Where I Lived: SoCal

I wrote this post for the Where I Live linky that is going on over at The American Resident. Each week there is a different topic and this week's topic is Contrasts. As in, write about the negative if you like but contrast it with something positive. And so I have. 

I'm writing about the six years Richard and I spent living in southern California. As is usually the case in these things, I might not have loved living there when we initially moved down, but by the time we left I sure did. We both did. We still think about living somewhere hot. Never quite got over living in such a lovely climate, truth be told.


So here it goes: My Life In SoCal

Right after Richard and I got married we moved from our little apartment in a small town on Vancouver Island to a much bigger city south of Los Angeles, where Richard was to attend the University of California at Irvine. I wasn’t going to do anything, as I couldn’t get a work permit, and so I was feeling kind of jittery about moving to the States, especially as everyone we spoke to said the exact same thing:

Los Angeles has some really scary areas! The drivers are all nuts! Everyone has a gun! It’s really really smoggy! Are you sure you want to live there?

Despite the fact that I’d spent several years living in tents, trucks, and the odd isolated cabin in the woods, I was soon feeling uneasy about moving to such an obviously dangerous place. Guns, mad drivers and smog? I had a bad case of the eeks. Nevertheless, move there we did. We drove down, all our possessions jammed into a truck and one of U-Haul’s finest. The noise, dirt, and sweltering heat of the California freeways were a disappointing revelation. Drivers careered around in oversized SUVs and the freeways were always jammed. The HOV lanes, which in BC required a minimum of 3 occupants, only needed 2 people in the car to be considered “high occupancy.” As we drove past one smash up after another, most involving an unnerving number of ambulances (and eventual morgues), my heart sank, especially when I heard on the local news that there was a freeway shooter targeting women driving alone in small white cars. Did I mention that our car at that time was a small, white Toyota Tercel? And that I would likely be the lone occupant most of the time, while Richard was at school?

Things didn’t look up when we arrived at the student housing complex where we were to live. It looked like something out of The Prisoner, a British TV program I loved. Well, I loved it until I moved to that housing complex. All the worker guys drove around in small electric vehicles, just like they did in The Prisoner. All the units looked identical, just like in The Prisoner. There were clean, winding pathways between units, just like in The Prisoner. And the courtyards were empty and quiet, just like in The Prisoner. Richard thought I was being melodramatic, but I could just see myself being bundled into a large white floating balloon and being drilled by some anonymous man with a No. 2 badge pinned to his striped jacket, just like in The Prisoner. I practiced saying “I am a free woman! I am not a number!” (just like in The Prisoner) while Richard, who had never seen an episode of The Prisoner, rolled his eyes but had the good sense not to say anything.

Then there was the strange method of naming streets and roads. In B.C. roadways take conventional names like ROAD, STREET, or CRESCENT. In extreme cases there’s also CLOSE or DRIVE. Not in California. Everywhere we went the roads seemed to be called CYN. I pronounced this “sin.” It confirmed what I knew about Americans: they were obsessed with sex. This extended to television, where, no matter what was going on in the rest of the world (if indeed you ever heard anything about the rest of the world) the news would always lead with a celebrity story of some kind, even if it was a grade C celebrity. (I bet you didn’t know there are grades of celebrity in Los Angeles, now, did you? Well, there are)

The saving grace was the weather: it was always sunny. Even when it was cloudy it was sunny. It was also weirdly warm all the time, even at night. We never wore socks. Or coats. Rain boots, a staple in the Wet Coast, sat in the back of the closet. We had the doors open at night and best of all, there were no mosquitoes. This was the turning point for me for I am that most tragic of things: a mosquito magnet. If there is one within 50 miles it will find me. Predictably they tend to prefer my face. I end up looking like the Elephant Man until the swellings subside. I have endured many humiliating moments thanks to the mosquito. Until we moved to southern California I had no idea there were mosquito-free places in the world. It was a thrilling discovery that greatly offset my Being Sucked Into A Large White Balloon worry.

