborhood Jehovah's Witnesses

Remember that old Tony! Toni! Tone! song, "It Never Rains in Southern California"?



Obviously when the guys wrote the song back in 1990, they hadn't consulted their neighborhood fortune teller because, hello, Southern California got hit by a tornado last night!

I don't care if it's 18 years after the song! If they'd had a really top notch fortune teller, the song should have been able to predict this current disastrous storm! Take away Tony! Toni! Tone!'s cool R&B psychic cards right now!

For those of you who live in other parts of the world where there's rain and snow all time, I'm sure you're saying, "Stop yer whining, you spoiled (but undeniably hot) Angeleno!" But this year marks my 10th anniversary of living in LA so I am entitled to whine all I want!

I mean, the wind killed my umbrella yesterday morning! I loved that umbrella!

You have no sympathy for me? Gosh, how could you be so heartless and evil?

How about this: On top of the umbrella death, I live at the top of a pretty steep hill. I have to walk down that hill to take my kids to and from school, and it's been raining so hard that a river of water is cascading down the hill.

My tennis shoes got soaked during the walk to school in the morning. So before I left the house to go pick my youngest up from pre-k, my smarty-pants self decided to put on some boots. You know, keep my feet warmer and drier. Boots, without heels, I might add!

But STILL disaster struck!

At the steepest point of the incline, I slipped on a plastic bag I couldn't see because of all the water. Damn the slick bottom of those boots. Double damn the LA County Board of Supervisors for refusing to ban plastic bags this past Tuesday!

The mathematical equation looks like this:

Plastic Bag(Boots + Steep Incline + Rushing Water) = Yours Truly Biting the Dust

Er, except it wasn't dust.

What was it?

Use your brains, grasshoppers! When you mix dirt and water together, what do you get?

Cue Jeopardy theme music... Quick!!! Give us the answer!!!

I'll give you a hint: It starts with an "M".

You got it yet?

Oh, good! I'm so proud of you! You figured out that water and dirt together makes... MUD!

Yes, I slid down the hill and, TA-DA!!! I landed in a mud puddle!

My nice black leather boots, my cute jeans, my treasured red coat -- ALL covered in mud.

But the show must go on. Yes, I still had to go to the school to get my child, even if I was covered in all that mud! I was SO embarrassed when my son's teacher pointed out to me, "Uh, you have mud on your face." And you know I was getting the side eye from a few of the other pre-k parents.

I found myself once more wishing I knew Spanish, just so I could say to the parents, "No, I didn't fall over while smoking crack on the way over here. I promise!"

Ugh. I thought the rain related disasters couldn't get any worse after that.

But I was wrong.

On the way home, why in the world were the Jehovah's Witnesses trying to work the neighborhood? Do they figure the really desperate, lost souls only come out during a torrential downpour?

I'm sorry, but when you see me coated in mud, walking with a four year-old and one umbrella (thank you again, Mr. Wind), I know the conventional wisdom may be to think, "She definitely needs Jesus! Let's stop her, try to talk her head off and give her a pamphlet!"

BUT NO! Believe me, it's not a good time! AAGH!!! The only thing I want to accept as my Lord and Savior about right now is the SUN!

Join me now in prayer:

"Oh Sun Deity,

Your humble servant Los Angelista offers you this fervent prayer. Please chase away the dark clouds hovering over my home. Evaporate the liquid moisture making the hill outside so slick and wet. If you do this, I promise to be your sycophant forever and ever."

Just kidding. Put away your Bible, Koran, Aqdas, and Torah. I promise, I'm not that desperate yet. No sun worshiping for me.

Instead, I will go back to listening to the Tony! Toni! Tone! on this Friday afternoon. I'll just change their song title to "It Always Rains in Southern California".