Ridgecrest vs Los Angeles

We are just home from a weekend in LA, visiting family, and this led me to think about the pluses and minuses of where they live vs. where we live. I should note that I have always hated Los Angeles. I'm a NORTHERN Californian. We don't like Southern Californians. (Though, as my college roommate pointed out, Southern Californians don't even bother to hate Northern Californians. They barely remember that they exist.)

Except that now I'm a Southern Californian. Sort of. Who knows what we High Desert dwellers really are. You can buy the LA Times in the grocery store here. But our classical music radio station comes from Las Vegas. And the stores in the closest mall (in Palmdale) aren't even California stores -- Dillards, Gottschalks for heaven's sake (except it's closing). Still, we're in the southern half of the state, so I guess we're southlanders. I'm still never going to root for the Dodgers, though, bleah, perish the thought.

OK, so anyway, I've always hated LA because it's crowded and smoggy and ugly and people just go to the mall all the time, unlike Northern California, where it's crowded and less smoggy and more attractive and people just go to the mall all the time. And out here in the High Desert, it's very empty, the air is clear, it's ugly but the mountain ranges are nice, and nobody goes to the mall because there isn't one. Huh.

Getting off the subject, must focus. LA vs R'crest. LA is too big to compare, so I'm thinking of where my relatives live. My niece lives in a truly charming older house in Westwood. I love her house. It cost a LOT of money, and it sits on a lot the size of a Forever stamp, on a busy street with no parking. The neighborhood is delightful, with lots of gorgeous trees and flowers, and very walkable. The sidewalks don't go UP down, UP down. She is, literally, one block from Macy's. She is just a few blocks from 3 different Starbucks, a Barnes & Noble, a bagel store, every kind of restaurant, every other kind of store, and a great elementary school for her kids. The weather at this time of year is cool and foggy, a bit gloomy actually, but very livable. They usually stay in their neighborhood because it's got everything and the traffic in LA is so terrible that it takes forever to get anywhere else.

We, on the other hand, live in a very large rental house in south Ridgecrest, full of cockroaches and other forms of wildlife. It sits on a large lot with a large backyard and room to park several vehicles (in the 2-car garage, on the wide driveway, and in the quiet street). You can buy a decent house in this town for $150,000, a palace for $300,000. Our neighborhood is quiet and crime-free, and the sidewalks go UP down, UP down, etc., and there are very few trees, but people do take care of their (dirt) yards, they have attractive cactus gardens and statuary, such as rockets or tortoises. We are one block from a Baptist church, in case anyone was interested in becoming a Baptist, and several blocks from Walmart and Albertson's. The weather right now is sunny and in the 90's every day (the 100's come later in the summer). We usually go places on the weekend because there's nothing here and it's really easy to go anywhere, it just takes forever because we live far away from everything.

I don't know, what do you think?

Weight Watchers

I couldn't decide what to write about today. Health care was one possibility, but that would have been a depressing entry. Suffice it to say that we are trying to stay healthy! Which brings us to Weight Watchers.

I first joined WW in 1976. I was 16 and wore a size 16, which seemed enormous at the time. (These days, considering how fat the population has become, I'd probably be one of the skinny girls.) Flash forward 32 years, ignoring the dozens of failed attempts at WW. September 2008 I joined one more time, in order to become a skinny, healthy mom to my two boys. And at first it went really well. By February 2009, just before we moved to Ridgecrest, I had lost 33.4 lbs and was feeling great. Then I missed a few meetings, couldn't find the bathroom scale in the sea of moving boxes, ate a few too many comfort foods. By the time I got to a meeting I had gained 9.4 lbs! In 3 weeks! This seemed so unfair. I desperately NEEDED milkshakes and other forms of chocolate to survive Ridgecrest.

This is where my 30+ years of experience on and off WW helped me out. I know that losing weight and gaining weight is not about fair. Losing weight and gaining weight is about calories consumed and calories expended, how much muscle you have, maybe how your endocrine system is working, that kind of thing. There is no rule that says if you're a nice person who had to move somewhere icky, you can eat a lot of chocolate and not gain weight. Sadly, there are a LOT of enormously fat people in Ridgecrest, so there must be a lot of people who believed in that rule, to their detriment.

