It's all relative, you know. I live in Marquette, MI, where we've logged about 60 inches of snow so far this season. No big deal. But you should have seen the headlines when we had a hailstorm this summer. We brought on a job candidate from Oklahoma about six weeks later, and she was mildly freaked out by all the references to "THE hailstorm." "THE hailstorm?" she asked. "Like you only had ONE?"

OMG. How do you all manage with the "torrential sprinkling"? I thought the writer's strike was as bad as it gets there in California. But what would I know, I'm uncivilized and from Oklahoma driving a covered wagon to work and all as far as most of the "native" Californians would assume.

p.s. Purl I don't include you with the "natives" there....at least until you lose the drawl.

It was awful getting to work today -- because people so cannot drive in the rain. Plus there were some gusty winds on the bridge and my little car does not like wind. But at work we're happy. Because rain means more business.

Oh...I miss California. I miss people losing their minds over things like rain. Now I live in Massachusetts where it's "Last year our total snowfall amounts for the year were 17 inches. In the last week we've received 19 inches. And due to the fact that it was heavy, frozen snow, people's roofs are collapsing on them. Next on the news..." like it's nothing at all.

I'm pretty sure it was 9 degrees when I left the house this morning and then almost slid down the hill when someone didn't shovel their sidewalk.

Maybe Britney should come here to Boston I don't think we have paparazzi and if they can't work a snowblower they'll never catch up to her! She would probably have to trade in her Starbucks for Dunkin Donuts so she'll fit in better.

Oh Mollie, don't say hail please (being from Oklahoma) or ice storm for that matter. Been there, done that and no thank you for more. Tornados are small inconveniences usually compared to Oklahoma hail and now ice.

"Storm damage" = leaves on the bench? That is funny! hahahahaha!

Of course, that part about somebodies house sitting in a canyon road somewhere is not such a stretch of the imagination in sunny SoCal.

Hmmmm.... I don't think most folks out here consider the rest of the U.S. "provincial" since we're all FROM the rest of the U.S.! LOL. It's hard to find a real bonafide native Los Angeleno (Faith is a native, actually, but she isn't the judgy type.)

In fact, my friend Amber who lives out here is a proud grad of the UofOklahoma! And so is the EVP who works four doors down from me on this floor. I once mentioned to him that my friend Amber went there and he even knew her!

LMAO!!!!!!! Torrential sprinkling!!!!!!! God that's good!

It's things like that that deter me from visiting LA....ever.

It's actually warmed up here. It's a cozy ten degress outside. The snow is starting to melt even!!! Maybe we'll have spring early this year!!!

hhaha....torrential sprinkles.

*giggle* Here in the Chicago area, we just whine when the snowplows take two days to get to our street . . . But no one can drive when there's the first new weather of the season. THe first flurry and it takes two days for everyone to remember that the roads are still fine and get back to driving the speed limit.

Happy almost Holidays!

and also- it's been un-windy for the last two days!!! Usually we have 30- 40 mile an hour wind!!! Its Western Minnesota. There's no hills, no trees, and no buildings. (probably from here to CA! Hey! We are probably getting the remnants of the Santa Annas!!!)

My son is visiting from NY, where they really DO have weather. He overheard a worker at In-and Out yesterday complaining about the "cold weather".

Groan, groan, groan from my son!

Oh gasp! Puddles! I would just love to take a handful of cute LA socialites in their high heels and plonk them down on my front sidewalk. It'd be like Bambi on ice. (Considering I do the Bambi maneuver in tennis shoes every day)

Then again, if you take someone from Wisconsin and put us outside on a sunny day, we think it's the apocalypse.

It's all about what you're used to. Laurie, you're so lucky to be used to nearly perfect weather. Go play in the puddles and show them what they're missing! :)

Merry week before Christmas!

Yeah, yeah, a torrent of sprinkles, a drop here and there. I feel for you...waaah!

Okay, now for the important thing - Bob!!! Bobalicious! With a face like that, how can you not let him manhandle, I mean cathandle the tree all he wants? ;)

I'm a day late and a dollar short. Yeah, I meant to combine two posts into one comment!

I am so glad you lived through the storms. I hope that the storm damage at your house is minimal and you won't need to spend valuable seconds of your time cleaning up the debris.

In Fort Worth, TX (or any place in Texas for that matter) if the weatherperson even hints that we may be possibly in for some "freezing precipitation" (covering all their bases, doncha know, i.e. ice, sleet, snow, rain that may freeze later, etc.) we clean out the grocery store shelves. Just in case we get housebound for more than 8 hrs. Tee Hee! It's hysterical, but we all do it! Not just food but toilet paper, too! You never want to be short on the essentials.

