2 weeks of heavy, traumatizing rainfall left a slew of Angelinos in true apocalyptic cosplay. For a minute there I myself even questioned whether we had finally reached the end times, as I fielded texts praying for my safety and demanding proof of life. Hollywood drama queens to our core, we all might as well have been huddling together on a slightly-oversized-yet-not-big-enough door raft, only the echoes of “THESE ARE THE BEST DAYS OF OUR LIVES” from the newly dropped VPR episode keeping us afloat.
I promptly cancelled all plans. My cat howled for 8 hours straight. As a river rushed by my front door I remembered the storm-induced ceiling collapse and five man repair we went through the year prior, glowing with confidence in the roof over my head. She was new and sturdy and safe.
I’m worrying…
Please let me know if you’re ok…
the question is whether he’ll make it back home tonight…
Thinking of you with good thoughts…
Are you safe…
I hadn’t left the house in 4 days until I made a rogue choice to walk 45 minutes uphill to Tower Bar to people watch with a friend and spend $55 on 2 glasses of wine despite neither of us making a stable paycheck. It had stopped raining, until it hadn’t, light drizzle turning to heavy rain until before long I was stumbling into the gates of Sunset Wealth, totally drenched and channeling my best Mia Thermopolis choosing to be forevermore Amelia Mignonette Thermopolis Renaldi PRINCESS of Genovia.
I’d never been to Tower Bar before, my only exposure having been the frequent reservations I’d made for a former boss under the guise of ‘work dinners’. Now here, in a pitch black and not nearly as outwardly glamorous room as I’d anticipated, literally stumbling over the feet I couldn’t see and making a disgrace of everything, I quietly wondered if we had been shoved into a fake Tower Bar built to trick the spare, poor, ‘regular’ folk into thinking they were amidst Hollywood Royalty. If we had, honestly, I couldn’t blame them.
I hadn’t been in my car in a week because the last time I actually went somewhere I discovered hundreds of bugs crawling every which way through my vents and cupholders and emerging from my steering wheel onto my death gripped, clammy palms. How one’s car acquires a bug infestation I couldn’t tell you, but of course mine did. I sped my ass down a winding Mulholland and fled my vehicle like a woman on the run - door open, shrieking, jumping into a scalding hot shower to sanitize. I then took it to my closest car wash that, despite an open sign, told me they were “closed for rain”. It wasn’t yet raining, but again, this is LA. The slightest whisper of a forecast and the bunkers are opening.
My dishwasher is broken and my cat peed all over my office power strip, short circuiting my plugged in heating blanket, printer, portable speaker, 2 phone chargers, and almost killing himself. Is this a cry for help or is he really that deranged? If anyone has an in with the cat therapist, please, let me know.
Not to be a brat, but hand washing dishes is hard. It might be the actual worst thing. Besides cleaning cat pee out of an expensive rug.
My guest toilet is broken as well, apparently. Seconds away from stepping on a rogue poop having flown out of menace cat’s butt and left for me in mid-hallway, I swiped it up with a paper towel and dropped it in the toilet, thinking that would be an easy solution. Of course not. The lone poop swirled and swirled, 10 flushes later still CLINGING to life. Round and round the porcelain it went, as I watched on and acknowledged the metaphor.
I’m hungover, out $55, watching poop circle, dodging car bugs, and spending the day hand washing dishes and scrubbing the puddles of pee out of my rug with three layers of products that don’t seem to be doing anything to remove stain, smell, or fulfilling any of their promises to keep my damn cat from peeing on it again, tomorrow.
Honestly, a lot of things are wrong. And I wonder if that’s because of the all powerful LA rain. It seems likely. But you know what? Let the rain fall down. Let it wash away my sanity. Hilary, I’m with you.
At least there’s no longer a drought for me to be disappointedly and uselessly waiting for him in. A small win.