After the Rain

Emma (in her stylish houndstooth coat) and Lizzy don't see 

what the fuss is about. Rain is awesome!

I have a few minutes between the rainstorms to get caught up. I’ve been telling stories about the wacky weather, but the thing I've been trying - and failing - to get across here is the disconnect between what's happening to us and what everybody's seeing on the news.

On the news, Joe McReporter from KCAL or KTLA or whatever stands in the rain in La Canada Flintridge, camera trained on a hillside, warning us of what might happen. In real life, we are in our houses with our kids and chores and pets, and it is raining outside. For a week.

On the news, Dallas Raines (the ultimate weatherman, I'm not joking. I love him) makes his predictions about how much it's gonna rain and for how long. In real life, I try to get my old dog Nathan outside to pee in between cloudbursts. Little dog Clem has taken the persistent rain outside as permission to use the bathroom floor instead of the doggy door, so I keep busy cleaning that up as well.

On the national news, they show the same three or four scary mudflow videos over and over again. Which leads to the real life problem of friends and loved ones calling from all over the country asking if we're okay. Which is great, of course; it's nice to be loved, but I kinda feel like I'm letting them down when I tell them things are fine here. Just wet.

On the news, the anchors report about the evacuations. The reporters track down residents to interview, and really enjoy talking to the (seemingly foolish) ones who aren't leaving. In real life, the kids' school gets cancelled, mainly because the cops don't want the traffic problems. My friend Becki lives up the hill, one street down from the evacuation line. For a while there, she thought she was going to get that knock on the door, the same night they decided to cancel school. And, as she put it, "I don't know which is worse: evacuating, or being stuck in the house all day with the kids."

That's real life for us. It’s not something I ever thought I’d have to worry about, growing up in Ohio and all.

Real life is doing the laundry while making a mental checklist of things to take with you if an emergency arises. It’s helping with homework and making dinner, while watching three police cruisers tear up the street and wondering if that means the mountain gave way somewhere. It's trying to explain to my daughter that she can't have a sleepover, because maybe her friend's house will need to be evacuated overnight. We just don't know. We’re winging it here.

So the rain has stopped for now and the sun is shining. The reporters are gone from the neighborhood, off to cover the snow in Big Bear. The kids went back to school, and the little dog is using the doggy door again (yay). Another storm should be rolling in tomorrow. Now, like we did during the Station Fire, we watch and wait. Because when your real life is about dealing with some of the weirdest situations Mother Nature can throw at you, that's all you can do.

That, and laundry. There’s always laundry.

Muddy Waters, part 2

Amazing video of mudslide up on Canyonside Drive, about 2 miles from us. 

This was taken on January 18th and got plenty of airtime on the news networks.

This morning, as I walked out to the mom van to run an errand at the school, two L.A. County Sheriff's cruisers went zooming up the street in front of me. 9:00, I realized: time to start the evacuations. Being a nosy parker, I went looking for them after I was done; sure enough, there they were on Pine Glen, one of those streets I was talking about yesterday. On one side are homes, on the other side the sheer face of a saturated hillside threatening to surrender to gravity.

Three cruisers were parked on the side of the street and I saw two officers walking up to two different houses, clipboards in their hands. If residents refused to evacuate, they had to sign documents to that effect. These evacuations are serious. If you're popped from your home, you're popped until Monday. Unlike the fires, the mudslides are impossible to predict and you can't just put 'em out. And as you can see in the video up there, it's not just mud, either. There can be some pretty big rocks coming your way.

I had found the list of addresses being evacuated last night on the818now.com, and ran into the bedroom to tell Dan. "Holy smokes! These are right up the street!" One mile up the hill. Doesn't sound like much, but it's a pretty long way for mud to travel, so my concern was for my old neighbors and other families I know.

Then at 10:30 the phone rang. It was a robocall from the elementary school, assuring us that school would be in session in spite of the evacuations. 5 minutes later we got the same call from the middle school. We want to provide the children with a stable environment during this difficult time, they said, and we know our community will pull together to support those families affected by the evacuations. 

