January 14, 1999 

After a few decades of constant importuning from my sister, I finally broke down and agreed to spend Christmas with her and her family. Why is this remarkable? Well, you see, my sister lives in California - in Orange County. I could never imagine spending Xmas surrounded by palms, highways, and have-a-nice-days. A whole bunch of quotes flooded to mind, none of them flattering to L.A.: "It's the land of perpetual pubescence" (Ashley Montagu); "Californians invented the concept of life-style. This alone warrants their doom (Don DeLillo); and, my favourite from Fred Allen: "California is a nice place to live - if you happen to be an orange".

It was all a bit surreal, eating Christmas goose (barbecued on a spit), turkey (roasted), mince pies, Christmas pudding, fruit cake, and trifle - in a word, a transplanted English Christmas under the unrelenting sun.

Actually, Laguna Hills is a lovely community, but nobody lives there. They are either on the freeway or at work. During my long walks in streets and trails I met only one pedestrian, who looked at me quizzically. I set off innumerable guard dogs barking. Even in the "gated communities", with clusters of pretentious houses protected by a palisade of concrete walls, shutting the world and reality out - even they seemed uninhabited. During the entire week, I saw one taxi and no busses. The impeccably clean streets were deserted. The sidewalks were so white, smooth and crack-free - it takes a mayor to notice these things - they looked as if they were holystoned like the deck of a ship.

Even the garbage was removed mechanically: trucks with robot arms grab those huge, squarish plastic containers on wheels that stand guard like khaki and olive sentinels outside every house. [Woody Allen: "they don't throw their garbage away in L.A. They make it into television shows".]

Since I had a thwarted break-in while I was away, I took a special interest in policing down there. Per-resident spending for police in Orange County is $250 Can., compared to $225 in the MUC. But the number of police officers per 1,000 people is only 1.33 there, compared to 2.25 here.

Unlike the total dependency on property taxes here, Californian cities get a percentage of the sales tax (as we did here before 1980). Cities can even impose their own tax; again, collected by the state. There's no talk of mergers there; on the contrary, cities are threatening secession - and it's not the fault of San Andreas. San Pedro and Playa del Rey want to secede from the city of Los Angeles - where, by the way, labour unions are seriously planning to take over City Hall in next year's municipal elections.

Speaking of the San Andreas fault: it occurred to me that Canadians seem to have to live with the chronic threat of political separation; Californians have to live with the threat of physical separation. Take your pick.

I'll take our political and meteorological climate. But it was a nice break.

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• Menu of Trent's Stories
• September 3, 1998 SOUND BEGETS FURY
  
• 2 Oct TAXATION BY MISREPRESENTATION
  
• 12 OCT on $500,000,000 TAX GRAB Tax grab turns into burlesque
  
• 16 OCT A MEETING WITH BOUCHARD