So I got back on program. I am grateful that Ridgecrest at least HAS Weight Watchers. WW is a lot of places, but it isn't everywhere. Ridgecrest has two Thursday meetings, one Friday meeting, and one Saturday morning meeting. Saturday is the only day that my husband is home to babysit, so that's when I usually go.

The first meeting I went to, I was kind of dismayed. Ridgecrest WW isn't using computers yet, so I had to fill out all the paperwork again and I didn't get a nice little computer-generated label to put in my book, but rather had to depend on the weigher's math skills. The WW room is small and cramped (is this becoming a theme?).

But the people won me over. Mary, the Ridgecrest WW leader, is inspiring and supportive and an all-around nice person. Julie, the receptionist, is another friendly face. But the best thing about the meetings is the other WW members. When I started coming to meetings, I had formed an opinion of Ridgecrest as a place where people just eat and smoke and don't exercise and vote Republican. It turns out that some of them do other things, including coming to WW. I don't really know my fellow WW members, but I hear them talking, and I can tell they're intelligent, thoughtful, and trying to better themselves. I find this heartening. WW is definitely a bright spot in my life in Ridgecrest. And as of today I have lost 41 lbs!

The Library

Since today is Thursday, and Thursday is library day, I thought I'd better write something about the Ridgecrest Public Library.

Thursday is library day because it's also pre-school story hour day. At the moment, story hour is on some sort of hiatus, due to resume in a week or two, but we still go to the library on Thursdays. I find that the depression that has gripped me since moving here is somewhat held at bay by routine, especially regularly scheduled pleasurable things. My daily walks fall into this category and so does visiting the library.

Before we moved here, when I was trying to deal with the emotional crisis of giving up my house and my job and my chosen hometown and my friends and my garden and my mountains and all that, I googled the Ridgecrest library and memorized its location. It was one of the first things I wanted to drive by when we got here, but at first I couldn't find it. I went around the block again. That's the library??? It looked extremely un-prepossessing from the outside, and guess what, the inside is worse. The building is just way too small to be the only library for a town of >25,000 residents, many of whom have advanced degrees. It reminds me of a very crowded used bookstore. Someone gave a lot of thought to how to cram as much stuff as possible into that space.

But it's a library. With real honest to goodness librarians, some of whom are very friendly. And although the library's collection is scanty, patrons can request books from anywhere in the Kern County library system. I tried this last week. I requested 4 books and they came zooming into Ridgecrest from Bakersfield and elsewhere. All for free. Aren't libraries wonderful?

Going to any library with two toddlers is an adventure. Going to the tiny cramped Ridgecrest library with two toddlers is painful. Each week I wonder, was that worth it? We have a routine, which I am always tinkering with. I push the babies in their stroller. Soon I think we're going to skip the stroller, since it really doesn't fit in the library. But then the babies will run away from me. Six of one, half dozen of the other. We get my books first, because the babies are still cheerful at that point and are not yelling. Except for today, when Baby A began to yell immediately upon entering the library. I often come home with really odd things to read, because I had to choose them so quickly. After we grab 2 books for me, we go to the children's section. When we first started coming, Baby A would usually be asleep in the stroller, and Baby B and I could look at the board books that the librarians lay out on a little low bookcase. Nowadays Baby A is always awake and yelling, and Baby B runs away from me. Today Baby A wanted to sit on a little chair at a little table and I encouraged that. He actually sat there and looked at some books. Baby B ran away to pull videos off a cart, so I brought him back and encouraged him to sit on another chair and look at books. Then he fell off the chair, splat on his face. Impassioned screaming ensued. I picked him up and took him to the furthest corner of the library to comfort him, but since it is such a small library, everyone in the entire library could hear him screaming anyway. Meanwhile I figured Baby A would fall off HIS chair, but he didn't. He sat and waited for us. As soon as Baby B had calmed down, I put them both back in the stroller, grabbed 2 books for them, and we checked out and left.

Story hour is particularly exciting. I'm glad it is on hiatus. I wouldn't mind if it didn't come back until the boos are 3, which is the recommended age. Of course I could wait to take them until they turn 3, but what would I do with them in the meantime? Anyway, lots of other little ones go to story hour (much to the displeasure of the reader). The Boulder library had special programs for teeny tinies, but I guess I should be grateful Ridgecrest has ANY story hour. The babies enjoy story hour very much. At the end of each session I am worn out and glad to retreat back to our quiet rental house with all its cockroaches.