Things really started looking up when we drove back to Canada for Christmas and realized how cold and wet and dark it was up there. I started prefacing everything I said with “In California it’s —” much to my Canadian friends’ dismay. Yes, I had become an American Apologist. You see, in Canada scorning all things American is a bit of a national sport. A quiet, polite one, true, but it’s there. We Canadians grow up feeling superior to America by virtue of our smaller cars, nationalized health care, good libraries, sensible gun laws, expensive junk food, and well-maintained highways. An anti-American ethos runs through our (clean, drinkable) water. It surprised me a little that I had become an American Apologist. If I had to be honest, I was also a little horrified, but that could be offset by an hour in ROSS Dress For Less or the liquor section of Costco. Or even better, Trader Joe’s. I loved Trader Joe’s. I loved the cheap food, the lack of Bovine Growth Hormones in the dairy products, the friendly staff, and the slightly inferior imitations of well-known products. Plus, their slogans on all the packaging was brilliant. My Canadian friends no doubt found me irritating but they were too polite to say much, other than “can we come and stay with you?”

We spent six years living in SoCal, had three kids, and grew to love living in such a hot dry climate. When we eventually moved back to Canada my eldest son and I cried as we raced north in our cramped, air-conditionless little white car. I had made a cassette tape of music for the road and we listened to Everybody Wants To Rule The World at full blast as we careered along the freeways with everyone else. It seemed appropriate, somehow. I had avoided the Freeway Shooter (who was never found but killed 4 women in small white cars), learned to drive on busy freeways and lived in Prisoner-like housing complexes. Richard graduated one year too soon to have Arnold Schwarzenegger’s signature (as California’s Governor) on his PhD diploma but that was okay - I'd had six mosquito-free years AND escaped the Mysterious Floating White Balloon. But Richard had a job in Vancouver and it was time to move on.

Oh, and the roads in California? The ones named CYN? I learned that it was actually an abbreviation for CANYON. No sin in sight, although I did miss seeing grade C celebrities leading the news hour. Canada doesn’t have quite the same obsession with celebrity as Southern California does. Which is probably a good thing. 

What We're Reading Thursday

This is part of Jill's (The Well Read Child) What We're Reading Thursday meme. For more What We're Reading reads, click here.


We’re reading Hugh Lofting’s The Voyages of Doctor Doolittle this week. I found it in the second hand store a while back and could not resist the 25¢ price tag. Nor could I resist the memories I had of Rex Harrison as the genial singing Doctor, sitting on that giant snail, not to mention the PushMe-PullYou. Boy did I want one of those PushMe-PullYous when I was a kid. And yes, I wanted to talk to animals too.

There is always the risk, when one reads an older book to one’s kids, of difficulties with language. And by difficulties I mean style. Think of the last Jane Austen book you read: how much of that would be easily understood by your average seven to nine year old? Not much, methinks. And so, when I picked up Dr Dolittle and said “This is our next read!” very brightly to my kids, I had a little of that trepidatiousness about style and language in my heart. It’s the same when I bring home one of the Disney movies of my childhood, movies which our library seems to have in abundance: Blackbeard’s Ghost, The Parent Trap, The Cat From Mars, The Three Lives of Thomasina. Movies my brother and sister clamoured to watch every Sunday night on the Wonderful World of Disney (I was a tagalong on these evenings, too young for anyone to take seriously). There is a part of me waiting for the kids to scoff, because they are so very very dated, but thus far they’ve loved everything, particularly if there is a charming cat involved.

