Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Egads! Precipitation!

I'm always gifted great amusement by non-LA natives going apeshit at the sign of the first rain. They'll either make the clichéd joke about how it's *actually* raining in LA, or they'll make the clichéd joke about LA people not knowing what to do with themselves in the rain. I feel like both of those jokes stopped being funny before I was ever born and had to hear them uttered. For one thing, jokes about the weather are still comments about the weather - you say them because you have nothing more interesting to say. Secondly, even though I'm not oblivious to facetiousness and I know there is a bit of that involved when people say such things about Angelenos and the rain, still - come on. Rain happens here. It's not news. It maybe doesn't happen as often, or as hard, but it happens. It doesn't send anyone into shock; it doesn't send anyone screaming for shelter into their homes destined to never emerge until the sun triumphantly pimp-slaps the rainclouds back up to the Pacific northwest.

So one may wonder why I used "amusement" to describe these bouts of hapless rain-related humor. Basically, it's because - as I mentioned - it's the non-LA natives that tend to be the ones making the fuss about it raining just by chiding [the perception] that we LA folk are making a fuss about it raining. It's very meta.

Here's how, as an Angeleno, rain actually affects me:

1) Our drought may be taken care of
2) People drive slower, but that may just counteract the fact that people drive like Speed Racer around here on a normal day
3) I get to wear disproportionately hardy winter clothing just for winter clothing's sake.

Pretty normal stuff, right?


So I'm tempted on a pretty daily basis by El Tepeyac. It's 2 minutes from the USC Health Sciences campus, and has the hugest burritos I've ever seen. More importantly, they're delicious. And since (I duly believe) most of you know that I could eat Mexican food/guacamole for every meal of my life, I'm in a constant struggle with my sensibilities not to go there every single day. But I'm going tomorrow for dinner. So I'll be able to feast freely and hopefully get a grip on those cravings for awhile.

Finally, since I've been neglecting you all musically over the past couple of posts (ha), here's another extra-long playlist.

3 comments:

  1. As a Norcal native, I'm definitely freaking the fuck out about the rain here. At the same time, I freaked out about rain back home too. I just don't like rain very much. And actually, I'm finding it kind of amusing how so many Socal folks are commenting about how much they LOVE the rain. I think they would change their opinions if they lived somewhere like Seattle.

    What I really found amusing was all the hullabuloo about "June gloom." I'd never heard of June gloom before this year and I really didn't get it because its foggy like 90% of the mornings in the Bay Area. Oooo its foggy, bfd.

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  2. Yeah, but that's the thing! We don't live in Seattle. So rain is a nice change to us, not a commonplace thing nor a scary thing. Like I said, we have to deal with the fact that we're prone to drought, so rain is usually a welcome entity during the fall/winter season -- not something we lose our heads about like non-natives would like to believe.

    Where it does get a little nasty is when homes built at the base of foothills are threatened by mudslides, but that's not really a uniquely LA/SoCal issue so I can't be certain if people are irrationally concerned about that.

    I think the crux of what gets me is that a lot of people need to be constantly in competition about everything, and especially in LA there is an added facet of people loving to hate (and hate on) this city. So anytime there is a mention of weather in LA that is not sunny, there are always people who go "Oh yeah? You think it sucks that it's foggy? [to use your example] Well, try living in NorCal! It's even FOGGIER there!" or "Yeah LA people, it's raining, but imagine how all of you would feel if you were somewhere like Seattle where it actually rained!" It's just basically irrelevant. When you're here, you accept the weather for what it is. When you've lived somewhere else surely the comparisons do happen in your head, but beyond that who cares what town has better rain or better fog. If it's raining here now or foggy here now, then it is what it is... no point in implying that the weather "doesn't count" just because it's more intense somewhere else.

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  3. El Tepeyac is amazing. I love their carne asada tacos!
    http://eatingtheroad.wordpress.com/2009/10/17/el-tepeyac/

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