"Welcome to Mudslide Season"

So read a text message from a friend, a Southern California native with a dark sense of humor.

The big story here right now is the rain and the havoc it could wreak—floods, mudslides, even tornadoes.

Yesterday we actually had thunder, which sounds prosaic except that thunder doesn't really exist out here. (I don't know why, but it doesn't.)

The thunderclap I heard on the 42nd floor of my office building sounded like it was right outside my window and had people commenting on it all afternoon. Zach said he heard one that seemed to be right over our house—so loud he thought it might cause the roof to collapse.

We are safe, for which I'm grateful, but people not that far away are sandbagging and evacuating.

It is a strange, strange place to be.