Rain day: Bird of Paradise

Bird of Paradise

Well, we are in day 2 of 3 days of fairly heavy rains. This should go quite a ways to relieve drought conditions in southern California. Otherwise we had a shower on the 31st of January. That's pretty much been it for rain so far this winter. I understand that November and March are the "rainiest" months here. We may have had some showers in November, as I recall, but not much and usually only at night.

In Portland, we'd have a couple of "snow days" in the winter. Employers would tell employees to use their best judgement about coming to work when it snowed. I've had jobs with 2-4 allowed snow days, that counted like additional paid sick days. Few cars have winter tires or traction devices and the hills are steep. So accidents in the snow are frequent. Often schools are delayed an hour or two and it all melts off by 10 a.m. Daughter Leslie sent me pics of 10 inches of snow in Portland this winter. Some years no snow sticks on the ground.

Guess what? There's a local version here! It's a "rain day"! Not only are there many automobile accidents when it rains here--especially the first fall rains--but landscapers generally do not work in the rain!

I envision those landscapers in Oregon all dressed in their dark green rain slickers, blowing and raking piles of grass and autumn leaves as it drizzles away.... And then I think of landscapers in southern California when it rains--hitting the beach to surf the higher waves in their wetsuits!