august will be the last month of the sky is big in pasadena.
i have accepted a position at salford mennonite church in harleysville, pennsylvania. we will be moving in september, so august will be my farewell month to the city of pasadena. when we moved here from virginia i posted a list of the ten things i would miss most about harrisonburg. i figured that would be a good way to end our time here, so each day i will be doing one final rundown of life in this great city. i have prepared two lists - ten things i won't be sad to leave behind, and twenty of my absolute favorite things about pasadena. i am going to start with ten positives and ten negatives, alternating back and forth each day. concluding with my top ten things about life in pasadena.
#2 negative - smog
while it might make for a beautiful skyline, the pollution hanging in the air above pasadena is really pretty terrible. i hear it is much better than it was even a few decades ago - and all i have to say to that is i am surprised people were willing to live in that. when we moved here four years ago i had very mild seasonal allergies (almost none in fact). after a year of living here i had to take off the shelf allergy medication to make it through certain seasons. by the end of the second year i was taking those pills almost every day. by year three i finally got a prescription product, and now in year four i can already feel that starting to lose its effect.
simply put, there is just a lot of garbage in our air here. this article ranks los angeles county as the second worst place to live in the usa based on air quality (second to bakersfield, ca... wow). needless to say, we won't miss this - especially as parents of a young child. it is time to get her some cleaner air.
12 comments:
That's a fantastic, albeit, disturbing, picture.
I have been enjoying your series on the pros and cons here. We're in the process of trying to move - it may not happen - at least for quite awhile as we need to find jobs in our desired places to move. I find that so far I agree with every single one of your negatives and positives. I will miss many things about Pasadena if we eventually leave, but certainly not the smog - I really hate the thought of what it is doing to my children's lungs.
I certainly figured this would be one of the top two. I respect all of your points, but to be completely honest, I would rather have smog than traffic. Because the smog is much better than when I was a kid (quite a few times my junior high baseball and football games were cancelled due to horrible air quality) but the traffic keeps getting worse.
The truth is, I guess you can't have one without the other!
I would have put traffic above smog too and it would have been my #1 irritation. But you do make a good point Ben. Guess I'm trying to figure out your #1. Will it be a situation, condition or maybe something political
Lets see if it's what I think you'll say
I think all three apply to my #1. :)
ok, now I'm stumped
Wow! It is incredibly smoggy. I'm sure you're going to find a lot of good about Pasadena that you're going to miss.
I'm convinced we won't realize most of what we miss until we are already gone. Thanks for stopping by!
Smog is just one of the things that disturbs me about Southern California.
SKY SO HIGH
Sky so high,
Sky so blue,
Tell me why
I love you.
© 2011 by Magical Mystical Teacher
Sunsets here and here
Appropriate farewell shot of Pasadena! Good luck with the new chapter of your life!
Happy travels! You won't have as much smog in Pennsylvania, I'm sure! New England is beautiful. (But then, so is California...it's just a different beauty).
Thanks Gale! I'm pretty sure PA is not in New England, but it still is a pretty place with less smog.
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