I will not discuss how long it has been since I’ve posted. I will not. Moving along…
It has been raining here. No, I’m sorry, rain is what happens to normal people. For climates like the one Los Angeles possesses, ordinary old rain just will not do.
What is happening here can only be called “biblical.” I’ve been looking up, watching for frogs. It’s not just that it’s fierce. Yes, there has been the usual pelting, driving water. There’s the expected road damage from continual storm. However, it’s been raining now for six days. Can we get back to the sunshine that makes the rest of the country snipe about smog and hippies? Please?
We did have a very slight lull, and during that lull I noticed there was a large patch of mushrooms growing in one of the soil oases around my building. I decided if the lull lasted long enough for me to grab a few pictures, I would take advantage of the little break.
I have fond memories of wild mushrooms. I’ve always been a city girl, so exposure to the outdoors was pretty minimal. My family wasn’t into camping or hiking, so the bit of wildness I had access to meant my backyard, my grandmother’s backyard, and maybe a bit of state-held park land when there was a BBQ.
Once in awhile, I’d find mushrooms in my grandmother’s back yard. It was always something special in my young mind. In the midst of my grandmother’s meticulously-kept lawn, a small circle of something wild, something not purposefully planted, something almost seemingly…forbidden. Unseemly. In my need to poke at everything, I’d peruse a cap or two. The caps were soft and sproigy, the stems like strands melded together.
The entirety of our apartment complex is concrete, except for a few squares in the ground where something has been allowed to grow. Something planted. The trees are very young and the greenery unassuming. So there they were, a great bunch of wild mushrooms glistening with rain. There were a lot out in the open, but there was also quite a colony hiding under the tame leaves. Because of the driving rain, many of them were splattered with sandy dirt.
They’ll probably be gone next week, uprooted by the men who tend the greens, spray down the concrete, then blow it dry with a leaf blower. However, mushrooms are a fungus, and tenacious after their first appearance. They’ll be back.