There is a rhythm to life here in Bakersfield.
You start out with high hopes and quickly cycle through to bitter disappointment and end finally at unconcealed rage. It applies to everything - local clients, restaurants, what appeared to be a short check-out line at the market. And so too, it applies to the weather.
Bakersfield is really West Death Valley and only gets about 3 inches of rain a year. Currently we've gone 60 days without so much as a drop of warm spit. So last week when the computer models started to show storms moving into the area for this weekend, we started, as usual, with high hopes. We could potentially expect up to an inch of rain, we were told, which would be a deluge of Biblical proportions for Bako.
By Tuesday the bitter disappointment set in as the predictions had dropped to a quarter to a half an inch of rain.
And now, this morning, the best guess is for a "trace". Not even enough to wash all the farm dirt off of... everything.
And sure enough, I'm pissed. But not surprised. That's just life here.
