Wind in SoCal

Everyone knows Chicago is nicknamed the "Windy City," though most presume it's called that because of the winds sweeping across the plains or over Lake Michigan. Actually it gained the name because of the tendency of Chicago's local boosters to blab on about the city's virtues back in the mid-1800's. But I think the name stuck because it IS windy.

Now that I'm out here in Orange County, I can appreciate the differences between the Windy City's wind, and the winds that swirl around the OC. Out in the midwest, trapped on a flat plain with no appreciable vertical geography until the Rockies out west, the winds sweep down and blow in the weather. I associate the wind with sound: the sharp sound of sleet tapping its icy fingers against the windows; the rustle and flow of yellow maple leaves across the brown lawn in early November, the soft exhalation of barely warm breezes in April when the leaves on the birch are just starting to green. Those are Illinois winds ... along with the white push of snow driven wind and the gray March rain blowing sideways and a piercing glassy blast in sub-zero January. And along with the sound comes movement - the clouds scudding along overhead, the sky going from blue to gray and back to blue.

Out here, though, if you're not on the coast, wind is something entirely different. First, it's rare. I'm used to those Illinois winds in all seasons and on most days. It's a push at your back or a caress (or slap) in your face. It's why you wear earmuffs. Out here, day after endlessly alike day can go by with almost no wind. Up in the high desert, out by Victorville and Hesperia, where I once lived, the afternoon winds were regular occurrences. They started up around noon and pushed the heat in waves across the desert, generating dust devils and sending tumbleweeds st stick in the chain link fences like brittle cotton balls.

But here, in the middle of the OC, 20 miles from the coast, day after day can go by with at most a 5 mph wind. The palm in front of our bedroom will rustle occasionally, sounding like the taffeta skirts of some 19th century debutante shyly edging her way around the edge of the dance floor. The sun hangs in the cloudless sky and waits for a breeze.

In the fall, we do get winds ... not the crisp winds that warn of winter in the Midwest, but hot, dry, fire loving winds - the Santa Anas. They make their way down from the high and low deserts, pushing aside the cooler coastal air. The humidity drops to below 20%, and a stray spark means disaster.

A few weeks ago I drove out of the house on a Santa Ana morning. Leaves from the neighborhood eucalyptus trees were racing down the sidewalk. The wind was hot, threatening. To the east some distant smoke from the Esperanza fire glowed red above the sunrise. The patio plants were already drooping. I imagined the smell of smoke in the air. I missed the cold winds that drew me to my closet and the array of sweaters and turtlenecks and warm courdroys. Here, a hot wind is just a warning, a reminder of the summer's heat, a spell to get through and hope that no lunatic with a match and a grudge will head to the chapparal. It's an inside out feeling of confusion - November, the month that should herald the winter, and cold weather feasts and frost and pumpkins, instead becomes an overheated tangle of leaves and brush, a gray brown layer of smog returns, and Christmas seems far away.

Tropika Restaurant - Tustin

We'd read that Tropika was the new, and perhaps the only, Malaysian restaurant in Orange County, and decided it was worth a visit. Located beside Zov's Bistro, it occupies a site previously inhabited by Chin's Chinese Restaurant. On a Saturday night in early November, only about a quarter of the tables were full. It's a restful place, with a color palette of browns and gold and an occasional blue accent. Simple art on the walls - an abstract print, a sculptural leaf - add to the calm atmosphere.

With only two people visiting a restaurant, don't expect an extensive review of the food. We started with roti. Roti is a thin, flaky crepe or pancake-like bread; served hot, it's a creamy white with browned spots from the hot griddle. Served alongside a red curry sauce, it's a nice way to start the meal. We ordered one, but I could have eaten one on my own!

We then went on to RendangBeef, Honey Walnut Shrimp, and Mango Delight vegetables, with sides of coconut rice. The beef is in a thick brown sauce, supposedly spicy but certainly not overwhelmingly so. The meat is in fairly thick cubes and is fairly chewy, and stands up well to the sauce. It's served with a small garnish of choppped cucumbers. I think a spicy/sweet cold salad would be a good accompaniment. The mango delight vegetables offered a sweet contrast, but weren't very interesting - a mix of peapods, canned baby corn and straw mushroom, some julienned carrots, and mango slices, all sauteed in a cornstarch-thickened sweet sauce. Nice, but not particularly memorable.

