Blown Away

[rejectomorph]

The days I shop always seem truncated. Today seemed especially truncated, as I had to make an extra stop. It was almost dark by the time I got home, and the unfed feral cats were very glad to see me. I doubt there's anything that makes a cat happier than the prospect of being fed, especially when dinner is already an hour late. The only experience I have that can be compared to it is knowing that I don't have to go shopping again for another week.

A close second would be knowing that I get to have my head yanked by the chiropractor on Tuesday. True, something could happen to delay it, as has happened so often lately, but I'm going to enjoy the anticipation of getting my head yanked for as long as I can. This is because my neck has gotten really achy over the last few days, and badly needs adjusting. It must have been put asunder when I jammed my head into the corner of the couch during one of my recent unintentional naps.

Last night we got an unexpected quarter inch of rain. No more is expected tonight, so I wouldn't be surprised if some falls. Better news is that the next two days could be relatively balmy, getting up to sixty degrees. Sixty degrees in January is tanning weather. I'm betting somebody will be out mowing their lawn, and the kid from up the street will probably be running around wearing a t-shirt. I'll still have my jacket on, of course, but I might take advantage of the weather to get some overgrown plants trimmed. There's some sort of flowering plant that is about to cover up the front yard hose bib, and attempting to crowd out the sourgrass. It needs to learn who runs this place. Chop, chop.

Looking at the weather map I noticed that there is a high wind advisory in effect for Los Angeles. Ah, the Santa Ana winds. I really miss them! It was always nice to go out walking on a windy winter night, when the air was so clear, and usually at least as a warm as it will be here tomorrow afternoon. The wind always made the lights twinkle. Sometimes it would also make some of them go out, when a falling tree would take out an electric line, but that was a small price to pay for the spectacle. If I could go back to Los Angeles for one day, I would choose a day when the Santa Ana winds were blowing.




Sunday Verse

The Sciences Sing a Lullabye

by Albert Goldbarth


Physics says: go to sleep. Of course
you're tired. Every atom in you
has been dancing the shimmy in silver shoes
nonstop from mitosis to now.
Quit tapping your feet. They'll dance
inside themselves without you. Go to sleep.

Geology says: it will be all right. Slow inch
by inch America is giving itself
to the ocean. Go to sleep. Let darkness
lap at your sides. Give darkness an inch.
You aren't alone. All of the continents used to be
one body. You aren't alone. Go to sleep.

Astronomy says: the sun will rise tomorrow,
Zoology says: on rainbow-fish and lithe gazelle,
Psychology says: but first it has to be night, so
Biology says: the body-clocks are stopped all over town
and
History says: here are the blankets, layer on layer, down and down.

Comments

[daisydumont.livejournal.com]

What a lovely poem! I like it a lot.

Odd -- I had always seen the Santa Ana winds mentioned as if they were a bad thing. You make them sound extremely pleasant!

[rejectomorph]

Below the canyons in the foothills, the Santa Anas can do considerable damage. Pasadena often gets scoured and loses a number of trees and the occasional filling station canopy, but I lived half a dozen miles south of Pasadena, and there the winds were usually just invigorating.

There are local urban legends about crime rates going up during Santa Anas, and people and animals behaving strangely, but I think that's down to a passage in a Raymond Chandler novel. He was just being colorful. People in Los Angeles are no weirder during the Santa Anas than they are the rest of the time— run-of-the-mill L.A. weirdness, in other words— though you can count on getting a few shocks from the static electricity in the dry desert air.