But I worried for naught, really, because this is an extremely accessible read for any kid. Well, almost any kid. There are bound to be a few kids out there who don’t dream of sailing off into the sunset, off to seek their fortune (even if it means a shipwreck). Kids who don’t sometimes wish they could speak the language of the animals. Kids who don’t like hanging around with eccentric adventurers or opinionated parrots. I’m sure there are. But they aren’t my kids. My kids are hanging on every word of this book, even when some of those words are rather, err, quaint. I’m reminded of Beatrix Potter every now and then, because Mr. Lofting is very fond of the word “presently,” a word I remember quite well from the thousands of times I read The Tale of Peter Rabbit to Max. There is a bit of the old ‘colonial mentality’ as well, but I think this is something adults would be more sensitive to than most kids. Where I might see aspects of British Imperialism, my kids see strange clashes with different groups of people. It is, after all, a product of its time, having been written in 1922.

So we’re all greatly enjoying this story. Max loves that there’s always plain old sausages and tea for every meal, while Dominic is thrilled by the idea that a ten year old is sailing off with an eccentric Doctor, a chimp, a parrot, and a peculiar African prince named Bumpo. FDPG loves the idea that all the really smart animals are female. I’m sure there’s more, but that really stands out for her. That and the erudite polyglot abilities of the Doctor. But we haven’t yet met the Giant Sea Snail. Wonder what they’ll make of that.

Life With The Penderwicks

We just finished reading Jeanne Birdsall's The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy as our Morning Read Aloud (a writer after my own obsession with capital letters). It took us approximately 9 days to read, weekends excepted. And that wasn't because it's not very long, although compared to a Harry Potter or a Sea of Trolls book I suppose it isn't; no, we read it so fast because we all liked it so much.

This book sat on our shelves all year long. Some well-meaning relative gave it to us last summer, and after a quick glance at the subtitle I thought "Hmm, this might be one for FDPG's shelves, what with all those sisters and stuff." I couldn't see Max sitting in on this one very cheerfully. He'd loved the Little House books, but they had homesteading stories in them, and stories about bears and honey and guns and axes. He flagged a little when Laura went on about her trousseau at the end there, but he'd been sad to finish the series. The Penderwicks looked distinctly girlish. So it sat there and sat there, all through the Harry Potter marathon, all through some new Diana Wynne Jones, all through Half Magic, all through The Mysterious Benedict Society, and more. I'd pull it out now and then, study the cover, then reshelve it. Another time, I always thought.

Anyhow, a week or so ago I finally hauled it out and thought "It's now or never!" And the next morning, at breakfast, I brought it out and said "This is our next read!" I might have been imagining it, but I think caught a quick cringe. A scowl for certain. There might even have been some eye-rolling. But this is where my patented Jane Austen Homeschooling Heroine skills helped me out, because instead of quailing before the sullen glare that only a boy-on-the-verge-of-being-forced-to-listen-to-a-story-about-many-girls can muster, I opened the book and began reading, not in a hurried, nervous, oh-please-don't-start-twitching-and-sighing tone (which is sometimes my Backup Voice if the story, err, flags), but in a calm, measured, this-is-going-to-be-amazing voice.

You're all with me on the hyphens, I hope?

Well, let's just say that Max was willing to go along with it all in an effort to cultivate his inner Good Sport, so I read quite unchallenged for a page or two, with the twins listening most raptly, but when we hit the line "'We'll discover that when I'm in the backseat for too long with my younger sisters, I go insane and murder them,' said Skye" he perked right up. This wasn't just a story about four sisters, it was about four sisters who sometimes squabble. And argue. And call each other the odd rude name. And do silly things. And play funny games that involve rubber-tipped arrows and targets with the faces of Interfering Adults painted on them. And one of them was often quite disagreeable. These weren't Perfect Little Girls by any stretch of the imagination.

This was a story Max could really relate to.

It was even funny. I counted at least 15 occasions when the kids all burst out laughing. And each morning, when I'd haul the book from the bookshelf next to the dining room table, FDPG would sigh happily, readying herself for more delightful vignettes about all those girls. She loved that book. She loved hearing stories about groups of smart, clever, witty girls getting into mischief and helping the boys get out of trouble. Gosh, put that way, who wouldn't?

