puddle alley parking & El Niño end California drought
17-05-15 10:45 California,Mitra
It’s an exciting week. I’m in Santa Barbara, but Nazy is en route to Beirut via Toronto and Zurich. I’ll be joining her (and, of course, Darius) in Lebanon next week. Before Nazy left, we drove to Los Angeles to celebrate Mitra’s birthday. (This letter has several photos of Mitra.) We had dinner at Hillstone in Santa Monica We also walked through some cool alleys in the Venice-Mar Vista area of Los Angeles. LA is known for wide thoroughfares and heavy traffic. In contrast, these alleys are car-free and narrow. (When I say ‘narrow’, I’m using LA standards. I’ve driven on European motorways that are not as wide as these alleys. Mitra and Stefan showed us a pretty walkable part of the city with flowering shrubs, trees, and plants overflowing the fences along the alley. And…
“It’s called a ‘puddle’, Mitra.” I explained when we all stopped to look a a pool of standing water.
“Puddle?” Mitra replied.
“It’s filled with something called ‘water’,” I explained - drawing on my experiences in Switzerland.
“Water?”
“Did it rain recently?”
“Rain?” Mitra asked - unaware that she had lived in drought too long.
In fact, there had been some rain in Los Angeles. Although I was happy for LA, I was also miffed at our local weatherman. “That rain was supposed to fall in Santa Barbara,” i thought. “Our” meteorologist had changed his mind - and his prediction - at the last minute. Of course, a rare May storm would not have been a drought-buster. (We need the Biblical forty days and nights of rain to do that. ) However, state climatologists say that there are early indications of ..
“… a strong El Niño,” I explained to Nazy. “That means a lot of rain.”
“When, Dan?” Nazy asked. Expectantly.
“This winter.”
“This winter? Are you serious? Our weatherman can’t do an accurate forecast for tomorrow. Dp you think that he has the slightest clue about winter?”
“I am grasping at straws, Nazy. We need rain in the rainy season. So: ergo, Ipso Facto..”
There are lots of conspiracy theories going around about the lack of water in California. Let me clarify. there is a shortage because there has been almost no rain for three years. It is not a man-made shortage. It is not a result of Walmart using Sacramento city water for it’s ‘premium bottled water’. It is not a result of rivers diverted to the ocean to save an endangered fish. It is what happens when there is no rain. The snow pack is gone. We don’t have enough reservoirs to cope with the shortage because human being are not good at preparing expensive solutions for dangerous, but rare, events (e.g. the worst drought in the last 1500 years). [More crassly, people, especially elected people, don’t want to spend large sums of money now for benefits that may come later (in someone else’s administration.]
Anyway, because Nazy had an early flight from LAX, we spent the night at an airport hotel in Los Angeles. The traffic was normal.
“Normal?” Nazy interrupts. “It was horrendous.”
“In LA, horrendous is normal, my dear.” I reply “
The hotel entrance which was plastered with countless “No Parking! Violators will be towed!” signs.
Nazy checked-in and asked where we should park.
“The say that you should go down that side street,” Nazy said, pointing. “Then parking is on the left.”
I drove in a vast garage and saw a lot of empty spaces - but they all had ‘Reserved” and/or “Tow Away” signs. There were countless signs directing me to: “Airport parking: floors 4-7.” I spiraled my way upward - concluding…
“This must be the 4th floor,” I thought. “Airport parking begins here - because every space is occupied.”
I finally found a spot on the roof. I didn’t find an elevator. Nazy was pacing when I crawled into the hotel.
“What took you so long?” She asked.
“My car is parked at 10,000 feet in Western Nevada,” I replied. “It was a long walk.”
“They say that you need to put this tag on the dashboard. If you don’t the car will be towed.”
“Why didn’t they say that before they told me where to park?” I asked. “I wonder if I can rent some trekking gear - ropes, hiking boots..” I thought as I turned toward the parking structure.
The next morning, Nazy and I took a crowded (we were wedged in place and surrounded by a high wall of suitcases) hotel shuttle to the LAX. Amazingly (and unprecedented), ours was the very first stop. We climbed over several gargantuan suitcases and joined an equally gargantuan Air Canada check-in line. For the first 20 minutes, no one got in line behind us, so I thought we were the last to arrive. Then I realized that during the same 20 minutes, no one moved in the line in front of us. When people did get behind us, an agent would escort those people, who were late for their flight, to the front of the queue.
“The best thing to do,” I thought. “Is arrive late. Then they’ll pull you to the front of the queue.”
Eventually, we had been standing still so long that Nazy was late - so they pulled her to the head of the queue.
In the end, Nazy made the flight and is winging her way across the Atlantic.
Leaving Santa Barbara was hard for Nazy. She already misses young Tiger. Because I’m staying here a bit longer, I got to play with him over the weekend. I took him to see the jellyfish aquarium at Santa Barbara’s Stearns Wharf. He was moderately amused: he liked the ‘black light jellyfish puppets’, the sea gulls and the floating kelp.
Nazy’s Persian passport and Islamic birth certificate have arrived. She began work on that project four years ago with several visits to the Iranian Embassy in Bern. Nothing happened. (They returned her initial application because her Islamic photo was insufficiently Islamic: the religious police could see her neck.) A couple of weeks ago, Nazy contacted the Pakistan Embassy’s Iranian Interest Section. They completed all the work in only a few weeks.
Darius is looking forward to seeing us. But he’s also looking forward to finishing an important research paper. When I mentioned that Nazy now had a passport from Iran, he jumped.
