Photo by Joseph Lapin

It was raining in Los Angeles during the 2011 Christmas week, and the traffic on the 405 near the Getty Center was jammed. I had left Long Beach two hours earlier, and it would still be another hour before I arrived at work in Woodland Hills.

That morning the red brake lights were staring at me like blood-shot eyes. Angelenos have no idea how to drive in the rain, which causes both accidents and soul-sucking congestion. I wanted to kick out my windows; I wanted to lie on the horn; I wanted to turn around and forget about this city of freaking angels.

This wasn't matching the fantasy I'd created back in Massachusetts. Before I moved, I studied pictures of the Pacific Ocean and devoured Kerouac and Stegner, the stories of the beautiful people and the musicians, actors and writers who made their dreams come true. I had bought into the California dream, and I wanted my piece. So years later, at 25, I became one of the many who crossed the desert like ancient wanderers, driving until the Pacific Ocean, suddenly, was in view before me. I had never seen anything so vast, so stunning.

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Flickr/Dawn Zarimba

Southern California's dry winds in fall and winter can rise up to speeds of 90 mph. Commonly known as the Santa Ana winds, they're now making their first attack on the area.

Panic has arisen on social media. That can't change the winds' mind, but you can find Twitter accounts personifying the winds with posts updating us on their progress.

Here are 10 pop culture references to the famous winds to keep you occupied in the house for a few minutes -- and spare you from heading outside and getting yourself blown away.

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Alissa Walker

See also:
*5 Artsy Things to Do in L.A. This Week
*Our Best of L.A. issue and our Best of L.A. app
*Fugly Buildings: Our Series on the Most Hideous Buildings in L.A.

During our recent run of 95-degree autumn days -- can we be done with those? -- the last place one would think to seek relief is in the landlocked asphalt wonderland of downtown Los Angeles. But downtown is now home to the city's most accessible, life-affirming aquatic refreshment, in a vibrant public space nestled unassumingly, almost secretly, in L.A.'s newest park.

The plaza below a restored 46-year-old Arthur J. Will Memorial Fountain, once obscured by the ramps of a parking garage, has been transformed into a vast "membrane pool." An inch of water creates a rippling canvas for a field of choreographed geysers where kids, dozens of kids, in swimsuits and Crocs and sunblock, squeal as they weave between the columns of water. Nearby, fluorescent pink chairs are occupied by smiling, towel-holding parents and buttoned-up city employees, more than a few of whom kick off their shoes and wade into the pool themselves. The whole scene looks even prettier at night.

"It's huge," my friend Kalee Thompson, a writer and Highland Park mom, gushed about the fountain. "It's a great place for kids to play a game of tag on a hot day and a fun place to meet up for a play date or picnic since there is also a big expanse of lawn, public bathrooms and even a Starbucks."

The fountain plaza -- which I've dubbed Toddler Beach -- is the very best part of Grand Park (formerly Civic Park), a new 12-acre strip of public space that cascades down Bunker Hill from the Music Center to the steps of City Hall. Although sections have been functional since July, the fully-operational park officially opens this Saturday, creating a nice outdoor area in the center of the city and bringing some much-needed amenities like a dog run to the neighborhood. It's definitely not "our Central Park," as some have hyped (maybe Bryant Park?), but Grand Park accomplishes a lot, and with very little to work with in this small, park-starved sliver of downtown.

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You see ordinary contrails; they see poisonous "chemtrails."

On a recent Saturday morning, a small buzz of activity emanates from the stately Wilshire Ebell Theatre abutting Hancock Park. This is not a theatrical production but rather "Consciousness Beyond Chemtrails," a conference for those sharing belief in "chemtrails" -- a theory alleging that the government is spraying us all with toxic chemicals via the seemingly ordinary condensation trails emitted by airplanes. The roster of speakers includes Roseanne Barr and former U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.).

"I would show those who are unfamiliar how to identify the difference between a jet contrail and a chemtrail," declares conference speaker Deborah Whitman, founding president of the Davis-based nonprofit Environmental Voices. "It's affecting our health and our trees and the oxygen that we breathe, and it's serious."

The sturdily built, silver-haired Whitman radiates a wholesome, Middle American, can-do energy. It's hard not to like her. Were she an actress, she could convincingly play Roseanne's plucky older sister in a sitcom.

In her case, chemtrails awareness originated in personal experience.

"I suffer from severe multiple chemical sensitivities," Whitman says. "I was going into emergency on an average of once a month before I found out what it was. I get irregular heartbeats when they're spraying, my heart skips beats, my voice changes, sinuses swell up, skin burns and itches, I can't breathe, and my blood pressure goes to stroke levels."

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Nanette Gonzales

Matt Shubin demonstrates the art of the paddle.

As a kid growing up in Malibu, Christian Shubin eschewed the surf industry and all it stood for: commodifying something pure, selling it to the masses and giving everyone a little "slice of paradise."

"It's part of the selfishness of surfing," he says. "You want to be the only good surfer, or the only person enjoying the waves, and you see it's being sold to everyone else, and it waters it down."

