Envy and Pride

I spent this last week far from home in La Jolla, CA.  It was picturesque, tranquil, and completely what I expect from California.  Even though I was in the desert, generally speaking, Californians have it so easy with the food chain and all.  They have the best weather, the best views, the best land in which to grow and raise just about every kind of food that you could ever want.  They have great wine and great cheese.  They provide more produce for the rest of the country than any other state.  And then, they have beaches, mountain, desert, snow, sun, rain, and movie stars.  I can only think of the joke I read in a novel about how France (insert California here) is blessed with all the same great things - great weather, bountiful food, delicious wine and cheese, etc.  So the rest of the countries of the world complained to God that it was totally unfair that France was blessed with all these things and many of the other countries received none of these blessings.  So, being a fair deity, God saw this as a reasonable complaint and evened everything out by creating the French people.  I am not knocking the French people, by the way.  But I can't even say that God has evened things out with Californians; pretty much everyone I know from this state is a pretty cool person with no more than the average amount of quirks embedded in the rest of the country's general population.  Perhaps it is the earthquakes and the cost of owning property that evens things out.
But, anyway, I got back home on Friday morning to a gloriously humid and sunny day.  I felt like I was having hot flashes and the back of my neck got sweaty as soon as I walked out of the airport.  But uncomfortable as I temporarily was, it was good to be home - sweet home Alabama.  Later that day, I was thinking about all the good food that I ate and tasty wine that I drank.  It would be nice if I lived somewhere that I could get almost everything that I want to consume within my home state.  Alabama is not exactly quite there yet.  But I am proud of the foods that we do produce.  We have fantastic goat cheese produced in Alabama, delicious strawberries and sweet potatoes.  And I can't wait for the peaches!!  The local summer farmers' market season has begun.  In a few weeks to months, my garden will be, hopefully, overflowing with zucchini, beans, corn, and all sorts of other yummy goodies.  I am psyched!  So while California this ain't, I am so proud of the efforts put forth by the hard working people of Alabama, and my family, to produce bounty for our tables.  Cheers to all!