worries

A friend of mine sent me a New York Times article about two scientists who predict a possible disastrous rain event that will affect all of California . Climate change , you know . Not that this kind of thing hasn’t happened in previous milenia . According to these scientists , it has .

I thought about getting an inflatible raft —– a quasi Ark , just in case . But where would I go ? Nevada ?

We Californians have the multi-year drought to worry about in the meantime , and spreading wildfires . Oh , and the earthquake —- The Big One .

What else ? Oh , someone might steal the catalytic converter from my Prius . There are other things to worry about too.

There seem to be a lot of mountain lions roaming around L.A. these days . And bears , or course . We had a bear in our driveway a few nights ago chowing down on food of some sort that he got from the neighbor’s trash . This is our third sighting in the last month . Never saw a bear near our house before .

Ah , let’s not leave out the squirrels ! There have been multitudes of them in the back yard during the last couple of years . A squirrel or two roaming the yard is okay , but squirrels in large numbers are a gang of thugs . They stole most of my apricots earlier this year from the tree. They make too much noise and they dig up bulbs in the yard and , I suspect , ate some of my tomatoes . They smoke unfiltered cigarettes and use foul language too. Rats in fancy coats !

I put moth balls out to discourage them . Someone told me that squirrels avoid mothballs . Seems to work . The guy in the house behind ours bought a spray from the local nursery . He claims that it chases away everything . He sprays it all over . He went so far as to buy me a bottle of the stuff , but I rely on mothballs . I think the spray is a solution of wolf pee . It may attract wolves . Who knows !

Birds eat my apricots , too , and steal the figs . At least they sing for their supper. That’s something .

Oh , and there are the usual health concerns to worry about . I won’t go into them . Old people spend too much time jawing about their health .

Let me see . Home robberies ? Car acccidents ? For that matter , how about getting hit by a bus ?

I worry about all of the small lizards that have populated the neighborhood . It’s beginning to dawn on me that there’s something afoul . Could be that they’re the lizard people who will soon be taking over the world . I’m beginning to realize that . Could be too late already .

I suppose all of these worries won’t matter when the big flood sinks the state . We’ll get a few hours warning , they say , but by then I think it’s too late . Ada and I could float for awhile in our little rubber dingy ( if we had one ! ) , but what’s the use . We’d probably catch a flesh-eating disease from the rising water. Or the lizard people would get us . Or squirrels . Do squirrels swim ?