Southland Residents Happy to Again See Their Shadows
Amy Halpin and Brian Macken sat hunched on a bench at a Silver Lake dog park Saturday, looking just as relieved as their pets, Kendo and Rocco, that the rain clouds had given way to patches of blue sky.
“They were going seriously stir crazy at home,” said Halpin, 28.
Poodles, Alaskan huskies and Yorkshire terriers rolled in the curry-colored dirt, gnawing on tennis balls and chew toys as their owners reveled in the sunny weather. Around the corner on Silver Lake Boulevard, teenagers played basketball, and toddlers darted around a playground.
After days of relentless rainfall, life in Southern California got back to normal: Motorists drove with the windows down, diners spilled out of cafes to eat at sidewalk tables, ranks of sweaty joggers streamed down streets lined with lush palm trees and sunbathers relaxed on golden beaches in Orange County.
“We were long overdue for this beautiful sun,” said Kenneth Dunn, 80, who was sitting shirtless on a lawn chair in front of his Baldwin Vista home, tanning his back and reading a novel. “We’ve had enough rain.”
Paris has its romance. Rome has its ancient ruins. What is Southern California without its sunshine?
“I got a lot of calls from back home,” said Macken, 28, a recent New York transplant who was wearing a Mets baseball cap. “They wanted to know if our house was still there and we hadn’t slid down the hill.”
The house is still there, but Macken and Halpin had to spend the rest of the day cleaning their mud-caked patio and backyard. Not that they’re complaining. The couple said they’d rather clean up after a few weeks of rain than contend with months of New York snow.
In nearby Echo Park, Crystal Brammer was about to begin renovating a home she bought with her boyfriend. But first was the matter of a yard sale, at which Brammer was trying to sell old furniture; a computer printer; a wig; and two gaudy, faux-Grecian urns that elicited more repulsion than interest.
“Those things are cramping our yard sale style,” Brammer, 27, said of the urns. “It might rain later, so we’ve got to get rid of this stuff.”
Meteorologists forecast partly cloudy skies for Southern California over the next week, with a 20% chance of rain tonight.
That’s still good news for Luke Huff, manager of a West Hollywood bar off Santa Monica Boulevard that drew only a fraction of the usual number of customers during the wet weather.
“As soon as it stopped raining, I said, ‘Thank God!’ ” said Huff, 25, standing in the open-air patio of Fiesta Cantina. “The bartenders and servers were really starting to [complain] because they weren’t making enough tips.”
Mario Frazier had been in a similar bind. The automobile detailer sat at home in Ladera Heights for weeks, waiting for the rain to subside so he could wash his clients’ cars.
He was back on the job at 4:30 a.m. Saturday, as a deluge of requests for house calls started pouring in.
“These aren’t touch-ups,” said Frazier, 31, working in a Baldwin Vista neighborhood that had a clear view of the Hollywood Hills now that the smog had been washed away. “These cars are much dirtier than they usually are because they got so dirty during the rains.”
By noon, Frazier was on his 10th car, a black Chevy Silverado pickup truck that ordinarily takes 35 minutes to clean but took an hour and a half.
In Orange County, sun worshipers did something as natural to them as breathing -- they packed the beaches.
“We need rain, but it gets old after a while,” said Kimmy Witkowski, 24, of Moreno Valley, who was enjoying a morning jog along Bolsa Chica State Beach while her boyfriend, Andy Schulte, followed on his bike. Witkowski said the rains had prevented her from training for a marathon in June.
“It was getting to be like living in Seattle for a while,” said Schulte, a 32-year-old Huntington Beach resident.
Later, they got into their SUV for an aimless drive.
“We just want to go, go, go somewhere, anywhere, because of the nice weather,” Witkowski said.
