One Pizza, Delivered Please!

You know you are no longer on the mountain when:

…you have to bring the keys to your car into the house with you, when you return from an errand.

Fresh from the backyard...

… you walk out into the back yard and have your choice of fresh lemons or fresh oranges, waiting to be picked. 

…you see palm trees everywhere you go.

…someone asks if the dishwasher is full, and I say, “No, could you please pass those mashed potatoes over here?”

…you spend a week driving around local streets without seeing a dirt road. None.

…you see lawns.

…you go to the living room wall and push de button, and heat pours out into every room in the house. Downright surreal…

…you turn on the oven without having to turn on the generator first-or at all…because there is no genny.

…you do the laundry and there are no clothes draped over three or four clothes racks, the railings and the backs of dining room chairs afterwards-for forever.

… you spot a Toyota truck of any kind and you can determine what color it is because there is no layer of mud. [It’s also clean and waxed]

…you see houses to the left, houses to the right, houses in front of you and houses to the rear. 

…you hear the ding of a microwave.

…you can access Netflix without getting hypnotized by the spinning icon first.

…people wear masks like the guy with nine kids wears condoms, kind of hit and miss.

…you are in the diamond lane of a five-lane freeway.

… you go a week without putting the car into 4WD. Oh, check that. The car doesn’t have 4WD.

…you put coffee grounds down the sink, flick a switch and think to yourself, “Whatever is down there-I hope it never escapes.”

…you open the refrigerator and realize that your own fridge at home would fit inside the freezer section of this baby.

… you have members of the family arrive for a socially-distant, backyard visit, driving a golf cart. 

Welcome! Which arm, please?

… you find out that Covid vaccinations are being administered at Disneyland or Dodger Stadium.

… you get separated from your backpack going through Security and whisked aside-over there, please-for forgetting to ditch the water bottle.

… the sound that wakes you up in the morning is not coyotes, wood-peckers or roosters.

… you don’t see electrical cords crisscrossing your line of vision.

… not only do you not have to haul your trash and recycling away, they come and get it!

… there are no wood boxes to fill.

… there is nary a propane tank to be seen.

… you can have pizza delivered.

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