I have always lived near a river, it seems. I was born close to the Main River in Frankfurt, Germany, then lived adjacent to the Danube in Belgrade, the Thames in London, the East River in Brooklyn and, finally, the Charles River in Boston.  Imagine my great delight, then, in 1990 when I discovered that the city I was contemplating a move to had a mighty river of its own.  A random stranger sitting at the bar of Mipjack’s* Fish Restaurant in Boston informed me, as I tended bar, that yes indeed, Los Angeles actually had a river running right through its middle – the eponymously-named Los Angeles River.

Wow, I thought, I wonder why I’ve never seen any photos of it?  Why hasn’t it shown up in any movies I’ve watched?  I must not have paid attention, I thought, and dismissed it from my mind.  As the moving date got closer, though, I started contemplating where I’d live.  I’d heard of Beverly Hills, Hollywood and beach communities like Venice, Santa Monica.  They sounded like lots of fun, but really I preferred a riverfront district.

I love the sounds of a river.  The mournful cry of a tugboat whistle at night.  The caw of hungry seagulls fighting over food.  The gentle lapping of the water against the shoreline.  Even the insistent urging of coxswains, pressuring their teams to row ever faster.  These are the sounds I’d grown up with and couldn’t wait to hear again, in my new city.

I arrived in Los Angeles on February 14, 1990, Valentine’s Day, and moved onto a friend’s houseboat in Marina Del Rey.  In the middle of the night, the rain began to fall.  Slowly, steadily, the heavy February rains hammered away at the roof.  The sound of the ocean’s waves, the rocking motion of the boat and the patter of raindrops all conspired to lull me into a deep, unconscious sleep.  The sound comforted me that night, and every night for the next couple of weeks.

When the rain finally let up, I knew it was time to find a home of my own  – not at the beach, or in the city, but by the river.  I set out on a quest to find the mysterious, almighty Los Angeles River.  “Where’s the river,” I asked everyone I met, “I want to see it.”  Some just shrugged.  Some stared.  A few even laughed.  Finally, one kind soul took pity on me.  “Remember the scene in ‘Grease’ where Leo and Danny race along a concrete channel?” “Yeah, when Sandy sits on the hill and sings Look at Me, I’m Sandra Dee?” “Yes, that’s the one. And that’s the L.A. River.”

What? How could a concrete road with a little stream trickling down its middle be a river?  Where were the marshy banks, the mounds of natural vegetation…the wildlife even?  Most important, where was the water?

Horrified, with my vision of a riverfront home disappearing quickly, I set out on March 2 to observe this travesty with my own eyes.  Running as it does from the San Fernando Valley to Long Beach, I wasn’t quite sure where to go to see the L.A. River from the best vantage point.  I was new in town and barely knew how to drive, so figuring out a good spot was difficult.  Downtown intimidated me so I decided to try the Valley.

Consulting my newly acquired Thomas Bros. Guide, I headed over Laurel Canyon to a juncture just past Ventura Blvd., north of Moorpark.  I parked on the overpass and looked down. There, snaking from east to west, was a big concrete ribbon, with about a foot and a half of brown murky water rushing through its carved-out center. Bits of trash floated along…a half a tire here, a jagged board there. There was no plant life, no wildlife, in fact not much life at all.  It was sad, dark, depressing and unlike any river I’d ever seen.  What on earth is this, I wondered, why does it look like this?

According to the history books, I found out the L.A. River was a run-off for the Santa Monica, Verdugo, Santa Susana and San Gabriel Mountains, collecting and channeling melting snow and rain water down into the Valley below.  Never a rolling river, it just meandered along in a shallow bed lined with willows and reeds.  When it did overflow there wasn’t much around, so the damage was minimal, but by the 1930s, development had placed a lot of structures nearby.

February of 1938 was the wettest February in 50 years.  It rained continuously until, by March 2, the reservoir behind the Big Tujunga Dam was nearly full.  Suddenly, the deadliest flood in Southern California history was underway.  Rain falling on saturated mountains caused muddy water to rush down towards the Valley.  Rising water washed out farms and ranches making Van Nuys a virtual island, reachable only by boat. Floodgates were opened on the bulging dam to save it, and a huge deluge descended, taking out nearly a dozen houses in Universal City.  The storm finally eased up on the evening of March 3 after it had dropped a foot of rain and killed 96 people.

Almost immediately work began on the Hansen Dam, a structure that would redirect and collect the water from the mountains.  And at the same time, the Army Corps of Engineers began the widening, deepening and paving of the LA River.  It quickly became the concrete passageway we see today, picking up polluted water and toxic run-off as it passes through urban centers and dumping it into the sea.

