Uuuuuugh...

As mentioned here before, I listen to a CD of rainfall every night as I fall asleep. I live in So. Cal, which is almost always in the middle of a drought, so the sound of rain is a rare event. Well, this morning I woke to rainfall. I can not express how difficult it was to climb out of bed to get ready for work. I had called in sick yesterday and it would have been SO easy to call in sick again today, sit in my pjs and crochet/read all day in my super comfy chair. It would have been heaven. Of course the rain will be long gone tomorrow so today was my one and only chance to enjoy a lazy rainy day for God knows how long. I was feeling better so I decided to suck it up and go to work. I had lots to catch up on and missed seeing my friends (who I've hardly seen since before Thanksgiving due to my ridiculous schedule). But still, I can't remember my bed ever feeling better.

Also, there was the traffic to consider. Yuck!! I mean, it's always annoying but being the first rain in a long time... it was gonna be ugly. We Southern Californians have a bad reputation when it comes to driving on wet roads. I'd like to explain this trouble. It's not that we're terribly lame drivers in the rain. The problem is that so many months pass without any rainfall that when it does hit it slicks up the roads that have months of grease and grime built up on them. That's why we have grooves in our freeways. It helps with traction. The first rain is always the worst. Today was no different. There were SigAlerts all over the place.

Which brings me to another bit of So Cal trivia. For years I assumed a SigAlert was short for Signal/Alert or some such variation. Most people are so accustomed to hearing about SigAlerts that they don't question the origin of the word. A few years ago I looked up the history of the SigAlert and learned it's actually named after a guy named Sigmond (aka "Sig") who used to alert Angelinos to terrible traffic problems in the 40's as more and more folks were buying cars resulting on more and more traffic. In the 50's Sig developed an electronic traffic alert system and these snarl-ups have been called SigAlerts ever since. For those interested, a SigAlert is defined as any "traffic incident" that will result in two or more closed lanes of traffic for more than two hours. This morning, not only did we have some terrible accidents but some yahoo decided to threatened to jump off an overpass into oncoming traffic on the Pasadena freeway which made things even worse. All I could think was "Dude! She's not worth it!!"

So there is your bit of So Cal trivia for the day.

That also makes for 30 days of posting. Yea!! I did it!!!! Unless something terrible interesting happens tomorrow I will likely take a few days off from the blogging.

Thanks for stoppin' by.