How I got here

So, how did I get here? The easy answer is that my husband got a job here and so we moved. We considered a separation. I could have stayed in Boulder with the babies and my job, he could have lived here alone until he was sure about his job. That's probably what we would have done pre-kids. But I didn't want him to be separated from the boys. Their development is so exciting right now. And it would have been hard for me to be a single parent. We didn't get married and have kids in order to live separately. So we all moved.

But it's more than that. My husband actually had two job offers. One was in the DC area, one was here. I chose Ridgecrest. I have to keep reminding myself of that. My family is in California -- not in Ridgecrest, of course, but at least now we're closer to everyone. My husband has family here too. In the DC area, we would have had no one except my brother-in-law's sister and her husband, and that just wasn't enough (though they're very nice).

But it's more than that. Even if we had no family here, we're westerners. I love the wide open spaces, the big skies. Although it seems like we're in the middle of nowhere, we're actually an easy drive from practically everywhere. We're close to Death Valley, we're close to the ocean, we're close to Yosemite, we're close to Las Vegas, we're close to the gorgeous national parks in Utah, we're close to Arizona, we're not that far from Colorado and New Mexico.

But it's more than that. In August 1979, when I was 19, I visited Ridgecrest for a few days. I came because my friend Mark had convinced the Suspects, a UC Davis punk band, to come out to the desert and give a concert. Mark and I had both just finished our freshman year at UC Davis and we both really liked the Suspects. I was stuck at my parents' house in Palo Alto with nothing to do that summer, and I thought it would be an adventure to take the Greyhound bus to Ridgecrest for a concert. It was. I have a few vivid memories of the trip, and I also found some diary entries I'd written about it in an old notebook. The concert was in Joshua Hall. Where the heck is/was Joshua Hall? I'll have to ask an old-timer. I stayed at Mark's girlfriend Linda's house. That was a complicated situation, as I recall. Mark and I were never a couple, but we had a pretty active flirtation going on at UC Davis, though it was mainly mental. We weren't in love. However, it was definitely awkward to stay with his girlfriend, although she was very sweet. Young, though. If I was 19, I think she might have been 15. I didn't have much in common with her. What made things better was the presence of Mark's friends -- Guy, Lloyd, and David. Really cool guys, all of them. Smart, interesting, good looking. I came away from that visit with the sense that Ridgecrest was a quiet, dusty little town with really smart, interesting people in it.

I am still looking for those people.

So when my husband said he had a job interview at China Lake, I said: "I'd move there!"

And that's how I got here.

Walking

My favorite form of exercise is walking. Actually walking is one of my favorite things to do, period, never mind the exercise part. All my prevous hometowns -- Palo Alto, Davis, Berkeley, Menlo Park, Ann Arbor, and Boulder -- were wonderful places to walk, with special walking paths, parks and open spaces, interesting houses to look at, charming downtowns...

So now we live in Ridgecrest. It's different here. For one thing, it's very hot for about 6 months of the year. For another, it's cold with nasty winds for maybe 3 or 4 months of the year (not sure, we haven't experienced a full winter yet). It seems clear that most people spend most of their time inside.

It's also not a wealthy city and the infrastructure is a little lacking. I suppose the city just doesn't have the funds to put in a lot of delightful walking trails and that sort of thing. On the other hand, a lot of people come here to work at the base (China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station), and they tend to be intelligent, and intelligent people often recognize the benefits of exercise. Hmm.

One thing we noticed when we first moved here is that the curb cuts for driveways are very steep. The curbs are very high, as if floods were expected. This makes it so hard to push a stroller along the sidewalk. UP, down, UP, down. Many times the Graco stroller almost tipped over. But the hiking stroller is much lighter, so as long as we stick with that one, we're OK.

A month or so after we moved here I discovered a bike/pedestrian path about a half mile walk from our house. Now, almost every morning (5 or 6 days a week, we're lazy on the weekends), the babies and I go for an hour-long walk involving this path, and as I walk, I think about the path, and how it differs from paths in other places I've lived. Of course, because this is Ridgecrest, the path suffers in comparison. But I try to be fair.

