Mary Novaria

This story first appeared in the Huffington Post on 3/6/2013.  Unless you're on a ski trip, snow and travel generally aren't a great mix. Or so I thought. As luck, or Mother Nature, would have it, a trip to visit my mother was bookended by blizzards and I was snowbound. Hadn't I loved snow days when I was a kid? Even as a mom, snow days were a welcome reprieve from frantic morning routines. But a snow day when I had things to do? How dare this happen? And how did I manage to pick this very week to visit? I almost succumbed to angst and frustration. I hadn't seen my mom for six months and was now stuck just a few miles away. I'd scheduled a lunch date with an old friend and hoped to catch a cup of coffee with a few others. My plans were drifting along with the snow. Schools closed, flights were cancelled and streets awaited the plow. Weather folk declared "snowmageddon," reporters interviewed the stranded, photographers shot barren grocery shelv...

                                                        ots-photo/Fotolia Grass has begun to grow in Los Angeles after just two days of steady rain. At the top of our street, tender, green shoots have sprung up on a brown, dusty hill that’s been hospitable only to the gophers. Save for parks and golf courses, there’s relatively little grass here. Unlike the suburban Midwest, where the houses around us had verdant lawns nourished by sprinkler systems, most of our neighbors here have replaced their grass with succulents and rocks. Still, there are a few holdouts and, three years into Southern California drought culture, I feel judgy when I see a well-watered patch of grass. I’m fueled by Curbed LA , which regularly drought shames municipalities (Beverly Hills) and individuals (Tom Selleck and the Kardashians) for their disregard of our co...