Socks and Milk Duds

Louise and I are going to California this coming Sunday. She will be taking an outrigger paddling course and I suppose that she is taking me along just in case she starts to have fun and needs to be brought down. We all have things that we are good at.

I am kind of looking forward to the trip, but since all that I know about California I learned from the Wonderful World of Disney, the Beach Boys and of course all of the movies and TV shows where murder and mayhem seems to be the norm. I'm just not sure what to expect. I plan to do some shopping while Louise is out on the ocean freezing her ass off, and I guess checking out the lay of the land while I am left to my own devices.  

 

I do have these fantasies of seeing the rich and famous and perhaps enjoying an afternoon of witty repartee. I guess the problem there might be that I wouldn't recognize most of those people if they were wearing name tags and farting dollar bills. Maybe they will recognize me. I have been told that there is an uncanny resemblance between Steven Speilberg and myself. Maybe Mrs. Speilberg will invite Louise and I to dinner in order to freak out Stevie. It could happen!  

(me)

(Steven Speilberg)

I have spent a good portion of my adult life avoiding the west coast. I have been to Vancouver and the Island, but I have never been really comfortable while I was there. I even have a distant cousin that lives somewhere in southern California whom I have never visited. I am sure she would love to see me, I mean, who wouldn't. We never did make it to Disneyland, Knotts Berry Farm or the Universal Studios when the kids were young and I kind of regret that now. It was a money thing at the time, but if there was a strong enough will I could have made it happen. You have to love the feelings that old regrets can bring up. Maybe I can take the grandkids when they are a little older. Perhaps they will take me when I am a little older.  

It isn't my fault that we have never gone, it is the San Andreas Fault. Those wonderful things that I mentioned are all positioned in and around one of the largest fault lines in North America. Who does that? Why, at any moment the whole state could fall into the ocean! There are many earthquakes, so many in fact that the locals have learned to ignore them! Learn to ignore the ground undulating! WTF! I don't like it when my stomach rumbles, so I am pretty sure I won't like it if the earth decided to get up and wander away.  

You would think that the people that live there would be very mindful of their precarious position and walk softly with padded shoes, ride bikes everywhere, speak quietly and more or less nurture mother earth. What do these people do? They drive monstrous large cars everywhere, scream and shout, and rather than nurture the earth they rape the soil of all it's nutrients and pump all of the water from underground aquifers in order to turn a desert into an oasis and erect huge, heavy buildings everywhere. In short, they seem to be doing all that they shouldn't do.  

So this is where I am going. I am not a geophysicist (Maegan is though) but there must be a tipping point. What if I am that tipping point? What if the San Andreas Fault can't take even one more pound and when I land there the earth splits open and the ocean rushes in? How would that be fair? I have spent most of my life avoiding just this kind of thing. I guess that if it is your time, then it is your time. I know one thing for sure, I will be taking my water purifier, compass and other survival equipment. Oh, and if it comes to a choice between myself and one of the local soil rapers, they are going down!

Yeah, it should be a good time. I am looking forward to it. I'm planning on buying socks and milk duds.