By Jodi Rae Ingstad 

Women like me, just like women like you enjoy a good compliment once in a while.  The honest fact is  that we enjoy a good compliment as often as you'll give them to us and especially after we've hit the plateau of middle age. The young and perky girls are always complimented on being cute, spunky and energetic.  Elderly women are complimented on being regal and wise. That leaves us middle-aged women somewhere in the middle just as the adjective implies. It's no wonder then that when someone issued the following statement I took great pride in their words.  "Jodi Rae, you have a magnetic personality."
Prior to hearing that compliment things were going along just fine. I'm typing to you from Utopia. You can find Utopia on any map of the United States. Utopia is better and more commonly referred to as Palm Springs, Calif.  I'm here with that husband of mine and my regal and wise mother-in-law. The asthetic gift of this land surrounding me  confuses me into thinking I may be in the Garden of Eden but that is so Old Testament! They call it Palm Springs for a reason.  Large and stately palm trees are as common here as wheat, corn and pheasants are in North Dakota. The trees tower over any building in her neighborhood.
You may remember we were in Palm Springs last year.  At the same time a family member had a medical emergency.  Last year we found ourselves in the ER of a local Palm Springs hospital listening to confidential information on the other patients in the ER unit. It was then that a 4.2 earthquake struck. I couldn't wait to leave California last year fearing "The Big One" might induce plate tectonics forcing us to float back home to North Dakota.
Magnetism.  One definition states that magnetism is, "One of the phenomena by which materials exert attractive or repulsive forces on other materials. That person complimented me on having a magnetic personality and so it is no wonder I attracted repulsive forces.
It all began the other evening while looking out the 2nd floor window of my mother-in-law's condo. At first I thought of the movie, "The Ten Commandments."  I was remembering the scene where Moses climbed up to the top of the mountain and witnessed the burning bush.  I looked up onto the San Jacinto mountain that is in clear view from her living room window to witness a massive wild fire burning. As of today it is zero percent contained and has burned 700 acres.  It glows a fright inducing orange. This beautiful mountain filled with the brush of the desert by day but glowing with the heat of Hades at night made me fall to my knees in prayer. But I only prayed for all of the people I know and love not to go to such a firey furnace when they die.
I shouldn't have stopped my prayers there.   "You have a magnetic personality," rang out in my mind just as the winds picked up to gusts of 53 mph. The entire Cochella Valley of California is under this wind advisory.  This is nothing us corn-fed, milk-drink'in, truck-driv'in prairie people are not accustomed to. However, a wind advisory in the desert is a whole different ball game.  Sand blasts your skin and your hair and your eyes.  The palm trees that hang calm most days sway like a ship on an angry ocean.  Mind you, a wildfire is creeping down the mountain directly in front of our condo. It can't get any worse.
With the wind howling and the fire burning we decide to invite a close family friend out to dinner with us. I call him, "Uncle Dwight" though he's very English and I'm predominantly Norwegian by choice.  We share no genetics whatsoever.  He's just a charming, intellectual 89-year-old fella who makes his residence in the same condo complex as my mother-in-law. We enjoyed one of those meals at an old time Palm Springs fixture called, "Billy Reeds." We ate the kind of food that finds you moaning in delight even after you've finished your supper.  Life couldn't have gotten any better after that meatloaf I'd just devoured. But it did. We all
returned home to an amber lit living room of conversation.
Suddenly my magnetic personality became harshly apparent to even myself! While involved in a group conversation something felt a little off to me. I heard something in the ceiling make a noise. Then suddenly I thought I ate some bad meatloaf.  I began swaying and then a fast, hard jolt flung all of us to the left. We were having an earthquake.  It struck at 8:55 p.m. and measured 4.2 on the richter scale.
Seems to me like whenever I come to California the earth quakes. I'm considering vacationing in Michigan next year.  I'll bring along my own blow up palm tree for ambiance and hope my magnetism repels all danger instead of attracting it. Would someone please compliment me on something other than my magnetic personality so I won't have to live this fate a lifetime? Earthquakes, fires and wind storms can really play a number on a blonde from a prairie vacationing in the desert. And that's all I'm gonna say about that! Happy Trails.