Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Decadence

When you live in Northern Illinois as I do, you will learn that survival and happiness come at a price. You must endure winters, with snow, ice and many gray days of blah after November 1 and until April 21st. Spring eventually arrives and you are released from the overriding grayness with a burst of green and budding and blooming.

What must it be like to live in California where today I saw a guy in shorts and flip flops, adjusting his sunglasses and looking like he was contemplating an afternoon of basking in the sun for several hours.

How does anyone ever get anything done here?

I have taken it up as my crusade to learn the ways of this culture and become one with the sun, the flowers and the fruitcakes and I think I can do it.

I just woke up from an afternoon nap. I realize it is only a start but I feel certain I am on the right path.

My hostess had some leftover cold Peet's coffee, so I filled a glass with ice, poured in the coffee, two packets of Equal and went to the refrigerator for milk. Instead, I reached for the squirt bottle of whipped cream and scquooshed a big dollop in my glass. Yup. I can do this. Dude.

10 comments:

  1. My guess is that you were worried that your hostess would walk in on you or else you would have held that aerosol can up to your mouth and filled it to the brim, just short of choaking. I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE THINKING!!!!!

    (This comment actually took me several minutes to complete; I couldn't get aerosol to look right and after about thirty tries I considered changing the sentence to "taking that can of whipped cream" but, as you know, I am relentless and I perservered. What I really did was use the online dictionary; and now I am going to have to use it again because perservered looks wrong.)

    The correct spelling is persevered so my spelling was incorrect, so I was right to spend 10 minutes of my life making a three sentence comment. Phew!!! I am exhausted!
    (Did I spell that right?)

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  2. Can you leave a photo on a comment on a blog? I only ask because, I don't give a damn how nice it is out in sunny California, the Gulf Coast of Florida is just short of heaven. And the only reason that it's short of heaven is that it would be sacrilegious to say it's better, wouldn't it?

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  3. Anonymous9:03 PM

    Uh, current No. IL temp is 21 degrees/windchill of 7 degrees...can you have one of those whipped cream drinks for me?

    Catherine in Illinois

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  4. Hahahah ..oh yeah, my backyard in sunny Longwood is heaven to me. I was painting out there today.

    Rosy

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  5. Anonymous12:04 AM

    When I first moved to CA from the wet and foggy northwest, I felt the urge to DO SOMETHING every single sunny day. It was exhausting. Now I know better, you don't have to rush outside because it's sunny, the weekend will be just as nice!
    BTW Tommy, it's choking, not choaking.

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  6. Well, I am going to move to the wet and foggy northwest so that I can get something done other than basking in the sun!! Actually, I was thinking of you today when I heard it was in the 70's down in Mountainview. It was pretty nice here too, but I opted for staying in and putting away my Tahoe stuff and cleaning the studio.

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  7. Fruitcake? Fruitcake?!
    When you live here, unless you are fabulously wealthy, it dawns on you that you must ignore the sunny days and go to work. Pretty often,too, because everything costs a fortune.
    Of course, there's always another sunny day around the corner. Just another day in paradise...Jen

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  8. Anonymous6:02 PM

    I lived in LA for a few years, and Montana after that, and now the pacific Northwest. It sounds perverse but after all those sunny days in Cali I ended up badly missing the seasons and a seasonal change in the weather. Now, the whole fall/winter/spring here is long and grey, but it really makes me appreciate this beautiful clear sunny warm fall day so much more. And notice the bright red leaves against the very blue sky.

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  9. OK, you can hate me...I moved from Laguna Beach, CA to Maui about 14 years ago and never looked back! :-) I love the "fruitcake" comment!

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  10. It just turned cold here in DC today. Reading this post makes me already long for the warmth.

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