I am a native Angeleno, born and raised and still live here. It never ceases to amaze me that drivers here must be the worst anywhere in the world. Most drive like idiots when it isn't raining, but when it does, oh Lord, look out. I just don't get it. It's like all common sense (not that most drivers here have any) and common courtesy cease to exist, although it still amazes me when someone is courteous - alert the media! There was another televised car chase last night and the guy ended up going up a canyon road and smashing into the side of the mountain, rolling his truck. People's stupidity just amazes me. They just don't seem to understand that they're not going to outrun 15 CHP cars and numerous helicopters. Duh! Come on Southern California drivers - get a clue. Geesh.

Northern Cal is not much better about water falling from sky - news at eleven. Lots of extra honking (but could be xmas shoppers too). I eagerly awaited December when I could use my little fireplace, but, alas, I have to strip down to the teeshirt & shorts because it's too WARM with a fire going inside. Sorry snowbirds. Plus there's always the guilt over fireplace pollution...

I can relate. This also happens when we get a tenth of an inch of snow in Middle Georgia. It snows like once every ten years --- not enough to even blanket the ground good before it melts and people go spastic over it.

Have a good week :)

You have cracked me up today. "Torrential sprinkling" and "storm damage", indeed! That puddle alone -- well, better call out FEMA!

Hehe.

They go pretty stupid up here in Sonoma County as well when that weird wet stuff starts falling from the sky like it does EVERY winter.

Anyone that wants to drive in California should be required to spend 6 months driving in a state that actually has seasons first.

Dear Laurie, I have several inches of a white cold powdery substance on my yard. It's currently covering the frozen "torrential sprinkle" we got before that. You're welcome to both!! You just have to come pick them up. Also, if you'd like to take the sections of this substance that are covering the driveway and the sidewalk I would be eternally greatful. Thanks! - Justin.

It's somewhat like that in Colorado too, where I'm at. I don't know, it might be due to all of the influx of people from California. :) Don't worry though, the snow isn't much better. We either have people driving 2mph because OMG it's SNOWING! or have people in their SUVs racing along at 80mph because they have SUVs, they don't need to go slow.

I love Tiny Tyrant's suggestion. I like to think that those few years during which I left California (Yes, I am a native. Thank you very much.) to live in Virginia aided my driving skills quite a bit. Whenever someone out here complains about driving when it's sprinkling, I say, "I'd like to see you on the road during a tropical storm. Now that's some real wet weather driving." And uh yeah, they were usually tropical storms because after hitting the Carolinas the storms were downgraded from being full hurricanes.

Erm... what storm damage?

Yeh, I know, that was your point. Around here the entire world looks like a giant baked Alaska, huge mounds and dollops of meringue and whipped cream, only it is NOT. It is neither sweet nor soft, it is just COLD.

Does it ever snow at all in California, at sea level, I mean? What would Angelenos do if confronted with the flaky stuff?

We could use some torrential sprinkling here in Georgia!

Laurie - I thought of you at lunch today. I saw a newscast - This woman is SUING the Gwinnett County Public Library because she caught a dude looking at porn there. YOU SHOULD SUE!!!!

When are the FEMA trailers arriving???

Where I lived in central California it snowed about half an inch in December of 1988 and school was closed for two days because of the weather. We kids were so excited to be able to be out in t-shirts and shorts (because no one had winter clothes) building snow piles (snow men were next to impossible as there was not enough snow). Good times! It's raining in San Francisco today and I can confirm drivers up here don't know what to do with the wet stuff, either.

Toronto is the California of Canada. Mayor had to call in the army once to plow the snow. Rick Mercer (kind of our Jon Stewart) recently called us "Torontarded" for our weather related panic.

Suddenly, I am having the worst deja vu - did I post this link on this blog already? Oh well, it's so funny I might as well post it again.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/story/1999/01/14/snow990114.html

we have had a bit of everything here in OK. Ice, sleet, snow, rain, and for some no electricity for almost 2 weeks, I'm sure those in OKC could put up with your "storm of the century"
happy holidays to all :)

This is serious not apropos, but do you read Gofugyourself.com? Hilarious...uses words like boobular....

http://gofugyourself.typepad.com/

I meant seriously NOT apropos...geez. Would seem that boobular, in one of its many uses, applies to me.

RAIN?!?!?! Alert FEMA and get the Governator to order a state of emergency!

torrential sprinkles.That makes me laugh with glee.