The honey walnut shrimp were probably my favorite dish of the evening. A fair size portion of shrimp had been coated in another sweet cornstarch thickened sauce and quickly sauteed along with some walnuts. Both shrimp and walnuts were nicely crunchy, but not overdone.

Coconut rice was mildly flavored and well-cooked. Service was attentive, and drinks were very reasonably priced ($3.50 for a Sapporo, Tsing Tsao, or Asahi beer; $3.00 for domestic beers, with a limited selection).

Why do people talk about the weather? It's so uninteresting. It's safe, I suppose. It's certain not to offend in these days when each word, each adjective, each tone has to be weighed and measured lest the PC arbiters drum you out of human society. And it's different,the weather talk, depending on where you're talking it and with whom.

Friday in Chicago in October: Two Chicagoans grouse a bit, but admit that summer was pretty nice. October's too gray though, with too much rain. When you know November through February will be gray and wet and cold you want a sunny October. Then I walk into the converation. "Hey," the one guys says. "Did it get any colder out there?" Out where? I just landed at O'Hare after leaving John Wayne Airport, where it was a hot 90 degrees. So... I can take pity and pretend I'm still a Chicagoan and shrug off the cold, or I can throw my hot weather right at them. Hell, why live in SoCal if you can do weather boasting.


"I can tell if it's any colder, " I say. "It was 90 when I left Orange County this afternoon." That silences everybody. 90. It wasn't nice in their oven keeping the fries warm. The only Midwesterners can top a CA weather boaster is with the reverse boast ... how cold it was and how YOU overcame the cold.

"Yeah," I reminisce. "Back in 1982 it was so cold we kept getting up every hour to start up the car. The wind chill was -50 degrees. You couldn't feel your feet five minutes after stepping outside the car. Trip and you're dead." These are the weather ghoul stories ... no one wants to experience them, but everyone listens and is then glad to not have had that experience.

We're boastful people. You can'tpossibly have had a worse drive than I did. Oh yeah, listen to this! My boss was so bad that ...

Perhaps it because extremes of bad things lead us to humor, and humor is intensely humanizing. Those of in SoCal also take responsibility for the weather. No one goes to Chicago in the fall or winter with high expectations. But we get visitors to the OC. They're spending their hard-earned cash, and they want blue skies and warm breezes. Sometimes they get hot Santa Ana winds, or a marine layer tht blots out the sky with gray cloud. Or it's "cold" ... 62 degrees. And then we apologize for the weather, and explain, as if the traveller cares, that just last week it was 80 and sunny and the air was clear.

So maybe weather is the best thing to talk about. Everyone has something to share, or to criticize or to remember. Maybe the 6-party nuclear talks should start up with a warm-up session on the weather.

US envoy: "Good morning Mr. Kim Il Jong. What a beautiful day here in Tokyo. How was the weather for your flight overhere?

Kim IL (smoothing his weird hairdo, which is a little more rambunctious becuase of the humidity): No day is beautiful unless it is a people's dawn. Why have the conservatives in the US run amuck? We can make weapons if we want.

Japanese envoy: Peaceful weather can lead to peaceful conditions. We thought we would open the windows to enjoy the fragrance of the garden.

South Korean envoy: The weather has been especially nice this spring.

Kim IL: The weather is a plot. We will not be swayed by all this talk about weather. Our weather is independent of all other weather. We are leaving this discussion. The weather is a front for you all. You hate my hair. You hate the fact that I look like a fat woman. US and Japanese reactionaries are seeding our clouds and making it rain too much. And what do you know about our weather - you have been spying on us! Struggle against the class enemy!

OK ... maybe not even weather talk will calm down old Kim IL. Someone ought to suggest a hair cut and a modern look, though, don't you think?

I flew to Chicago on Thursday, and back again on Friday night. People talk about the character an airport has, and while that's true, fewer people talk about the characteristics shared by a flight. I suppose you have to fly a certain amount to develop an opinion about who flies on a particular flight or, perhaps in the end it really is about the airport and the kinds of people flying to and from there. But let me tell you - take a few flights between two airports and you'll soon develop an opinion on lots of things - like the unliklihood of world peace, considering the behavior of individuals.