There's a low, gloomy feeling of unease around here. I keep comparing it to the hurricanes in Florida: you know they're coming, but you don't know what the damage is gonna be. It's about 11 a.m. as I write this, and the next wave should be arriving in an hour or so. The weather dudes are saying this will be the biggest one, and we may get up to 7 inches of rain today. Today! In one day! And it's going to be really bad when school is letting out, too.

And me without any rain boots. Stay tuned...

Muddy Waters

There are a lot of things about California that compel the rest of the country to think "why would anyone even want to live there?" Earthquakes, of course, top the list. Growing up in Ohio, I was one of those people. That's just nuts, I thought, why would you choose to live somewhere like that?

Now that I'm a resident – and completely dug in (that's another post for another day) – the crazy things about my home state keep piling up. The state budget, for example, has gone haywire. No wonder; we require a two-thirds vote to pass a budget, which is ridiculous in this partisan society. I don't think our legislature would pass a resolution saying "puppies are cute" with a two-thirds majority.

Smog was one of my big concerns when I got here. I chose the Foothills as a place to live, because I thought the air would be fresh and clean up high and away from the city. Not so. Apparently La Crescenta's nickname – "The Balcony of Southern California!" – came because all the icky air floats around merrily before looking for a place to land, and what better place than an outdoor balcony?

Then there's that whole fire business, which I've covered in a previous post. And now I'm smack dab in the middle of the consequences of the Station Fire: mudslides.

Yes, now the earth is giving way. Not by shaking, but by erosion. There are no trees left to keep it in place, and the rain is going to pummel it for the next several days. Folks around here are dealing with this prospect in different ways.

My neighbor is prepared to evacuate.  She has her bird's travel cage ready to go, computer backups on the table. She has checked the projections for "fluvial flow" and knows that in a worst-case scenario, the mud would travel down our main street and expand outward as it heads downhill. "We'll be ready to get on the roof," she says, "because if it comes, it comes really fast." Keep in mind that we are more than a mile down the hill, and there are hundreds of homes between us and the mountain; but I have to say, I've learned a lot about preparedness from her. Because who the hell knows? This is not something they prepare you for in school.


This morning after I dropped the girls off at school, I drove up the hill to see what had happened in yesterday's rain. There was muddy residue along the side of the road as I drove up. At the top of the neighborhood, where houses face a bare mountainside across the street, there were crews cleaning up a small landslide and reinforcing the area. I could see a few narrow ravines where the water had started to work its way down and into the mud.

Overall, though, it wasn't bad. I was encouraged by the presence of the road crew. Our street was clear, assisted by wide flood channels. I drove home, clear skies above, wondering what would happen later today when the next round started.

Officials are expecting the heaviest flows tomorrow and Thursday. The local television reporters are just apoplectic over the potential for disaster. I watched as an LA County Sheriff drove up to a KTLA reporter during a live report and told her to move farther down the hill. She was just about pissing herself with excitement. It reminds me of the reporters in Florida during a hurricane.

All of this challenges me to keep my chipper attitude. I mean, really, what are you gonna do? It's where I live, for better or worse. And there are plenty of good things about living in California, believe me.

I'm just having a little trouble remembering them right now. And I'm keeping my laptop and the baby pictures near the door.

One of the worst flows this round was just to the east of us in La Canada. 

Photo, Glendale News-Press.

An Emma Story

I usually listen to NPR in the car when the kids are all hooked up to their various devices: Nintendo DSes, iPods, even the occasional book. But as we drive back from Emma’s dermatologist appointment (plantar wart on her foot), my favorite station, KPCC, is on and she is listening. 

“This is All Things Considered, I’m Michelle Norris…”

“… and I’m Robert Siegel,” say my audio companions.

“Robert Seagull,” says Emma. “His name is Robert Seagull.” She finds this just hilarious and starts to giggle. “Robert Seagull is talking. He’s a talking seagull.” Claire snorts with laughter too.

“Seagulls can’t talk!”

“Yeah he can, he’s a talking seagull. I’m Robert Seagull, squawk, squawk!” They are dissolving in peals of laughter. “Watch out for the seagull poop!”

Meanwhile, Robert Siegel has started reporting about a story from Iran. Over the laughter, Emma hears a woman speaking a foreign language on the radio.

“I’m Robert Seagull, and now here is a woman speaking Spanish,” she says in her broadcaster’s voice.