Torrential sprinkles...I may never recover!

Oh, I know, it's the same in San Diego. Life stops when there's slight mist in the air. 15 seconds after it starts raining, I-5 is a massive parking lot and everyone seems to crash into everyone else just because of some water. And oh boy, should there be wind too! I am surprised people still live here! I wonder what would happen if someday a real storm hit SoCal..

I'm a native Californian, and you'll learn that we forget how to drive when it rains for the first few times each year. I think it's because we have a rainy season - usually from Halloween to around April or May - and it's dry the rest of the year. People aren't used to things falling out of the sky, unless it's frogs or something.

Oh... and I take offense at Mollie's comment. I know you all drive covered wagons there. I've seen them.

please check our astrological charts -- we saw two accidents on the way to work and the driving craziness didn't end there.

Actually sometimes FEMA is not out of the question. Areas of Marin, Sonoma, and Napa Counties are known to flood in the winter.

LOL, I lived in the San Diego area and remember this well. Winter is, and has been, and will probably always be, the rainy season. Traffic will most likely go 20mph under the speed limit, with the exception of the crazy people going 20mph over.

I know on these freezing cold 60 degree or so days, you're seeing people in huge bulky sweaters and long pants, but just remember it'll be 72 again and sunny again by week's end. Usually. :P

Oh, CAP, your weather comments just make me laugh. I too live in the San Fernando Valley (the far reaches called the West SFV - Encinco possible but not so adjacent). I grew up where there were real winters, so the "storm watches" seem extreme. My husband complains of "freezing" when it's below 60 degrees outside.

Thanks for helping us keep it in perspective - I'm going back tonight and read all the comments. (Have to write a report right now).

p.s. I am sorry for all those who have real weather-related problems, including those Southern Californians who will have to endure flooding where it burned.

We've had snow here, about a foot of it, but not a big deal. It hasn't been very cold yet this year, only to about -11 plus windchill which makes it feel colder. But winter isn't even here yet, and I'll bet we get worse weather later on. The snow is making the trees beautiful, and the Christmas lights are making sense, but the roads are yucky brown with sand and slushy with the salt they sprinkle, so don't look there. :O)

Pam, that wasn't me--I said nothing about my conviction that inhabitants of both coasts consider all of us in the middle to be hopelessly primitive. I just thought it, and Kristi (who is actually from Oklahoma) said it for me.

Rain, we love rain here in Georgia! As for snow and other freezing precip - probably won't get that until February or March. Though we should probably get below freezing here soon. Maybe...

Thank you to whomever it was that commented that you CAN file down bamboo sticks after your pet has chewed on them! First my Pekingese, Rocky got a hold of a UFO on my sz 8 circs, then he got a hold of another one on my sz 8 straights!!! It doesn't matter where I leave my knitting - he is enthralled by yarn and apparently, my sz 8's~!

I want to get away from anywhere it snows. Something just is not right about SNOW on Cinco De Mayo and sweatshirts on the 4th of July here in MN!!!

OMG! That is too funny. I thought it was just the local rednecks here in my small town of Tennessee that lost their freaking sense of reasoning and abilities to drive when it rained....and now it is time for snow here, God help us all!

I live in the Arctic. The sun hasn't risen for the past three weeks.

It has rained for five days straight, and there is a green lawn in the darkness outside my window.

I just thought you might like to know :)

Seriously. I'm from this silly state, too. Water is falling and cars are crashing, yet people are still wearing flip flops. Is there a problem with this picture?

Come back on up to Portland. We sprout webbed feet after we've been here awhile.

Gortex is a godsend, as is polar fleece. 'Course those don't do much for the HURRICANE FORCE winds we had as an introduction to December. But hey, what's a little windage to start the holiday season right.

It's raining in the Bay Area, too--and all drivers think 100 mph is perfectly fine in the slow lane. Silly people ... it's 120!

Ha ha ha...actaully when we expect rain we have this ritual I call the tarp dance that we do....it involves putting blue tarps over everything we have stored in the back yard that shouldn't be left in the rain but are too big to move indoors I.E the 4 cars and the various car parts behind the shed. We go OH NO!!! MOISTURE!

Too funny! I was in LA a couple of weeks ago visiting family. My sister is in the middle of renovating her house, and getting new furniture. The new bed for her guest room was to be delivered on Friday, the day I arrived. When she picked me up from the airport, she told me that my bed wasn't going to be delivered until the next day, because they didn't want to deliver in the rain! I thought she was kidding, she wasn't.

