California dreams, schemes, & memes

June 22, 2013 by floridaborne

“What you lookin’ at, buddy? Don’t you know you’re in California?”
OMG!!!!! Dogs and Cats LIVING TOGETHER!!!!

Don’t you just love it when you wake up with that metallic baking soda/salt taste roiling around in your mouth after dreaming you were knee deep in crappy flood water asking your old boss for a job while holding a rotting alligator skeleton?

Deep breath, Floridaborne. Deep breath.

Well, I suppose it was better than the previous night’s dream. I was talking to little animals resembling foxes that were the size of small squirrels. Man, do they hate humans. My favorite dog (pictured above) was laying next to a group of them, her fur stiff instead of soft. Although she was in pain and miserable, she was protecting them. It was an intense dream, one that felt real.

Soooo….I emailed home. All the doggies are fine—including the 2 footed doggie I call my husband.

When I start thinking I’m really talking to the animals, that’s when I have to pack it up and head for the nursing home.

No, in my estimation doggies aren’t animals.

It’s not just the weird dreams I’m having in California that are a problem. I’m beginning to wonder if the denizens in this area have a sick sense of humor and love to scare skinny anxious people to death.

An acquaintance of my sister told me there have been a rash of break-ins in this city. It sounded like there was a mega gang going house to house cleaning out the contents—and doing who knows what else—all told with wide gestures and ample drama. Instead of perseverating over it, I scoured the internet for clues. There was nothing about break-ins except for the fact that crime here is not as high as California’s average crime rate. Why does that not make me feel any better?

Then there’s my sister’s friend who convinced her to move to scenic California to retire. He’s a helluva good friend for sure—helping her fix up and sell her home as well as find one in this area. And when she was a bit concerned about seismic activity he reassured her by saying, “Oh, no, the Coachella Valley has the least number of quakes.”

Well, there’s a reason for the low number of quakes. According to the article cited below, this area is supposed to have a major earthquake every 150 years, but for some unknown reason this hasn’t happened for 300.

My sister’s friend is considering another move so he just now “realizes” that this area has a 99.9% chance of having a magnitude 8 earthquake or greater in the next 30 years. Then he says that the movement of the Earth in Bakersfield and (one other area) relieves the stress on the San Andreas fault so no worries–it probably isn’t going to happen. Really? That’s not what I learned in geology class. Ergo the 10 minutes of research I did online to find the following headline:

“COACHELLA VALLEY’S QUAKE FUTURE IS DIRE, SCIENTISTS SAY”

http://articles.latimes.com/2007/aug/10/local/me-seismic10.

If you don’t want to read the whole thing, the first paragraph says it all:

“Sandwiched between the powerful San Andreas and San Jacinto faults, the Coachella Valley could be the epicenter of the most devastating earthquake in the country, one that is already 300 years overdue, a government scientist warned Thursday.”

If you note, it shows in the web address that this information was available in 2007, long before my sister’s friend moved here.

If I have to choose between worrying about imaginary mega gangs and the probability that I’m typing this blog at Ground Zero, guess what? I know which one has the best chance of keeping me up at night.

It makes you wonder if everyone here is an actor reading a script. Or maybe creating the truth to suit the situation is just human nature.

Hell, there are hurricanes in Florida, the gulf/east/west coasts. I live in an area of the country where a sinkhole can open up under my house. There are tornadoes in the Midwest, and cold weather isn’t an option for someone who is freezing when it falls under 70F.

For both our sanity, I’m glad I didn’t act fast enough to get those “cheap” tickets to come back and visit my sister when I found them on sale for $410. Then again, another good reason to forego the pleasure is that I’d have to change planes in Chicago. If I have to do that, I might as well fly into Tehran first and yell out, “I’m an American—shoot me!”

I don’t know why, but at this moment no place feels like home with the exception of my computer keyboard. But…who knows what dangers lurk beneath its calm exterior. Is there such a thing as a nano-gremlin?