Unwittingly, I’d gone in search of the long-gone tributary on the very eve of its destruction, 52 years later.  The heavy February rains of 1990 led me back in time to the once-free river, now beaten into submission by a concrete mixer.  It quickly became a metaphor for me, of what Los Angeles does to many who come here, longing to run wild. One little, bitty mistake, or monster flood, and you’re judged a nuisance and…

Alright there’s no real metaphor there.  But the point of the story is that now I live just blocks from the L.A. River in what could be deemed a “river adjacent” property.  There are no seagulls cawing, boat whistles blowing or coxswains yelling, but I know I’m still near a river (of sorts), and that provides just a little comfort for me late at night.

Photo Credit: Erik Gauger

This week my oldest chick has left the nest and flown off to school.  As any mother knows this is a momentous time filled with all sorts of emotions.  Joy, that my baby chick got a good enough score on her SAT to make it into a good school.  Sadness that this mother hen/baby chick phase of our relationship has ended.  Excitement that my first chick has begun such a thrilling time in her life.  Nostalgia, at remembering a time when this old chick began her own journey into henhood.

Because this is such a significant moment in my life, I figured what a natural blog topic, right?

I thought I would write a bit about when I brought her home from the hospital – her so frail and tiny, and me so scared that I could never pull off this motherhood thing.  How profoundly this new little life effected mine, and how watching her over the years grow into such a lovely, intelligent, self-assured young chick has brought me such joy and wonderment.

Then I would move on to writing some anecdotes about our time together as hen and chick.  I would tell you about how on Mother’s Day when she was two, she picked out a Barbie and some pig slippers for me, and how ever year she would make me breakfast in bed all by herself.   I would tell you about how when she was 5 she had her imaginary playmates Pumba and Pinocchio and a complete love of everything Disney.  I would tell stories about all of the lemonade stands my enterprising young chick created, and how proud she was of all the money she made off them, even though they never once turned a profit.  I would tell about the fort she built in the backyard out of old pizza boxes, and the many, many art projects she filled our home with over the years.

Then I would continue by talking about how empty the nest was going to be now that she has flown away.  How quiet it will be without all of the teenage girls running in and out.  How lonely it will seem without all of the late-night slumber parties, and late-morning breakfasts of chocolate chip pancakes.

Then I would seamlessly move on to all of the things I will miss about having her home.  I will miss our gossip sessions about her friends, their boyfriends and all the other drama of high school.  I will miss our once a year self-imposed ditch day, where she would skip school and we would go shopping and out to lunch.  How I will miss doing her laundry, making her her favorite meals, and how I’ll even miss her sulking teenage face at the dinner table every night.

Just as you would be wiping that tear from your eye because of the first part of my blog, I would then move on to what I was thinking of accomplishing now that I had reached this new phase in my life.  How I am going to start doing all things self-improvement.  How I will get a trainer and finally take off this baby weight.  How I am going to work on starting that great trashy beach novel that I always wanted to write but never seemed to have enough time.  How maybe I would go to school myself, work on that degree that I never finished.

Next I would write a funny little anecdote about how my son told me how weird he thought it would be around the house without his big sister, but then wanted to know if he could change her room into an exercise room for him.  (This would give you a little chuckle)

This was the blog I was going to write.  Then I started doing a little sniffing around on the Internet.  What were the other mothers out there blogging about during this end of the summer, back to school time of the year?  What I found was that every damn 40-something woman who had a child going off to enter their freshman year of college was writing a sappy empty nest, nostalgic, what will I do now blog.  Ugh, I was not going to be original at all!

So with that I am abandoning the blog topic of “the empty nest” and instead have decided to write about bras.  Specifically why can’t they make pretty bras for gals with big boobs?

I realize that it is probably easier to create a pretty A or B cup bra, because these sizes lack the support that larger boobs need, and therefore can be made of flimsier, less supportive fabric.  I realize that a little piece of lace can’t hold up a C, D or even E (which is me) cup like lycra or spandex can.  But really, big boob bras are just damn ugly.

What I am wondering is, do the manufacturers of bras think they are somehow evening the score by making big boob bras so ugly?  They figure that, “hey, these gals have the big boob asset, so let’s give the little boob girls something to compete with.  We will make them a pretty see-through lace number, and will stick the big boobs into a large white sling with wide straps and twice as many hooks in the back.”

It’s just not fair, and maybe even discriminatory.  As a big-boobed gal, I have just as much right to flattering lingerie as the little gals.  So please, they can put a man on the moon, can they please put a pretty bra on these big boobs?

As for my nest, sure it’s a little lonelier, quieter, and cleaner.  And sure it’s a little sad to push my chick out, but watching her soar is, in the words of Martha Stewart, “a good thing.”