“Actually, I think that’s Farsi,” I say offhandedly.

“FARTSY? Did you say FARTSY?” she screams. The giggles are ridiculous now.

“Farsi. That’s the language they speak in Iran,” I say, to utterly no avail.

“You said Fartsy! Ha haaaa!” They are both giggling now, squealing about seagulls speaking Fartsy language. By this time I am also laughing so hard that tears are squeezing out of the corners of my eyes.

Just another day in the minivan.

The Santa Stalker

I'm running out of time.

Christmas is in 3 days, and then he'll be gone.

The jolly fat man, my holiday muse and favorite myth, Santa Claus.

I love Santa. I always have. It got a little weird and out of control once my dad started to look like Santa. Now that I live on the opposite coast from my dad, Santa has become kind of a substitute, a doppelganger if you will. The Santa at the Glendale Galleria is a singing Santa, like my dad. So I love to go and see him and... well... just see him, I guess.

Every Christmas season I steal as many moments in Santa's presence as I can. I love to go down to the mall and just stand there, watching him with the little kids. I could probably spend a whole afternoon there, if I had a whole afternoon during Christmas where my presence was not absolutely required somewhere else. But even a few moments are enough to fill me up for a while.

It's the kids, of course. Mine are just barely too big to sit on his lap anymore. (I told Emma and Claire I'd give them a dollar if they'd get a Santa picture this year and initially they said yes, but once we got there they backed out on me.) The optimal kid age for Santa is up to about 5, I'd say. After that, they're just there for the candy cane or stickers or whatever.

Here comes a family with three kids. Big brother is 6, he's a pro, sits in the middle just smiling at the camera. Santa is just a lap for him. Little sister is 3, maybe 4. She is enthralled. Baby brother, age 1, perches on the right knee and Santa holds him up and as soon as Mom steps away from him he starts to cry, slowly, his face going from a little scared to contorted with fear... click!

Captured in time.

For the most part, from my observations, the 2 to 3 year olds don't like him. No they do not. They are either terrified, in shock, or outright enraged. "Mom!" their eyes say as the camera flashes, "Mom! How could you do this to me? I trusted you! And you gave me to this big hairy stranger!" Ah, that's a look to treasure. I have a couple of those pictures, myself. Crying gently or screwing their eyes up and screaming. Not happy. Those kids are fun to watch.

But the best are the little ones who stare in wonder. Jackpot! That's what I came for. Tiny little girls in fancy velvet dresses wearing white tights with lace on the butt, little boys with their hair slicked back for the photo, set gently on Santa's lap to gaze up at him with wide, trusting eyes. You can tell that's what he took the job for.

A little hand touches the beard (it's real) and I start to tear up. Okay, why? Why do I do this?

Santa has made me a voyeur. I'm spying on the small moments of another family's Christmas, because my own family is so far away. Every child I watch - maybe -  is me, or my brothers, or my baby sister. And every Santa is my daddy.

Aw jeez. Really? Santa is a father fixation? I had way too many psych classes in college. Can't I just, I don't know, enjoy the little kids, the innocence, the joy? Does it have to be so deep?

No, it doesn't, although thinking about it that way makes it even more special for me. So I watch the kids on Santa's lap, remembering all of us sitting on daddy's lap at Christmas time and it makes me feel happy. So sue me.

Oh, and Merry Christmas, Dad.

Here's me and Santa during his down time. He was available to walk me 

down the aisle at my wedding to Dan on August 5, 2007. Looking good, Santa.

What Christmas Is All About

My husband works for a pretty awesome company. Panda Restaurant Group does a lot of charitable work, both locally and throughout the country. They are big fans of Stephen R. Covey's "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People", and have monthly seminars to encourage the personal growth of their employees.

Covey has a "Seven Habits" program targeted at children. Without going into details (because there are lots of details), kids learn self-esteem and empowerment skills to lay a foundation for success in school and later in the real world. Panda has sponsored this program in a number of inner-city schools, and on Thursday, December 10th, they held a Christmas party for the neediest kids from these schools.

Dan was Santa last year. (I found it a little amusing that a disaffected agnostic Jew was playing Santa... but I digress.) He's a jolly fellow most of the time and therefore eminently qualified for the job. As the party approached, Dan asked me if I would be his Mrs. Claus.

