My family lived in LA from the time of my birth (well, actually, my parents were there for a good year before I showed up) until a couple months before my ninth birthday. We lived high on the hill in Eagle Rock, in a neighborhood that didn’t deal well with the region’s infrequent rain. Every time we had a storm, with thunder and lightening, our power would go out, and we would go to Wendy’s for dinner.
We moved from LA to Portland, OR, where it rained all the time, and the power rarely went out. My sister, ever the schemer, tried to hold my parents to the Wendy’s-for-dinner-when-it-rains rule, but they didn’t buy it.
Today, I was running an errand around University City for work and got caught in the thunderstorm. The sound of the water, the color of the sky and the smell of the air sent me back in time, to the sunroom of the Wendy’s in Pasadena, CA, where my family sat one stormy LA night eating frosties and watching the rain cascade down the curved, tinted glass.
It’s 20 years later, I’m a country away and I’m sure my power isn’t out, but it feels like I should be having Wendy’s for dinner.