The trouble with making plans is that things don’t always go as planned, which is neither inherently good nor bad. A well planned weekend gone awry can open the way to serendipity. To say the weather ruined my whole weekend would be to miss the point entirely.
Of course, it did rain on my parade. Big time.
My weekend was planned around spring gardens and was to start with a walk and talk on native grasses at Soka University. When rain was forecast for Friday, I started calling to see which events would be canceled. Soka’s voice mail message didn’t address the possibility of rain, but Saturday’s Malibu Garden Club Tour was a go, rain or shine, I was assured. My place was reserved along with a permit to photograph.
Friday morning is so beautiful and sunny I can’t bear to leave my own garden, so I scratch the Soka walkabout. I have acres of natural grasses here anyway.
When it starts to cloud up around noon, I pack up and drive down the hill. I visit the Times office, go to the library and run assorted errands, then meet my friend for dinner at Allegria.
Part of the plan was still intact. By the time we leave Allegria, it’s raining for real. We start over Malibu Canyon Road and are passed by fire trucks and black and whites with sirens and lights whirling. We see ahead a long line of stalled traffic just in time to hang a U. Back we go down PCH and over Topanga to Woodland Hills, where we were to stay with my friend’s family.
Saturday morning dawns brightly in the Valley, soggily in Malibu. Oh, well, if you tour gardens in England, you plan on rain. Rain is what makes their gardens so lush.
Now, my usual plan for Saturday mornings is to listen to my favorite news quiz, “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” on Valley Public Radio, my local NPR station. I once called KCRW and KUSC to see if they carried the show. They didn’t. My friend looked on the Internet and found KPCC, 89.3, carries it at 11 a.m. I figure I’ll check in and get my map for the Garden Tour then listen to “Wait, Wait” in the car.
The sun is now breaking through. My plan is back on track, and, Bam! I’m told the tour is canceled, not because anyone feared a soaking, but because it was considered unsafe to tramp up and down slippery stairs in some of the gardens. Ingrid gives me the map and photo permit anyway, with her apologies. The Plan, for the day and this column, is now thoroughly dashed.
Back in the car, I turn on KPCC to discover it’s Pledge Week, and although it’s 11 a.m. sharp, I am hearing “Car Talk,” which should, by now, have given way to “Wait, Wait.” Only a latte and an almond croissant from Champaign Bakery can save this morning, but I keep listening on the way. Click and Clack, the “Car Talk” guys with the Baawston accents, are providing hilarity between pitches for pledges.
I pick up my cell phone. It gives me the dead-battery beep. I pull into Bluffs Park, pump 50 cents into the pay phone and ask the pledge taker what happened to “Wait, Wait.” He has no clue. He never heard of it. Ask someone, I say, with a slight edge. He asks several someones before being told that in honor of Pledge Week, “Car Talk” has been given two hours and “Wait, Wait” will follow at noon. I tell him I’ll wait to see if that goes according to plan before I decide to make a pledge. He thinks he has a nut case on the line but maintains his cool.
My brain is still in garden mode, so I drive around gawking at front yards, not seeing much worth photographing. By the time “Wait, Wait” comes on, I’m halfway across Malibu Canyon, croissant and latte in tow. Things are looking up. I call KPCC back and make a pledge. Then I stop at the AT&T store and buy a charger for the Nokia. As I start the engine and plug the charger into the lighter socket, I notice I’m almost out of gas. I’d planned to buy gas at Lebec, where it is $1.69. Oops. I now must pay $2.09 at Castaic.
My urge, my need, to photograph lovely gardens on this day, still unmet, I take the Gorman exit off I-5 and follow the Gorman Post Road back along the south facing slopes of Tejon Ranch where a profusion of wildflowers splashes the landscape. Others are taking pictures. So do I.
With no plan whatsoever, the confluence of late rains and sunny mornings in April have produced pointillistic drifts of pink, purple, blue, yellow, orange and white. Acres and acres of flowers amid broad waves of tall grasses bending to the wind. No mortal gardener, however gifted, could have designed this.
My equilibrium restored, I vow to remember that plans are like sketches, meant to jog the artist’s memory, not etched in stone. They’re supposed to be flexible, drawn in pencil so they may be expanded, amended, sometimes erased entirely, to make way for serendipity.