Dominic liked hearing about Jeffrey, the son of the Rich But Sadly Slightly Nasty Landlady, and what an amazing house he lived in, filled as it was with walk-about attics and trees next to windows to climb out of and cooks named Churchie who made gingerbread for lunch and ponds filled with goldfish and tunnels through hedges and and and...

And best of all, Max sat through it all, without the slightest scowl or frown or sigh. Not even a harrumph. And when we finished the story, he leaned back and said "That was way better than I thought it would be!"

So there you go, you just never know what you're going to get into with some of these stories. And sometimes it's way better than you think. Lucky for me...


Other reading aloud posts can be found here:

What We Learned From Laura Ingalls Wilder, J.K.Rowling, and Diana Wynne Jones

Reflections on reading a Little House Book

FDPG's Latest Read

Reading Harry Potter

The Water Horse

What We Learned From Laura Ingalls Wilder, J.K. Rowling, and Diana Wynne Jones

We do read alouds in our family, which means that I read while the kids listen. We do it every morning. It wasn't something I'd intended to do when we started homeschooling, or desperately wanted to do with the kids. It just started. It was a fluke, really, when I look back. 

It was like this: I had a book from the library.  It wasn't getting read, by anyone. It was a good book - I was sure it was. I couldn't remember reading it as a kid, but I knew it had Potential. And it had to go back to the library. So after breakfast I started reading it to the kids. I read four chapters, then closed the book and said, without looking at the kids, "Okay, now let's get on with the rest of the day." I looked up and saw my kids staring back at me, open-mouthed, with wide eyes. "Do we have to stop NOW?" they all asked, with a slight tinge of shock in their eyes, "that is SUCH a great book!" 

I thought about it. I looked at the book. Then I said, "If we get some good work done this morning I will read more at lunch." They did, so I did. And before you knew it, we'd read the first book in the Little House series: Little House in the Big Woods. I don't know why, but this series caught ALL our imaginations. We discussed Laura and her family as if they were our next door neighbours; the kids argued over who was nicer: Laura or her dad; and I blogged about them. We spent at least a few minutes each day contemplating the wonderful Garth Williams sketches ("Oh look! There's Jack chasing a rabbit!"). It was enthralling to read about someone who lived in a house they'd built themselves, not to mention people who didn't automatically expect a visit from Santa Claus each and every winter. We were gripped in a fever of people who worked hard, lived thoughtful lives, and did everything themselves. Where were their TVs, telephones, libraries, hot water tanks, flush toilets, dollar stores, and Lego sets? Not to sound too naive, but was a completely new Moral Universe for us, in so many ways.

Then I went to the library to get the next in the series, but it wasn't there. It was out. Never mind, we would take a page from the Little House girls and not complain. We would look on the bright side. It dawned on me that this new Little House Moral Universe was aiding and abetting my own Prime Directive as a parent.   

So we started with the Harry Potter series. Max and I had already read them, but the twins hadn't. We read the first one: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (unless you're in the US and have had your copy butchered to read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone). Same response: pure absorption from the kids. We talked about Harry. We talked about Ron. We talked about Hagrid. And every so often, when we were all feeling heavy from the constant rain, I would wear a satin red cape (from my Welsh grandmother) and pretend I was Professor McGonagall, using a ripe Scottish accent to convulse the kids into enjoying their math. Even better, I found the DVDs for $5 each and bought them all, promising a viewing after each book. We read the first two books and watched the first two movies. And yes, I blogged about these books too. How COULD Draco be so mean? How COULD Dumbledore not notice the terrible things happening to Harry? And those awful Dursleys. Ugh. Another new Moral Universe to contemplate. Less clear cut, but it insinuated itself into our daily lives just the same: we'd magic away things that were bothering us; we shouted "Expelliaramus!" at everything just for the heck of it, and the kids were all very thankful that their parents hadn't died and left them in the care of people like the Dursleys. More assistance for the parental Prime Directive. I was liking this Read Aloud time a lot.

