December 4
Dec. 4th, 2014 03:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
in_the_blueNo prompts today, but that's all right. I can always find something to talk about. Today, random stuff about California.
I am completely spoiled by the California winter weather. It's been raining for a while, but it's not like the rain in the Northwest because it's not accompanied by the threat of freezing rain. Yesterday I had to drive up to Marin County for an appointment, which of course happened in the middle of the worst downpour we've had since moving here. Really, all you have to do when you drive in that kind of shit is slow down a little and leave plenty of space between your car and the one in front of you. On 580 people would speed up, then slow to a crawl because OMG PUDDLE, then speed up again and change lanes with rabid glee. In Oregon we used to talk about shitty California drivers, and now I understand it fully. These people cannot hold their rain.
We've lived here for a year and a quarter and I still don't feel like a Californian. I feel like a displaced Oregonian. Try as I might, I can't remember how long it took me to feel like an Oregonian after I moved there from Massachusetts. I never moved around a lot growing up -- I was in the same town from 2nd grade to high school graduation, and only went anywhere new after that. After college I moved to Boston and stayed in various places in MA until I moved to the northwest. I really don't know how long it'll take until I consider myself a Californian. I guess it'll happen when it happens. In the meantime, I pay my exorbitantly high taxes here just like everyone else.
When we moved, it was in the middle of the worst drought in California's history. Circling back to the first thing I talked about: this is a much more normal year as far as rainfall goes. In the space of a few weeks everything around me went from dried-up brown to a vibrant green. It's always springtime around here. The leaves are just now falling from our pear tree but if last year is anything to go by, the tree won't get much in the way of down-time before the new set of leaves starts to bud. My very first trip to the Pacific northwest was in October, and I couldn't believe flowers were still blooming. I loved the longer growing season there, and I love the even longer growing season here. Today I picked a basket full of fruit off my Meyer lemon tree. My fuchsia is still flowering. The roses on my arbor are in flower. My yard is filled with birds of all shapes and sizes, and my hummingbirds are persistent year-round residents. Here's the the rain and to things being more normal.
The downside of living here is that there's so much more crime. We have a neighborhood email group and people report all their suspicious activity to it. That makes me paranoid sometimes. The sounds of car engines idling in the middle of the night sometimes wakes me up, and I have to go check to make sure it's something legit. Oakland itself has the reputation of being the most unsafe city in the nation, which was all I knew about the city when we moved here. Of course it's like any other city. There are safer neighborhoods and ones that are less safe. You watch where you're going. You don't walk around with your brand new shiny big smartphone out, or with earbuds in and the phone in your palm. You have to be a little more aware. I've spent a lot of time this past year reflecting on the way I never locked the doors in my Oregon house when I was home, and about how I never locked my car in our driveway, how I rarely worried about things like road rage or being shot at a stop sign. My biggest worry was that if anything horrible happened, we were more than ten minutes from the nearest fire station/ambulance. Here, it's right down the street but we also have a sign at the entrance to our road that demonstrates today's fire danger. It's a different set of things to worry about.
I was at a party a few weeks ago and one of my husband's coworkers who'd recently moved here from Texas said he really liked California, but it was too expensive to live here for very long. I'm thinking he's right. To end things on a positive note, though, this area of the state is incredibly beautiful. The people are generally lovely (even if they can be aggressive drivers) and we're fortunate to have a house on the edge of a park, so we look out at canyons and wooded areas instead of housing developments. It's absolutely gorgeous and right now, I wouldn't trade it for anything less than... oh, let's say Hawaii.
I am completely spoiled by the California winter weather. It's been raining for a while, but it's not like the rain in the Northwest because it's not accompanied by the threat of freezing rain. Yesterday I had to drive up to Marin County for an appointment, which of course happened in the middle of the worst downpour we've had since moving here. Really, all you have to do when you drive in that kind of shit is slow down a little and leave plenty of space between your car and the one in front of you. On 580 people would speed up, then slow to a crawl because OMG PUDDLE, then speed up again and change lanes with rabid glee. In Oregon we used to talk about shitty California drivers, and now I understand it fully. These people cannot hold their rain.
We've lived here for a year and a quarter and I still don't feel like a Californian. I feel like a displaced Oregonian. Try as I might, I can't remember how long it took me to feel like an Oregonian after I moved there from Massachusetts. I never moved around a lot growing up -- I was in the same town from 2nd grade to high school graduation, and only went anywhere new after that. After college I moved to Boston and stayed in various places in MA until I moved to the northwest. I really don't know how long it'll take until I consider myself a Californian. I guess it'll happen when it happens. In the meantime, I pay my exorbitantly high taxes here just like everyone else.
When we moved, it was in the middle of the worst drought in California's history. Circling back to the first thing I talked about: this is a much more normal year as far as rainfall goes. In the space of a few weeks everything around me went from dried-up brown to a vibrant green. It's always springtime around here. The leaves are just now falling from our pear tree but if last year is anything to go by, the tree won't get much in the way of down-time before the new set of leaves starts to bud. My very first trip to the Pacific northwest was in October, and I couldn't believe flowers were still blooming. I loved the longer growing season there, and I love the even longer growing season here. Today I picked a basket full of fruit off my Meyer lemon tree. My fuchsia is still flowering. The roses on my arbor are in flower. My yard is filled with birds of all shapes and sizes, and my hummingbirds are persistent year-round residents. Here's the the rain and to things being more normal.
The downside of living here is that there's so much more crime. We have a neighborhood email group and people report all their suspicious activity to it. That makes me paranoid sometimes. The sounds of car engines idling in the middle of the night sometimes wakes me up, and I have to go check to make sure it's something legit. Oakland itself has the reputation of being the most unsafe city in the nation, which was all I knew about the city when we moved here. Of course it's like any other city. There are safer neighborhoods and ones that are less safe. You watch where you're going. You don't walk around with your brand new shiny big smartphone out, or with earbuds in and the phone in your palm. You have to be a little more aware. I've spent a lot of time this past year reflecting on the way I never locked the doors in my Oregon house when I was home, and about how I never locked my car in our driveway, how I rarely worried about things like road rage or being shot at a stop sign. My biggest worry was that if anything horrible happened, we were more than ten minutes from the nearest fire station/ambulance. Here, it's right down the street but we also have a sign at the entrance to our road that demonstrates today's fire danger. It's a different set of things to worry about.
I was at a party a few weeks ago and one of my husband's coworkers who'd recently moved here from Texas said he really liked California, but it was too expensive to live here for very long. I'm thinking he's right. To end things on a positive note, though, this area of the state is incredibly beautiful. The people are generally lovely (even if they can be aggressive drivers) and we're fortunate to have a house on the edge of a park, so we look out at canyons and wooded areas instead of housing developments. It's absolutely gorgeous and right now, I wouldn't trade it for anything less than... oh, let's say Hawaii.