Now, if any of you know me, you may know that my dad is, in fact, Santa. By that I mean he plays one at Christmas. He's a stout fellow with a booming voice and a real white beard, the friendliest Santa you'd ever want to meet. My mom, in the past few years, has been his Mrs. at some of his appearances. With her glasses and silver-streaked hair, she is his perfect foil (as she has been for forty-eight years now). So the irony was not lost on me. I could not think of one earthly reason to say no.

Someone rustled up an elaborate Mrs. Claus costume for me, a long red velvet gown with faux-fur trim. I bought a wig at Party City and headed off for my debut.

Panda's huge dining and events room was packed with round banquet tables, full of elementary school kids and their teachers. A group of enthusiastic employees led them in a holiday singalong, and then it was our big moment. Dan -- I mean, Santa -- and I entered the room waving and smiling, saying hello to as many children as possible on our way to the stage.

Dan did his Santa bit, congratulating the kids on their Seven Habits work. Then he said, "I need some help bringing my helpers in!" and led them in a cheer, ending in Abracadabra, and the doors opened.

A group of Panda employees had each sponsored one child, and they streamed in with all the gifts as boisterous holiday music played. Some wheeled in shiny new bikes adorned with giant bows, and that's when I choked up a little.

Dan explained that the teachers and faculty in these schools had identified the neediest kids, and for many of them, this was going to be their only Christmas gift.

You know, I think I'm usually a pretty good writer, but I can't fully explain what I felt at that moment. I thought the kids would be jumping up and down and screaming with joy. Instead, as I walked through the room with my Santa, I realized that these kids were just stunned. I'm sure they had never been to a party like this, in an immense building with a waterfall inside, a 15-foot-tall Christmas tree in the lobby, and all the Orange Chicken they could eat. They opened their gifts with their mouths hanging open, slowly, as if it wasn't really happening.

One lovely little thing held onto a new bike and pushed it slowly past the crowd, all the time gazing at us with her huge brown eyes. She wasn't even smiling; her expression was more a kind of amazed disbelief. I was spellbound.

I bent down to speak to her. "Do you like your bike?"

All she could do was nod. I said, "You've been a very good girl this year."

And then she smiled the most beautiful smile I've ever seen.

I'm going to try not to think about what kind of life she returned to. I'm going to hope that she has enough to eat and that her parents are kind to her. I'm going to pray that, in spite of her tender age, she will remember the seventh habit, "sharpening the saw": preserving and enhancing the greatest asset she has - herself.

I'm going to remember this sweet, nameless little girl all my days, and I'm definitely coming back as Mrs. Claus for as long as they want me. It was my best present ever.

The Clauses pose with Dan's co-worker, Glenn. Nice square pillow, Santa.

A New Addition to the "What to Expect" Genre

(Now that I’m an “experienced” mom, I feel qualified to fill in a few gaping holes in the “What to Expect” genre. Call it “What to Expect When The Glow Wears Off”. This is part of an essay in progress and I thought it would be fun to share. Feel free to add your own experiences in the comments section.)


1. You will have to cook. A lot.

Oh, how I loved breastfeeding my babies. The problem came when they started to demand actual food. See, I’m not much of a cook. I had my first child at 34; prior to that, I’d spent my adult life in a completely narcissistic world where I ate out or ordered in all the time. The fact that I worked in restaurants for years only reinforced my opinion that cooking was something somebody else did.

Today I find myself feeding three small kids three times a day, and I can honestly say that I just hate it. They are picky eaters, which is weird, since I have a really limited menu available to them anyway. I do all the kid standards: mac and cheese, chicken nuggets, spaghetti and meatballs, etc. My kids will eat exactly five vegetables: green beans, broccoli, cauliflower, peas and corn. I should really just write everything I can cook on a list and number it and rotate the meals. “Okay kids, we’re having number 12 tonight.” “Oh man, we just had number 12! Can’t we have 8 instead?” “Sorry guys, I don’t have any 8 left. Maybe tomorrow.”


2. You have to clean stuff. A lot.

Re previous comment: You cook, you also have to clean up the dishes. And the spills. And the crumbs. And the shit they throw on the floor when they’re little and the shit they throw at each other when they’re older. My advice: get a dog. That will at least take care of the floor.