The path, which runs east-west, is very straight and very flat (all of Ridgecrest is flat). It is paved. On the south side is a tall chain-link fence, which is protecting a streambed of some sort. On the north side is a big open field for part of the way, then houses, and then more open field. Alongside the path and in the fields there is dirt, and numerous ugly dry bushes. Some are creosote. I should learn the names of the others. It's hard to convey how unlovely the path is and how unlovely the big open fields are. But this is the desert.

I spend the walks avidly looking for wildlife. I usually see rabbits, often lizards, and sometimes small fast-moving mammals (I don't know what they are). Never a snake or a tortoise or a tarantula. As for birds, twice I have seen a roadrunner. Several times I have seen quail. I thought they were California Quail, but maybe they are Gambel's Quail, which apparently are very similar but are found in the desert. I need to ask someone about that. Once I saw a horned lark, a few times I have seen killdeer, and often there are mockingbirds, hummingbirds, great-tailed grackles, and the usual mourning doves, house sparrows, and house finches. I think that's all. Each day when we set out, I think about what we might see, and it is very disappointing when there is nothing. I suppose it will get worse as the summer goes on, but I don't know. Maybe everything will estivate.

Other people use this path too. Maybe it's busy early in the morning (the babies and I rarely get out before 8am), before people go to work. When we are out there, we usually see a few other moms with strollers, and a few older folks. Sometimes a bicyclist. They aren't what you'd call a friendly bunch. I figure they are all Republicans. OK, that is ridiculous. But they probably are, since almost everyone in Ridgecrest is a Republican.

Unlovely though the path may be, it is becoming one of my favorite things about Ridgecrest. Will I miss it if we move away? When I left Ann Arbor, I desperately missed my favorite walk, which I had taken almost every day for several years. I took a series of photos showing all the parts of the walk, so that I could remember it. That wouldn't be hard to do with my Ridgecrest walk, since it all looks pretty much the same.

But I do like those quail.

Desert tortoises

My husband and I and our two children moved to Ridgecrest in February. We spent the rest of February, and most of March, and most of April, and most of May getting settled. It is now Memorial Day and we are still not settled. Anyway, we missed spring, and it turns out that spring is a very important time in the desert. We never really got out to look at the wildflowers and today I realized that we also missed the best time to look at desert tortoises. It is getting too hot. Soon they will estivate. Soon the Desert Tortoise Natural Area will be unstaffed.

We visited the DTNA today and it was very nice, but there wasn't a tortoise anywhere. We walked for miles, pushing the babies in their hiking stroller, and there were no tortoises. Once in a while we saw a lizard. All the bushes and other plants appeared to be dead (or perhaps estivating -- what the heck does that word mean? OK, I looked it up. According to my dictionary it means "to pass the summer in a torpid condition." And torpid means, variously, "inactive, sluggish, slow, dull, apathetic, lethargic, dormant." In other words, I am going to be estivating this summer too, just like the tortoises...).

We did see one tortoise today, because we started our trip by going to Jawbone Station for a map, and there we got to meet Mr. Bob, who is 110 years old. Yesterday we stopped at Jawbone to see him (I had read about him), but he had already gone to bed (it was about 4pm). So we were pretty pleased with ourselves to be able to see him this morning. The babies were parked in their stroller, which was parked right in front of his enclosure, facing his hole. And suddenly, at about 10:10 am, up he came for breakfast. The babies made noises, so I think they did notice him, though it's always hard to tell. We watched him eat strawberries and lettuce.

One other bit of tortoise info: yesterday the woman in charge of Jawbone told us that she has several rescue tortoises in her backyard and is looking for someone to take over some of them. We determined quickly that we aren't the best choice right now, but maybe in the future!

So, all things considered, a good day. Points in Ridgecrest's favor: (1) near a place that has a visit-able desert tortoise for a mascot; (2) near a tortoise reserve where you can theoretically see desert tortoises if you go at the right time, and at least you know that there are tortoises around even if you can't see them; (3) opportunities exist to have rescue desert tortoises in your backyard! Points not in Ridgecrest's favor: the usual, including cockroaches.