Torrential sprinkles? Bwahahahaha.

I don't know about Britney, but I see that the paparazzi (TMZ) did successfully catch someone (Al Pacino? forgot already) braving the rain with a mostly non-functional collapsed umbrella. And I was surprised that anyone in LA was needing one...

I have a friend who used to commute about an hour between El Paso and Las Cruces, where it is desert and they react the same way to rain. Only she thought it was worse because when it does rain, it rains hard. In the meantime, the heat and sun have destroyed the rubber blades of everyone's windshield wipers, only no one realizes it because they don't need wipers until the torrential spring rains come. Then they are all unable to see where they are driving, even if they had a clue how to do it in the rain, which they don't.

I'm just happy. I am enjoying winter (which I never appreciated properly before I lived in Houston for two decades) and I have been one of the lucky ones: we had some ice here, but my power stayed on, so I stayed off the streets and turned up the heat and snuggled with the cats and ate ramen.

Laurie, I sent you a really neat John Deere picture to your email. I thought of you and your uncle when I saw it. I thought it would make a nice gift when printed out and framed.

Anyway, just a head's up on that.

And I remember the craziness that ensued with the HORRIBLE WETNESS in Californya. It was just nuts.

Especially since I was born and raised in the Land of Ice and Snow and even the occasional blizzard [of '68! Remember that one?]
.

I personally think that the first winter storm of any type means people completely forget how to drive. Sprinkling in LA equals 6 inches of snow in Ohio and 16 inches of snow in Vermont. Doesn't matter what you have - it's all the same because people lose their MINDS when they're switching from summer to stupid. If you have this same weather in February we can all gripe that they're driving like maniacs in six inches of snow because by then they're used to it... but have this weather in December and everyone has completely forgotten how to operate a vehicle in anything other than pleasant, sunny wonderfulness.

Please understand I would still love to see 16 inches of snow dropped on LA. (From my comfy Ohio living room.) I'm just trying to put it into perspective.

Being a transplant from upstate NY I have to say that the Boston drivers ain't too hot in the snow department the first few snows of the season. In all fairness I have to say that the pattern of snowfall is different: when I was growing up there'd be a few (or several) inches of snow every week so we were used to it and the plows were zealous about plowing, salting, and sanding. In Boston we tend to get humongous storms, then NOTHING for weeks and weeks. And it's so built up around here that the cities tend to plow the main roads and have private contractors do the side streets, which unfortunately may wait until after the contractors do their private jobs. Not all the time, mind you, but sometimes. I still chuckle thinking about the lot in South Boston a few years ago in which the city trucks had to dump the snow that had been plowed (they had to actually haul the snow away, there was so much). It was nicknamed "the glacier" and apparently was around until well into spring.

Have they started "Storm Watch 2007"on the news yet? hahaha I miss LA.

Don't you just love the LA winter? Unfortunately, it doesn't get any better farther up the coast - you'd think that for a place where it rains half the year, they'd know how to drain their streets and parking lots better! Or at least not have leaky roofs!

Ahhhh...Laurie living on the edge.
Drink some Pinot Noir and you'll be fine.

Oh my heck! A puddle! You shouldn't post such shocking things on your site. It made me dive for the covers and my spare knitting needles!

I wonder if the folk in your town are freaking out cuz Britney Spears' little sixteen year old sister is pregnant by her nineteen year old boyfriend whom she met in church.

LosAngeleMars! My favorite commercials are those ones where they need a phone that works in Virgicalementosanantonio or something. Cracks me up every time.

Are you ok?? Did you survive??? I'm really worried about you being out in all of that rain.

Come to NY and I'll show you a storm.

Its the same here in Florida and cold weather. On Saturday it was hot enough to play in the sprinklers. Less than 48 hours later it was 42 as we were walking out the door. We got to school late since nobody wants to get out of a warm bed. We weren't the only ones and the school decided that no tardy slips would be handed out until a half hour AFTER the late bell, AND PE classes were cancelled. It was too cold.

And 2 days later its back in the 70s.

Yet we have to tell people to stay home during hurricanes.....

The thing that I could never figure out about my native New Jersey is that every winter - every single year - there's ice, snow, general ickiness, and every year, we always seem to be at a total loss as to how to deal with it. Schools closing for a half-inch of snow! Traffic backed up all the way into New York and Pennsylvania because of an icy patch on I-287! I suppose that since we also have summers where it feels like your skin's about to bubble off from the heat and humidity, it's impossible to be accepting of either extreme.

On the bright side, we do have about one or two good weeks in spring and fall.