It Never Rains in Southern California

 December 2022

There  was a line from one of the Die Hard movies where Bruce Willis is in LA and in some tight situation reviewing how he got there he remembers his ex-wife telling him, “Come on out to LA, she said; we’ll have some laughs, she said." Just didn’t turn out that way.  Same for us!  We arrived in San Diego on the 8th of December and it was cold but not raining. It stayed cold for three weeks, finally warming up on the 24th of December when we had 3 days of glorious sunny weather. But by the 27th the rain had started and it has not stopped except for a few hours now and then.  The most rain in history, coldest weather in history, strongest winds in history, greyest days in history!  I don’t like that kind of history.  

Editor's note:  "cold" means low 50s overnight and 60° during the day.  Better than it could have been!

We feel horrible for all the folks that have really had problems rather than just being inconvenienced. It has really been an apocalyptic event with non-stop storms pounding all of California; most of the damage has been north of LA but there has been a lot of erosion and wave damage around here also. Remember the song, "It Never Rains in Southern California"?  It was a lie.

It had been more than three years since we've been back to San Diego and much has changed. Covid eliminated many of the restaurants we used to love and the recession has made those that remain very expensive. California has always been an expensive place to live but now it is really silly. The price of groceries is about 20% higher here than in West Virginia - and don’t get me started on the wine prices.  I think everyone knows how expensive gas is here - at one point it was $6.50 per gallon of regular - but has now come down to $4.85 and continues to fall slightly every week or so. I know this because we rented a car for the seven weeks we are here and while we have not driven a lot, we have had to fill it twice and it made my knees weak.  Fun Fact: for some reason you can’t rent a car in California for more than thirty days. That meant that we had to drive 75 miles roundtrip to sign another piece of paper for the remaining time we have the car. Did I mention the price of gas?

We are in Oceanside for five weeks now, about thirty-five miles north of San Diego. Our rented condo is lovely with views of the ocean. This is a very large complex of condominiums situated in grounds that resemble a Hawaiian Village with large pools, towering palm trees, lush vegetation, Koi ponds, waterfalls and lots of lovely flowers, the latter thanks to all the rain. There are three major carbon-based mammals that inhabit the local waters: Seals, Sea Lions and Surfers, listed from most intelligent to least!!  The seals and sea lions know to move to other locations when the rains have poured pesticides, effluent and silt into the sea, but the Surfers don’t seem to notice or care. They are out there from dawn to dusk and there are usually a couple hundred along the long stretch of beach.  Oceanside claims 3 miles of wonderful sandy beach and we can easily see at least a mile of it, half a mile in either direction.  

If you still have a 1960’s idea of the blond, blue eyed surfer dudes with long boards and woodies, you would be quite surprised. At least one third of them are now gray-haired, most likely the same kids from the 60’s all grown up but still hanging onto the past. The other third represent the vast melting pot of California. I marvel at what must be the largest group of males with the most flexible working hours, given all the time they are in the surf!

The only thing that outnumbers the surfers are the dogs!  There are a zillion dogs here. I think you are issued a dog when you move here and then you are encouraged to get a few more just for fun. They are not the kind of dogs that nice people rescue from shelters; oh no, these are so-called designer dogs and as far as I can tell they are over-bred and over-fed. One-third of the baby carriages you see around here have a dog inside (no baby, just the dog). There are large signs everywhere near the beach telling you that dogs are not allowed on the beach - and yet at any given time of the day there are dozens of dogs running free on the beach. I suppose if no one enforces an ordinance, it must not exist!

That is all for now, stay tuned for reviews of restaurants, museums and cultural events.  Wm