You will have to clean truly gross stuff. It starts with the diapers, and goes downhill from there. Just wait until your 5-year-old eats a big ol' slice of NASCAR-themed birthday cake (black icing on the wheels) and washes it down with lemonade. You will be amazed at the color of the projectile vomit that hits your walls later that day. Oh yeah: don’t let the dog clean that one up, or you'll hurl too.

You will do laundry. Your second child will triple your laundry. Your third child will increase your laundry tenfold. If you have more than three, it will no longer matter, because just the word “laundry” will send you into a catatonic state until you wake up and find yourself folding the last little t-shirt and placing it atop a teetering pile of children’s clothes.

If you ask your husband to help you fold the children’s clothes he will look at you as if his ears just fell off.

You will endlessly wash your children. The first nervous sponge baths, gingerly cleaning around the umbilical cord with an alcohol-soaked q-tip, will become a distant memory in 5 or 6 years, when you are wrestling your rainbow-hued kindergartner into the tub after she learns the word “tattoo” and decides to go all Kat Von D on herself with her (washable? I think not) Crayola markers. I have, as of this Mother’s Day, been bathing children for 12 years, and I can tell you it’s getting old. I have been known to smell their heads to determine whether or not an actual bath is called for, or if we can just grab a couple of diaper-wipes and call it even.


3. Your children will hurt you.

And I don’t mean your feelings. You will be injured by the little darlings. The aches and pains of pregnancy, the agony of labor, even the first chomp on your nipple by your angelic teething nursing baby are just a warmup.

You will be poked sharply in the eye by the deadly index finger of a toddler having a meltdown. Your six-year-old’s enormous forehead will connect violently with your orbital bone during a tickling match gone horribly wrong, resulting in the kind of shiner that will make folks wonder if they should have the cops come by your house. Your son will swing his plastic sword (“I said, no weapons in the house! Ever!”) at his sister, but will instead connect with your shinbone as you walk by, resulting in a bright purple egg that takes weeks to fade. The little one will tip over while standing on a dining room chair (“I said, sit in your chair! Now!”) but luckily you will be standing there to break the fall; the impact of said chair against quadricep muscle will then result in a deep thick painful bruise.

They will be very sorry, of course. Their little faces will scrunch up in sorrow and then terror when they hear you scream some very adult expressions of pain. And that’s when you have to suck it up and apologize and tell them, “it’s okay honey, mommy’s just got an owie” when what you really want to do is cry. (Special note: it scares your kids when you cry.)


4. You will wonder what the hell you were thinking.

One day, before you know it, your sweet baby boy will be twelve years old and smell like teen spirit. He will go to a friend’s house for a sleepover and the next day the other kid’s mom will call to let you know that the two of them were caught looking at inappropriate videos on YouTube. When you ask him about it he will give you the eye roll and say “geez, mom. Are you gonna give me ‘the talk’ now?” and slam his door in your face.

And you will wonder what the hell you were thinking.

And your friends will be no help at all, saying things like, “oh just wait till it’s your girls”.


5. And finally: You will be blown away, pretty much daily, by how much you love them.

Okay, so maybe this one’s been covered in the other books. Really, everyone knows that’s why you do it in the first place: because (ideally, anyway) you and your spouse have so much love, you want to share it with kids of your own. But the utter ferociousness of that love will, every now and then, just clock you upside your head.

It will happen when you least expect it. When you tiptoe in to watch your little girl sleeping like an angel, a mere hour after she threw herself screaming on the floor because she didn’t want to go to bed. When you have read Green Eggs and Ham for the 73rd time and you realize that he knows the words by heart and is “reading” along with you. When you are up to your elbows in dirty dishes and she brings you a dandelion, offering it with the biggest grin ever, saying “it’s as pretty as you are”! When you watch your preschooler “graduate”, and your heart swells up as he walks by in his cardboard cap with the yarn tassel, and to your amazement you burst into tears.

And yes, when you hold your crying 5-year-old after he has spewed black icing and lemonade on the wall, because he is scared and sick and only mommy – no one else – can help him feel better.

My sweet baby boy, about 12 years ago. You can't see the dog in this picture, but he's there.