10 Things About California

This morning--Dia de los Muertos, the day after Halloween--I woke up to rain for like the third day in a row. House so dark at 10am that I had to turn lights on, even with all the shades up. In just a couple of months we'll be moving back to Texas, where we both grew up, so I decided to challenge myself by coming up with a list of things I both will and won't miss about California. And that resolution made me think about blogging again, after a hiatus of roughly two years. So, here it is, starting with the bad:

TEN THINGS I WON'T MISS ABOUT (NORTHERN) CALIFORNIA
1. Rainy winters
2. Food, gas, and rent prices, but especially food prices
3. Being far away from family, necessitating expensive plane trips home
4. Driving down to the Bay Area
5. Thunderstormlessness and weird lack of seasonal transition generally
6. Rocky beaches...wtf?
7. Buses with bike racks that never have empty spaces
8. People not waving thanks when you pull over to let them pass
9. State income tax? Or not; I don't think I even bothered to file last year
10. Smog checks

TEN THINGS I WILL MISS ABOUT (NORTHERN) CALIFORNIA
1. Abundant Boba Tea
2. Bike Lanes
3. Food Coops
4. Sunrise Restaurant in Davis, where you can get tasty vegetarian fish
5. Amtrak station 1 mile away, Yolobus stop down the street mean it's not impossible to travel regionally without a car
6. Voting on like 20 ballot initiatives each election
7. West Sacramento house we currently live in, in a neighborhood where we actually know and talk to our neighbors
8. Leftist politics generally not regarded as politically wacko
9. California Chicanidad (which is different than Tejanidad)
10. Smog checks

Honestly, it was a lot harder to come up with things I won't miss than with things I will, and most of my "things I won't miss" are fairly trivial. I suppose that means I'll miss living here--though I'm also glad to be moving back home.