Back in September, I flew out of Harrisburg Intl to Chicago. At 1:30pm it was the same crowd that I'd found flying out of HIA for years ... some older people, some people in their 20's clearly trying to find a cheap flight to Chicago, and a few business people. The crowd sat patiently waiting for the gate agent to announce boarding. No one was particulaly anxious. It was rainy outside, and the flight was delayed by over an hour, but people went and bought coffee and brownies and read their newspapers.

The Orange County airport - John Wayne, or SNA - gate crowd waiting to fly to Chicago is a whole 'nother scene. Lots of business travelers, who REALLY want on that plane, early, so they can snag overhead bin space and a blanket. Eight or ten or twelve people are always on the upgrade list (oh,please ... an upgrade! Semi-real food, faux leather seats with space to avoid DVT, space, and did I mention space?). Well before the door opens, people are positioning themselves so that they can dart forward at just the right time and hit the line and get on that plane. They wear their little in-ear phones, or talk about "the deal" or "the numbers" as they pace around. American Airlines never preboards anyone with special needs, so if you have small children or are in a wheelchair, good luck! The OC crowd flying to Chicago will stampede right over you. "Excuse me, I think they've only called first class!"

It's the same group flying back ... people watching to see who's moving up to get a little edge in line, who's carrying a LOT of carry-on luggage (oh my god ... is he going to try and put THAT in the overhead bin?), who's got the babies (please don't let them sit by me), and who's really fat (please don't let them sit by me). The crowd in black keeps edging forward, and if you really ARE in a group that is called first, plan on elbowing your way through the pseudo-line/huddle that has formed.

Good eats at O'Hare? Gold Coast Dogs is good and cheap, especially for airport food. Located in the AA Terminal, in the Food Court, which is over near the G concourse, it's a solid choice for hot dogs, Italian sausage, bratwurst, etc. The food court there usually isn't crowded, and is favored by a lot of airline employees.

Amazon BBQ in Fullerton: We tend to have our favorite OC restaurants, so to get out of the rut we ventured up westwards to Fullerton. Fullerton was founded in 1887 and, like the last place we lived, Glen Ellyn Illinois, exists in part because of the railroad. It has endless strip malls, like the rest of suburban America, but retains an old downtown area where restaurants and stores are always opening and closing and becoming as trendy as anyplace in the OC that's not near a beach can be. My husband had read about the Amazon BBQ restaurant, and since it was his birthday, he got to choose his spot for a celebratory dinner.

Now, I think you should be suspicious of certain kinds of restaurants. Places where people extoll the big portions, or places hailed by the critics for the beauty of their plates or the view, can be chancy in terms of getting good food. And an "all you can eat" place is almost inevitably a guarantee of mediocrity, at least in my experience. Amazon BBQ didn't do anything to change my opinion. You walk into the restaurant through two double doors that display a fountain and some tropical plants ... a sort of discount "Rainforest" cafe. It's a mishmash of styles ... the palm trees and lush plants are intended to evoke the Amazon, but the doric columns around the salad bar areas aren't quite authentic.

The deal there is this: $23.95 gets you all you can eat from the salad bar and from the skewers that are brought to the table. Sounds good ... but don't go expecting high quality preparations. There is plenty to choose from at the salad bar: mixed greens, tiny defrosted shrimp with cocktail sauce, some basic sushi preparations, sliced beets, cubed cheese and lunch meats. All fine, but nothing very exciting. There is a hot area too, with choices like fried onions (clearly frozen and made from diced onions, rather than real onion rings), fried bananas, rice, bread, and so on. Bland, and intended to fill you up.

The Amazon BBQ part is supposed to give you a taste of many kinds of meat - quail, chicken, beef tenderloin, skirt steak, lamb, chicken hearts, alligator, etc. -- which seems to be a good deal. And you DO get the range of choices, but they come pretty slowly and there is NO spicing to speak of. The meat is average quality - some of it rather fatty and gristly. The shish kebab was ok ... it was a meal to fill you up, but not one to remember. The crowd was made up of some couples out on the town and lots of families, looking to fill up on the food. Don't go for the wine - we didn't have any, but it's not the sort of restaurant that lists vintages on its menu. My "star" rating - 2 stars.

