Beyond the Orange Curtain

~blogging on the road~

I don't know if I'm the only Eagles fan on this blog - but I love the Eagles and their music. One of their all time greatest hits is "Hotel California". You can check out anytime you like - but you can never leave. One of the reasons the song was such a hit and remains popular is the underlying truth in the lyrics. As I type this, I'm listening to the live version from their Hell Freezes Over album.

When I left "The Surfline" where I live, a couple of days ago, (see my blog profile), I took an umbrella as an afterthought. "Better to have and not need than need and not have," is a mantra of mine. When you live in endless summer, rain is the last thing on your mind. Sunscreen is important, an umbrella is not.

The Orange Curtain is a local joke referring to Orange County, California - a political subdivision along the beaches south of Los Angeles. People who live there are said to be attractive, wealthy, intelligent and politically conservative. The Beach Boys sang about the girls there when they crooned, "they wish they all could be California girls".  I'll let blog readers comment on that since some of them live behind the Orange Curtain. My daughters can comment too because they read this blog and live in the same environment. It's a conservative in enclave in an otherwise generally liberal Southern California.

But it rarely rains - other than the "scheduled rain days" that make the news a dozen days or so each year when the sun is blocked by storm clouds. And here I am outside the Orange Curtain in the rain, happy I brought an umbrella, wishing I thought to bring a rain coat...
"Living it up at the Hotel California... Mirrors on the ceiling - pink champagne on ice." Funny how when you live behind the Orange Curtain, you stop thinking about things like rain.