Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Excuse me....hello...my name is Mother. Mother Nature. Can you help me? I'm lost. Confused.


On rainy days in Southern California people hunker down into their Uggs. They wear scarves and hats and polar fleece jackets under their rain gear. It's not at all out of the ordinary to see flannel pajama pants tucked into those Uggs because when you live in a poorly insulated stucco box, and you're faced with getting naked for a second while rain is pelting your sky lights and palm fronds are hurling themselves at your windows, you think, "Fuck it. These are pants and I'm going out in them."

It was still dark at 9:00 a.m. at my house. Rain wasn't exactly shooting bullets at my skylight, but it was loading the gun. Or so I thought. I wasn't about to give up my three-mile walk to and from the train and onward to the Downtown Women's Center--rain or no rain. I chose a long black overcoat, layered over a wool cardigan that was itself layered over a long-sleeve tunic. I slipped on my less stylish version of Uggs. Wrapped a velour scarf around my neck. For god's sake, I put a pair of rain pants in the plastic shopping bag that I also tucked my purse into to protect it. I stopped at the drug store and bought a new umbrella.  And I was sweating by the time I got to the corner. The few drops of rain that fell felt like bath water. Did someone move my house to an orchid farm in the tropics in the middle of the night and forget to tell me?

Last year it rained for eight straight days, and it was so cold in my living room that whenever I sat on my couch I hunkered under two blankets with the gas fireplace roaring and a brand new portable radiator at my feet. That's winter  in So Cal.

Something is happening here.

I pruned my roses finally just last weekend.  The blossoms from the flowering pear tree outside my window reminded me that it was spring. Except that it's winter.


This rose was too gorgeous to prune so I left it on an otherwise stripped rose bush.


Um...Hi.....Are you okay, M'am? You seem a bit lost. Call you Mother? Mother Nature? Okay.
What can I do to help you?

2 comments:

Elizabeth said...

No kidding. Weird, weird, weird.

Maybe it'll snow in June?

Birdie said...

The weather is bizzaro weird here too.

It rains here for 9 months straight.