Now It May Be Cold on the East Coast, but on the Other Side of Town...

I flew in from Boston on Monday where it was bitterly cold and snowy. The weather was so bad that it caused delays in flights from both ends--Boston and Los Angeles. I'm an L.A. girl through and through so I literally can't comprehend temperatures that go below 40 degrees. I couldn't wait to get back to L.A. where we were boasting 70-degree weather less than a week ago. After an exhausting 10 hours of travel--3 of them added on because of weather-related complications--I was ecstatic to be home again.

And then came Tuesday. In my best Ricky Ricardo voice: Wha happened!

I drove in to work at around 11 a.m. and actually had the wipers going full blast, which is rare. Once I arrived at work, I couldn't park in my preferred space because there was this huge puddle threatening to swallow my feet whole and give me pneumonia. I swear that parking lot gets so many deep puddles, I should seriously consider investing in a pair of galoshes just to get to the front door of my building. (I'm not exaggerating, by the way.) It's a veritable obstacle course in that parking lot trying to find two cars that are not only spaced far enough apart for me to fit through them, but also lack an ankle-deep puddle in between them.

Once I got past all the cars, I came across what was essentially a river rushing southward down the last aisle of the parking lot. I literally stood there for 10 seconds trying to figure out how to cross it. When I finally made it to the front door, there was this massive waterfall plunging down from the roof onto the keypad where we punch in the code to enter the building. My God! At 11:30--which is late even for me!--I'm already having to force myself to go to work after an exhausting day of travel. Now I'm faced with the prospect of drowning in a oil slicked puddle or getting electrocuted?

It's days like this that jolts L.A. natives like me back into reality because, in all honesty, it does rain in Southern California. Sometimes really hard! It's easy to forget this when we only get 35 sporadic days of rain each year. I remember when the O.J. Simpson trial was televised. It was the lead story of the 11 o'clock news every single night--which was completely ridiculous, but I digress. The only event that could ever bump it out of the lead was, as you've probably guessed, the RAIN. Even if it simply drizzled for 5 minutes in one small remote section within the greater L.A. area, we found out about it before hearing the details of that stupid trial. Rain in Southern California makes the headlines because it's so infrequent. It catches people off-guard here and lulls everyone (here and abroad) into believing that it never rains here.

Which probably explains why Tony Toni Tone (and others?) could get away with a song like "It Never Rains (in Southern California)." I love that song, only because I like to sing it every time it does rain here. It always tickles me for some reason. I may have a weird sense of humor, but apparently I'm not alone. Some D.J. on KJLH decided to relish in the irony of that song by playing it on the air during my rainy commute today. I couldn't help but chuckle at our shared sense of humor. It put me in just enough of a good mood to keep trekking towards work, in spite of the exhaustion from yesterday's flight and the dreaded anticipation of those torrential rivers and waterfalls waiting for me in the parking lot.

Ay que lluvia!