Wake me when the fiesta's over!

Sitting here eating a delicious left over take out enchilada, i start to realize that it's not an entirely bad thing, this migrating to southern California.  On the other hand, the fiesta colour fiasco has got to stop.

In New England, the winters are a lovely, sedate study in black and white.  Don't even bother buying colour film until autumn.  Total waste of money.  Autumn is scheduled and announced on the morning news so you aren't startled when you walk out the door and the trees have burst into flaming colours and the New York leaf peepers are about to invade.

Here, it's a different story altogether.  Now, mind you, like most right thinking people, i enjoy a festive pinata done up in bright colours.  Gives one incentive to smack the bejeezus out of it and get to the tiny tequila bottles inside.  On the other hand, there are things that shouldn't have that all in your face, look at me colour scream scheme going on.

For instance, one of the first things i saw when i got down here was a huge, bright purple tree.  Oh, and not just one, entire streets are lined with the mutant things.  Trees should not be purple.  Green with purple flowers, sure, but not purple as a leaf base.  It's just wrong, and i'm pretty sure it was developed by a gardener on acid who read a little too much Dr. Seuss.  Will you eat them in a tree?  Not if the tree is freakin purple, i won't, Sam I am!

Next on the list are items that have to deal with genitalia.  Sure, fiesta coloured condoms have been around for a long time.  We stuffed a tequila filled pinata with them once.  That doesn't mean i'd like to see a piece of manhood covered in one and headed my way.  But now they've really gone over the edge here.  I was at Walgreen's buying girl supplies and was confronted with designer looking black boxes with celophane windows displaying mini-pads in fiesta colours!  Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!  When i'm excusing myself to the ladies room, i have no desire to announce to the world in some banana yellow or flaming apricot hue the fact that i'm bleeding like a stuck pig.  Do the people who make these things think i'm about to display them in a decorative manner in my own bathroom?  If so, they're woefully mistaken.  Besides, some guy might think it was a very large condom and wonder who's been sleeping in mama bear's bed.  That's a gossip topic i just don't need to have circulating about me.

Then, just when i thought it was safe to wake up slowly on a mildly floral porch before i was assaulted with the SoCal colour barrage, i turned on my Google this morning only to discover they'd gotten into the act!  The entire page was set on stun long before i'd had a decent interval to digest my first cuppa joe.  Oh, the humanity!  This trend must stop!

Having been down here for only a couple weeks, I'll let you in on a little secret.  Most people think that "siesta" is Spanish for afternoon nap time.  I'm now convinced that a siesta is what happens when you've seen so many bright colours in a non-stop parade, you go blind for a couple hours and the safest thing to do is just lay down until it passes.

Lily Robertson, who must stop typing before her vision begins to blur, can be reached at canopicjargon@gmail.com or on Facebook.