“You could take a weekend trip to Teheran.” He suggested.
“If I go to Iran, Darius,” I replied. “I’m not going to Teheran. I’d prefer Esfahan or Persepolis. But, surely you’re not trying to get rid of us.”
“No, no, no. I just thought Mom might like to see her country again.”
“Hmmm,” I thought.
Now I am getting ready to depart. Luckily, I have several days to work my way through the task list that Nazy prepared before she left.
“It’s called a ‘puddle’, Mitra.” I explained when we all stopped to look a a pool of standing water.
“Puddle?” Mitra replied.
“It’s filled with something called ‘water’,” I explained - drawing on my experiences in Switzerland.
“Water?”
“Did it rain recently?”
“Rain?” Mitra asked - unaware that she had lived in drought too long.
In fact, there had been some rain in Los Angeles. Although I was happy for LA, I was also miffed at our local weatherman. “That rain was supposed to fall in Santa Barbara,” i thought. “Our” meteorologist had changed his mind - and his prediction - at the last minute. Of course, a rare May storm would not have been a drought-buster. (We need the Biblical forty days and nights of rain to do that. ) However, state climatologists say that there are early indications of ..
“… a strong El Niño,” I explained to Nazy. “That means a lot of rain.”
“When, Dan?” Nazy asked. Expectantly.
“This winter.”
“This winter? Are you serious? Our weatherman can’t do an accurate forecast for tomorrow. Dp you think that he has the slightest clue about winter?”
“I am grasping at straws, Nazy. We need rain in the rainy season. So: ergo, Ipso Facto..”
There are lots of conspiracy theories going around about the lack of water in California. Let me clarify. there is a shortage because there has been almost no rain for three years. It is not a man-made shortage. It is not a result of Walmart using Sacramento city water for it’s ‘premium bottled water’. It is not a result of rivers diverted to the ocean to save an endangered fish. It is what happens when there is no rain. The snow pack is gone. We don’t have enough reservoirs to cope with the shortage because human being are not good at preparing expensive solutions for dangerous, but rare, events (e.g. the worst drought in the last 1500 years). [More crassly, people, especially elected people, don’t want to spend large sums of money now for benefits that may come later (in someone else’s administration.]
Anyway, because Nazy had an early flight from LAX, we spent the night at an airport hotel in Los Angeles. The traffic was normal.
“Normal?” Nazy interrupts. “It was horrendous.”
“In LA, horrendous is normal, my dear.” I reply “
The hotel entrance which was plastered with countless “No Parking! Violators will be towed!” signs.
Nazy checked-in and asked where we should park.
“The say that you should go down that side street,” Nazy said, pointing. “Then parking is on the left.”
I drove in a vast garage and saw a lot of empty spaces - but they all had ‘Reserved” and/or “Tow Away” signs. There were countless signs directing me to: “Airport parking: floors 4-7.” I spiraled my way upward - concluding…
“This must be the 4th floor,” I thought. “Airport parking begins here - because every space is occupied.”
I finally found a spot on the roof. I didn’t find an elevator. Nazy was pacing when I crawled into the hotel.
“What took you so long?” She asked.
“My car is parked at 10,000 feet in Western Nevada,” I replied. “It was a long walk.”
“They say that you need to put this tag on the dashboard. If you don’t the car will be towed.”
“Why didn’t they say that before they told me where to park?” I asked. “I wonder if I can rent some trekking gear - ropes, hiking boots..” I thought as I turned toward the parking structure.
The next morning, Nazy and I took a crowded (we were wedged in place and surrounded by a high wall of suitcases) hotel shuttle to the LAX. Amazingly (and unprecedented), ours was the very first stop. We climbed over several gargantuan suitcases and joined an equally gargantuan Air Canada check-in line. For the first 20 minutes, no one got in line behind us, so I thought we were the last to arrive. Then I realized that during the same 20 minutes, no one moved in the line in front of us. When people did get behind us, an agent would escort those people, who were late for their flight, to the front of the queue.
“The best thing to do,” I thought. “Is arrive late. Then they’ll pull you to the front of the queue.”
Eventually, we had been standing still so long that Nazy was late - so they pulled her to the head of the queue.
In the end, Nazy made the flight and is winging her way across the Atlantic.
Leaving Santa Barbara was hard for Nazy. She already misses young Tiger. Because I’m staying here a bit longer, I got to play with him over the weekend. I took him to see the jellyfish aquarium at Santa Barbara’s Stearns Wharf. He was moderately amused: he liked the ‘black light jellyfish puppets’, the sea gulls and the floating kelp.
Nazy’s Persian passport and Islamic birth certificate have arrived. She began work on that project four years ago with several visits to the Iranian Embassy in Bern. Nothing happened. (They returned her initial application because her Islamic photo was insufficiently Islamic: the religious police could see her neck.) A couple of weeks ago, Nazy contacted the Pakistan Embassy’s Iranian Interest Section. They completed all the work in only a few weeks.
Darius is looking forward to seeing us. But he’s also looking forward to finishing an important research paper. When I mentioned that Nazy now had a passport from Iran, he jumped.
“You could take a weekend trip to Teheran.” He suggested.
“If I go to Iran, Darius,” I replied. “I’m not going to Teheran. I’d prefer Esfahan or Persepolis. But, surely you’re not trying to get rid of us.”
“No, no, no. I just thought Mom might like to see her country again.”
“Hmmm,” I thought.
Now I am getting ready to depart. Luckily, I have several days to work my way through the task list that Nazy prepared before she left.
For last week's letter, click here
Dan and Tiger having lunch
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