Then By the Banks of Plum Creek came in, recalled from the library. So off we went, back to Little House Land. Oddly enough, it wasn't such a tough transition. We just moved into a different neighbourhood, with new but equally exciting neighbours, albeit a little on the sedate side after giants, flying broomsticks, and spells. We read about wading in creeks, nasty girls named Nellie, party dresses, the perfection of cold, sweet lemonade, living in sod houses, reliable dogs named Jack, and such mysterious things as button strings. Even now, the phrase "plum thicket" whirls me back into a hot summer day, wading in the creek with my skirts up, bonnet strings dangling down my shoulders. I can only imagine what it does for my kids.

We read through By The Shores of Silver Lake, The Long Winter, Little Town on the Prairie, These Happy Golden Years, and even The First Four Years, although by then the magic of the Ingalls' world was fading a bit. Detailed paragraphs about fabric and lace and sewing and marriage weren't high on my kids' list of Interesting Things To Read About. Still, to this day we talk about Laura and her family as if we knew them. When Max is peevish and unhelpful, I remind him how Laura had to look after her sisters for a whole week while her parents took Mary to the college for the blind, and she was just a few years older than he is now (and she spring cleaned the entire house!). When FDPG moans about dinner, I remind her about what they didn't eat during The Long Winter. That usually silences everyone. When we eat a meal composed entirely of garden produce - from our garden - Dominic says "this is just like a Little House dinner!" And when we hear a violin dancing on its own on the radio, Max asks if Pa played like that. 

When we finished the Little House series, I cast about a bit for something else to read. I blogged here about FDPG and the scariness factor of the Harry Potter series and how I didn't want to go on to the next novel, knowing how it (and the film) might affect her and her dream world. Plus, she and her twin were still only six years old, and I didn't think boggarts and Dementors were Suitable Subject Matter for six year old imaginations. Then we found Diana Wynne Jones, a British writer much akin to J.K. Rowling in that she writes about magic universes, but with less emotional emphasis and vastly more creative license. Suddenly such things as 100 league boots, fire demons, and magical suits were common parlance, not to mention the hilarity caused by chapter headings such as Chapter Eight: In which Sophie leaves the castle in several directions at once. We looked forward to those chapter headings, let me tell you. We'd ponder them, I'd ask why Wynne Jones used them - it showed the kids new things about writerly intent and comic appeal. They started creating their own chapter headings for moments in their day: In which Max learns how to wash a glass without incurring the wrath of his mother, or In which Toffee learns that wet food only comes his way once a day, or In which Dominic learns to make his bed. More fodder for the parental P.D. 

And so we read through almost the entire Wynne Jones oeuvre: Charmed Life, Lives of Christopher Chant, Mixed Magics, Magicians of Caprona, Witch Week, Castle in the Air and The Game. We were introduced to the intoxicating world of Chrestomanci, a sensible fellow who seemed to have the wisdom of the world at his fingertips. We met treacherous sisters, silly ladies, goddesses named Milly, tricky Uncles and Greek mythological figures come to life. It was a truly magical few months, reading all those books: so many people, so many different stories, so many emotions and events. So many clever writers.

I could say that the kids learned how a good author can recycle something seemingly commonplace (a Greek myth) and turn it into something new and inventive. I could also say that they learned a great deal about telling a good story, plot devices, settings, and character development (not to mention those intangibles of moral courage and facing adversity). Because they did learn all those things. Not didactically, by answering chapter questions or writing essays, but more as an "along the way" experience, an experience that permeated their lives as they brushed their teeth, got dressed and played together in the afternoons. An experience that coloured the ways they interacted with each other, reflected on their own lives, and treated their friends and neighbours. And I've got my fingers crossed that they won't forget them any time soon.