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"Being too charming was never one of my faults." - Kill Me Later
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My tire, fog and some free-association apparently
Normally, I do the return leg of my trips to Los Angeles on Monday morning. However, on Sunday I took my car to CarMax to see how much they'd buy it off me for and they drew my attention to the fact that my two front tires suffer from "extensive wear and tear" as they put it. You see, I've had my car for four years and almost 35,000 miles but I've never rotated my tires or had them changed. Ever. And it wasn't even until my mom pointed it out later that night that I realized, HEY, wait a minute, maybe it's not safe to continue driving on these tires, particularly on long trips up and down the west coast. So when I woke up Monday morning, after spending all night imagining my tire exploding on the 99 freeway, I decided maybe I should go get some new tires before embarking on my 300 mile journey north. Of course, it turns out that my tires are ridiculously expensive (still can't figure out why) and then Paul took another look at the tires and said, "Just don't go over 80 and don't drive in the rain." I can handle the first part, but I'm not selling the car until the beginning of January and I'm afraid it may rain in the interim. Anyway, because of all this I ended up leaving Los Angeles this morning, all freaked out about my tire and saw this as I came out of the Grapevine: And as I was marveling over how cool the fog looked I suddenly found myself in this: And then I started imagining my tire blowing out, leaving me stranded in a field out in the fog somewhere where no one would find me until afternoon when the fog burned off. Speaking of which, it wasn't until I was 17 that I found out that fog can last all day in some places. Most places. I was doing camping in the backcountry as part of SCA in Washington's Mt. Rainier and was in a group with four people from various parts of the country and one French guy. One morning a few days after we arrived we woke up to find it was really foggy and I said brightly to everyone, "Oh well, it'll probably burn off by the afternoon." They all looked at me as though I was from another planet and told me that that doesn't really happen anywhere but California. My mind was boggled. Boggled. It had never even occurred to me that fog could be an all day phenomenon. I found out that day that indeed it can. As a kid who was born and raised in California and then went to college in California and who has really never, ever left California for more than a month (three weeks?) I'm pretty sure that I have no clue what weather in the real world can be like. To me "cold" is when it gets down into the 60s. I'm aware that this is actually "warm" to a lot of people, but dangit, it's "cold" to me. And "bitter freezing cold" is when it falls into the 50's. I know that I have no clue what real bitter freezing cold is like, in fact, I don't think I can really imagine it properly because, well, I can't say I've ever experienced it. Not for very long anyway. Did I ever tell you about the time I went to New York in March and I only brought sweatshirts thinking they would keep me warm? Unfortunately the wind there was much colder than LA wind and blew straight through my sweatshirts. Two layers of them. Plus a windbreaker. I am determined not to make the same mistake with Paris but I will probably just end up totally overpacking and still be missing something. So far I've got three coats from Helen (wool and down), gloves, and a hat. I'm planning on buying some long underwear, earmuffs, more scarves and some of those tall Ugg boots (which I've never bought before because I think it's just wrong to wear furry boots when it's 70 degrees outside). Any suggestions? Can you tell that I had absolutely no point when I started this post? But I knitted together a bunch of unconnected stories and voila, a post!
Comments:
joyce, you have such amazing humor! funny how you discuss that issue with california whether. i was in canada for the summer and it was about 50 degrees there. my canadian friends were in their sleeveless summer outfit and there was i, in my three layered sweatshirt and a jacket. they were laughing at me! i was seriously freezing! anyway, i am glad i am not the only one who does that! as always, it's always a pleasure to read your musings. more power. God bless!
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