We're here.......

Several hundred boxes, many tears, a lot of dinners out, and many good-byes later, we are in La-La Land. It's beautiful here but a bit strange. These people are freaked out by rain. It was raining the day we went to register the boys at their new school. At 10 in the morning there was a flurry of activity in the office. Several teachers came in to tell the administrator that it was raining and that "we might have to go to the rainy day schedule." An announcement to that effect was made, and I asked what the rainy day schedule was. "Well, the kids don't go outside and they have recess and gym inside." Kind of what is called "indoor recess" at our school back home, where that decision is made 10 minutes before lunch, I guess. And then a little while later the rain stopped and there was yet another big discussion on whether to go off the "rainy day schedule." I also heard a woman on a cell phone at the grocery store assure someone that she was, indeed, "warm and dry." These Californians are very fragile, it seems.

At another grocery store I was behind a woman at the deli counter and she asked to see the ingredients in the turkey. I remember hoping it was an allergy-related request. Then in the produce department I noticed that California-grown avocados were $2.89 each. I asked the produce guy why I paid 99 cents for them in Illinois and they were more than double that in the state where they were grown. "Because this is where all the rich people live," he answered. I don't think I'm in Kansas anymore.

I've had no celebrity sightings yet. I think I will start drinking coffee because it seems that coffee shops are a sure bet for celebrity sightings. Just look thru any issue of People magazine. That, along with unpacking the hundreds of boxes, will be my project for next week.