Neon Los Angeles: Last Friday, we took one of the season's last tours of neon art in Los Angeles. Sponsored by The Museum of Neon Art in Los Angeles, it's a 3-hour trip around LA on a double-decker bus, viewing the neon and watching the crowds react to the bus. LA is the nation's premier destination for vintage neon - filled with leftover signs still glowing red and blue and purple from the 30's and 40's. By 7:3opm when the bus left, it was windy and cool, and on a bus going 35 mph in the dark, you need to wear a jacket and hat, especially if you're now a thin-skinned Californian. We cruised through Chinatown, up into Hollywood, and heard the same phrase out of our not too inventive guide: "Take a look to the left - that's a famous sign at the XXX." He rarely told us WHY something was famous ... it was sort of a given that if the Museum was showing you the neon, then it WAS famous. I think famous was his code for old. A number of the "famous" signs were dark that October night.

Shortly after we left downtown Los Angeles, we turned down a street that took us through part of Skid Row. There we were, having paid $45 a person for the privilege of driving along in the bus, stopping at Canter's Deli for snacks, and viewing the neon, being waved to by people sitting in the sidewalks preparing to go to sleep for the night. "We love LA" a few yelled. Others gave us the "hang loose" gesture; a woman sitting in front of a small tent waved a white cloth at us. It was as though our double-decker bus meant that we were transported there magically from London; we were tourists, and they were the sights. Or we were.

Would I pay $45 for the tour again? No. It's overpriced, unless you consider it a donation to help the Museum restore vintage neon. You get little real history along the way ("This was a famous hotel"), no real information about neon or the city in the 1940's, and by mid-October, it's chilly. And, it being LA, when you're dropped back at the museum at 10:30pm, there are no cabs to be had. We walked back up to the Hilton along empty streets. And speaking of the Hilton Checkers ... again, if you're a visitor to LA, remember to call for a cab well in advance of when you need it. Otherwise you'll find yourselves as we did ... waiting for a cab with a deadline looming. Eventually the doorman at the Hilton called us a "friend" of his, who drove us 6 city blocks for $7.50 (no meter). Price of arriving on time for the tour - priceless.

Dinner before the tour was at Engine Co 28 Restaurant - an old LA firehouse converted to a restaurant. At 6:00pm, about 3/4 of the tables were occupied. Service was snappy, so it was a good choice for an early dinner before a show or event. The menu isn't terribly inventive, and I'd say the food was average. It was well-prepared, but it wasn't the sort of meal that makes memories. You pay $9.50 for a salad composed of big pieces of romaine lettuce leaves, a few grape tomatoes, and some crumbles of blue cheese. It takes about a minute to plate and contains about $1 of ingredients, if that. The crab cakes were pretty good - a bit spicy, and not too overloaded with bread crumbs. They were served with oven roasted potatoes that had probably been roasted a few hours earlier and left to linger under a heat lamp, and a spoonful of cucumber slaw. Tab for 2 people, with 3 glasses of wine and no dessert: about $90 before tip.

I had spent 20 years living in Chicago when I had an opportunity to move to California. I'd moved many times while growing as the daughter of a career Air Force dad. And though I never thought of Chicago as home, exactly, it was where I'd spent my 20's and 30's. It felt comfortable ... I knew the neighborhoods, had friends, loved the hot dogs and pizza and early mornings on crisp late October days. And I had already lived in southern California, both as a kid for a few years, and as a teenager after my father retired from the service. Up in the high desert, along the I-15 freeway, in the then-rural town of Hesperia, I'd had all of California I needed. The empty desert was fine, though heartbreaking bleak at times. But Los Angeles? Highways, drive-by shootings, government by "the people's republic", extremes, massive numbers of people crushed onto each other, urban chaos, Blade Runner ... well, why not? I would have welcomed a transfer to London or Shanghai or Munich ... treat LA the same and see wht you make of it. So here it is.