I am sitting up in Ojai. We drove up today so we can work up here tomorrow and a half-day Tuesday. It’s 8:40 pm and slightly chilly. I’ve got a blanket draped over my lap and am wearing my jacket to stay warm. It’s not cold enough to turn on the heat. Just a bit of chill in the night air.

Ten minutes later.

I have now had a hot shower and am dressed for bed. I have on my socks, leggings and sleep shirt plus my USC hooded sweatshirt. I’ll be wearing this to bed since the temperatures will dip tonight to around 51. We won’t have heat on so we have to prepare for it to get fairly cold. I love sleeping in a warm bed in a cold room so I’m happy. No matter how cold it was in winter when I was growing up in North Central Texas, I always kept the window cracked next to my bed. I love the smell and feel of cold air on my face while I am all snuggled up under the covers.

I kept my window cracked opened even during some of those “northers” that blew straight down from Canada when I was back in Texas. There could be some seriously cold days sprinkled among the more common mild winter weather. Ice storms that made the roads impassable and the trees shiny with a coating of pure ice on their branches. Sometimes, there’d be the cracking of a big tree limb during one of those storms. The cracking and then eventual crash. Hopefully, a crash that didn’t hit the roof of the house or a car parked in the driveway. Of course, in Southern California we don’t worry about ice storms. No, we worry more about earthquakes.

We arrived in Los Angeles a few months after the big Northridge quake in 1994. In fact, we experienced a major aftershock when we first got here. We were sitting in a crowded restaurant with Jim and a few other family members, when there was a sudden jolt that caused the whole building to sway. Everyone in the restaurant went totally silent, waiting to see if a bigger quake was following that one. A few moments passed, and then we all seemed to let out a collective sigh of relief. We were on the ground floor of a tall building, after all, and we all knew that we would not fare well if a big quake had come. But it didn’t, and we gradually resumed chatting as if nothing had happened. But, it gave me a glimpse into what a serious quake would feel like and I know I’d prefer never to be on the ground floor of a high rise should that big quake come.

I have no cohesive theme to this writing tonight. This is a serious ramble about nothing in particular.

I have gotten my twenty minutes of writing in, however, so I can at least say I accomplished that!

I hope you have a good rest of the evening. Stay warm even if your bedroom’s cold. And stay safe. Always best to avoid lingering in lower rooms of a tall building if you’re in earthquake country. But, you probably were born knowing that.

I’ll be checking back in soon. Have a lovely rest of your night.