Decades later, Shubin's perspective has changed. As co-owner of Poseidon Stand-Up Paddleboards in Santa Monica, the 37-year-old has not only embraced the idea of selling his passion but also has become one of Los Angeles' greatest proponents of stand-up paddling, or "SUP," in industry parlance.

Developed by pro surfer Laird Hamilton as an exercise alternative when the surf is flat, SUP is essentially a hybrid of surfing and kayaking: Participants stand on a large, stable board and propel themselves across the water with a long paddle.

While Hamilton began experimenting with SUP almost a decade ago, the sport's popularity in the past two years has skyrocketed worldwide, exploding with new enthusiasts, new genres -- from SUP yoga to SUP adventure tours -- and a free-for-all of new businesses elbowing their way into the ocean.

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Kevin Scanlon

One of the fascinating Angelenos featured in L.A. Weekly's People 2012 issue. Check out our entire People 2012 issue here.

Considering she leads her own militia, Christy Roberts is surprisingly charming in person. The Upland native isn't exactly secretive about her plans for global rebellion, but then again, this former high school cheerleader is hardly your garden-variety survivalist.

For one thing, her California Poppy Militia is armed with seeds rather than bullets. Whenever it rains, Roberts and her nonhierarchal army commit not-so-random acts of benevolent sabotage by scattering poppy seeds in deserted public spaces throughout the state. What would seem at first to be a fairly innocent form of guerrilla gardening is actually an elaborate and provocative art project that works on several levels.

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David Brezinski/United States Fish and Wildlife Service

An acorn woodpecker. I love these guys. If you've ever seen a Woody Woodpecker cartoon, you'll know why.

Bird-watching. A word that is synonymous with you don't really know because you've already lost interest just thinking about it for one second. Lucky for you this post isn't about bird-watching; it's about birding. I said MOTHERFUCKIN' BIRDING, YOU GUYS!

Sorry. I got a little overzealous trying to dispel your misconceptions about the activity of looking at birds through binoculars and keeping nerdy little lists of where and when you saw those birds. You used to hear it called "bird-watching." Now it's "birding," and the people who do it call themselves "birders" because, well, I think they're aware they have a little public relations issue. See, I'm guessing when you think about "bird-watching," you probably picture these folks:

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Amanda Lewis

A Queen butterfly with a broken wing tragically rests on a plant at the Butterfly Pavilion on Sunday, April 8.

I've never been the kind of girl who was into butterflies. Somewhere between Mariah Carey's insipid song, those ugly-ass hair clips and the proliferation of tramp stamps, I got the message that butterflies represent a certain precious, feminine flightiness that I'm loath to be associated with.

But when I heard about the Butterfly Pavilion, an annual summer exhibit that opened Sunday in a 2,106-square-foot greenhouse on the lawn of the Natural History Museum, in which 25 people at a time mingle with more than 300 butterflies from 54 species for less than the price of a latte, I had to admit I was intrigued. Walking around in an enclosed space, surrounded by flapping patterned wings and the flora that love them? Plus, Vladimir Nabokov collected and studied butterflies. I figured I could make an exception to my no-butterflies rule just this once and spend a Sunday afternoon in their company.

Little did I know, slaughter awaited.

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Courtesy E.J. Scott

Scott completing his second marathon of the year in Austin, Texas.

There is rain in the forecast this weekend, and that makes E.J. Scott nervous. He is supposed to run the 26.2-mile Los Angeles Marathon, a task that usually takes him five and a half hours. Exposure to the elements for that long is enough to make anyone a little anxious, but Scott is more worried the rain could waterlog his curtain.

"It's really long; I wrap it around my head a couple times so it's nice and thick, but when it gets wet, it gets really heavy and it might fall down," says Scott, whose face (when not covered in curtain) is recognizable from his work in the L.A. improv scene.

Scott has Choroideremia, a rare eye disease that has left him with just a fraction of the vision an average person has. "Most people can see about 90 degrees out of each eye and I'm at less than 20," he says.

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Ted Soqui

Injured veterans practice adaptive rowing.

He was walking through the combat zone when he slipped and fell. Sgt. 1st Class Rorey Nichols landed hard on his lower back. He lay there for a while. He was alone, which was bad. But it was daytime, and he thanked God for that. Slipping sounds stupid. Slipping on your way to the chow hole while carrying 75 to 100 pounds of gear, on a so-called road in Afghanistan that's nothing but rocks and sand, sounds stupid and dangerous. He pulled himself up.

Nichols was no stranger to peril. He'd served in Iraq from 2005 to 2006 and learned that you could be sitting on the toilet when a stray bullet whizzes through the wall and kills you. Or lying in bed -- in which case not even a tattoo of the Archangel Michael can protect you. (Nichols got his on his right forearm when he first enlisted.) A decade and a half in the Army inures you to fear. But when he found out he'd broken his spine, for the first time in his life he was scared. Really scared.

Two years, three ruptured spinal discs and one fractured vertebra later, Nichols is standing barefoot on the dock at Peter Archer Rowing Center in Long Beach. He watches a group of injured soldiers gingerly pick their way onto a long, slim boat. They are learning how to row.

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