Swale: A drainage swale is a shaped and sloped depression in the soil surface used to convey runoff to a desired location. (like the neighbor directly behind you!)

from the California Stormwater BMP Handbook

It’s been raining in Atlanta, as you might have heard. Where I come from in California 12 inches in an entire year is considered a really good, wet, year. 12 inches in one flippen day is astonishing and that’s what we’ve been dealing with. I used to be in love with rain. Now I‘d like a trial separation.

Most builders with any sense at all design a building that is low-lying to have a swale around one side or the other. This is because when your foundation sits on the ground without a crawl space you can be flooded unless you tell the water where to go. I know about these things because I am

A) the step-daughter of a builder and

B) Remember all those crazy occupations I’ve had!

So, I knew we had a nice little swale going around our outbuilding, however, the past few years we’ve been in a drought and we’ve been crazy people due to – life. So my nice little swale designed by some builder 100 years ago filled with rocks, vines, dirt, dog poop. And I never even noticed.

Luckily, my house sits way up high on a nice tall foundation. Not so luckily, my studio is in an outbuilding that sits plumb on the ground with a concrete foundation. You see the problem?

One Day+12 inches of rain+unminded swale+on slab building = FLOODED OUT.

As I was out in the pounding rain, soaking wet, shovel in hand digging out my swale, it occurred to me (yes, in between all the F-this-God-Damn-Rain thoughts) that this swale is a perfect metaphor. If you don’t stop to tell the water where to go – and we all have water in our lives – if you let the swale that can carry the flood away fill with crap– you are going to experience a life filled with muddy and stinky water.

So, I have one question for you: What is your personal swale and are you minding it?

Abujerar

First, he had been simply handsome;

his hooked Cahuilla nose sniffing her out

as the bobcat circles the cottontail.
Once she noticed the wads of cash
appear in his long Spanish fingers

she was his.
She already had a baby fathered by a chicken-faced boy
who had played one of Alessandro’s foes the year
she was the beautiful and tragic Ramona.
So what if other girls crossed themselves as he came near.
Dueñamamas whispered in her ear, called him the source

of the Santa Anas. The wicked wind, whipping everyone,

came from his easy laugh.

She could not be swayed, ensnared

as she was by a man
who could find water in the desert
and coax it to bubble among the chaparral and rodents.
She was willing to take him in, with his

bent sticks and rough hands.

It wasn’t until he started divining in the rocky hillsides
that his fists gave her roses that bloomed on her face.
The pink rock of the San Jacinto taunted him with hints
of moisture, but day after day his magic failed
and the farmer cursed him.
She used theatrical make-up
left over from the pageant
and created her own illusions.

The child came during a rainy season
when there had been no work for months.
He sat by the window watching water cascade from the sky

and muttered over a daughter. No one to pass on the male magic

of the Aqua Caliente. He would not hold her up to the sky
and bless her with his name.

When the hard winter cold came
he found work in the orange groves.
The foreman’s truck would pick him up at sundown
and he would leave with her sullen, chicken-faced son.
They worked the smudge pots
until a halo of heat cocooned the trees.
Returning at dawn, oil-soaked,
he would strip off his clothes
and plunge into her. Like the hills,
she would give him no moisture.
Like quartz, he could not care.

Calls for dousing stopped coming.
Wells were dug with machinery. His magic
dried up in his calloused palms. A son
never came.

She became one of the dueñamama and cooed
about the boys who came for her daughter.
The day for the girl’s fifteenth birthday
passed quietly and he did not make money appear

in his long Spanish fingers

for her quinceñera.

The girl soon left with a white boy in a yellow Camaro.
The roses were forever in bloom.
When she had no bones left to be broken
and all the water in her body
had been pulled into his hands
she covered her face with the mask of Ramona
and folded herself back underneath San Jacinto.

It’s our 8th or 9th rainy day in Atlanta so I’m picking a poem about water for today. Where I grew up in Southern California is at the edge of several different mountain ranges. The one in this poem is the San Jacinto mountains, which is also the setting for Helen Hunt Jackson’s classic story of star-crossed lovers – Ramona and Alessandro. Every year for the Romana Pagent a beautiful girl is picked to play the part of Ramona and I’ve taken that theme and spun out what the girl’s life is like having been a tragic character in her own world. The rich Mission and Native American heritage of Southern California collides frequently and sometimes the result is a very rich and mysterious culture, but most often the collision is more about tragedy and prejudice.

The man in the poem is a diviner. I’ve always been fascinated by the mysertious property of water. You can read more about divining here: http://www.diviningmind.com/ (I love that this site is trying to make diving more “professional”)

What’s the first thing you cut in an economic slump? Yeah, the $200 visits to the stylist. And before somebody freaks out – hair care is expensive in the big city, baby! It’s extra expensive when you want to look “naturally” blond. According to my stylist, Miss Jamie Booth, I am naturally blond – just not that halo kind of blond that makes me look like I could ascend to Heaven strictly on the power of my hair sheen alone.

So, today I got to go visit Miss Jamie for the first time in six months. I may ascend any moment because I am now BLOND. My clothes look better, my make-up looks better, I honestly think I look thinner since I have undergone the re-blondification process.

This visit was my little gift to myself for losing ten pounds – a milestone I am one half pound away from achieving. Go me! I’m blond and thin! Okay, not really. What I am is significantly lighter in the important areas – my hair and my ass.

Miss Jamie and I love our visits. I know I pay her and all, but a girl gets tight with her stylist over time. She’s an Aries as well and I always read our forecast for the month and then update her on what we can expect in the coming days. Today I had to warn her that we should not buy anything expensive or electronic this month. Mercury is retrograde, people. Stay away from the store. Don’t sign a contract. Put the expensive shoes back on the rack. We also talk mothering because we have sons who are both Cancers. See, Miss Jamie and I are leading parallel lives. Only her hair looks good on a more consistent basis. Maybe we’re really triplets with Johnny Depp!

She gave me a great tip about mascara today. I’ll try to remember what it was, but I may have to call her and ask again. I was sleepy after baking in the dryer with my head covered in foil.

Why am I blogging about this? Because getting my hair done made me feel fantastic today and I think anyone who is trying to lose weight ought to do the things that make them feel fantastic.

What makes you feel fantastic?