I know we are making the news and all with all of our rains. But seriously, how long have these reporters lived in Southern California anyway? Short memories is what I say. We have floods, we have downpours, we have sinkholes and slides. It’s true like the song says, “It never rains in California, but girl don’t they warn ya . . . it pours . . . man it pours.”

Rain is nothing new for a fifty-two year old, born and raised in Southern California. I do not have a short memory. My memory is full of many droughts that last a few years, and many, many rains. I remember as a young girl sitting at the kitchen table and looking out onto the flooded cul-de-sac street wondering, “Is it ever gonna stop raining!!!” I remember traipsing around huge puddles at school, and creeks ploughing new routes. Gosh. Were where those news reporters then? It looks like right now, we are ending one of those droughts, finally getting us some rain.

In between it all, and on my 52nd birthday, I got in a “trail” after teaching one class, and on the way home to rest up before teaching another this past Thursday, on February 16. The place: Quail Hill in Irvine. The route: along the elliptical trail that over looks Interstate 405, and everything else lovely and not in The O.C. Got in a little over 5.5 miles, with only a little elevation gain. But it was good enough, as not soon after, the rain began to fall, and didn’t let up for nearly two days.

Thank you rains for all the green! The hills look so lush, I’m tempted to just drop to the ground and roll around in the grass (if it wasn’t for all those tics that might attach themselves to my flesh – eek!)