6 posts tagged “fire”
Okay...I'm gonna do it. I am going to post at least once every day in December. That's 31 days. Thirty-one holiday season days. Am I crazy?!
Well...yeah. I probably am. But that's beside the point. The point is, I really enjoyed making the attempt at posting every day in November (from the 4th, anyway), but since I didn't manage to do it successfully for even 20 days, I just HAVE to try again. And I have to succeed. This is life or death, people.
Did I mention this is also the month of exaggeration? :-D
Right. Anyway, the suggested theme from NaBloPoMo is THANKS. (In all caps, too.) I think rather than post specifically about stuff I'm thankful for every single day, I'm gonna try to use the word "thanks" (not "thank" or "thankful" or any other variation, but "thanks") at least once in each post. Maybe I'll even get creative...or sneaky...or totally unimaginative, boring and predictable. You'll never know unless you stick around and read every day.
Well, last night I finally got to move back into my house. After the fire in my neighborhood two and a half weeks ago, we had to evacuate, and even though our house was only slightly damaged, it took that long to get repairs done, get the place de-smoke-smell-ified, and back in shape to be lived in again. I think Saturday they did some kind of sealant in the attic, or something? The house still isn't totally back to normal, though, because there are two rooms without carpet, and whatever chemical/process they used to get the smoke out put a whole different (weird) smell in its place. But I can't even tell you how great it was to sleep in my own bed last night. I mean, I was totally, completely, unbelievably blessed to have a place to stay during the time I was displaced, and it was perfect because the family was great, they lived close to my work, and they let me do my own thing and even gave me a key so I wouldn't have to coordinate with their being home in order to get inside. And Joe, of course, took excellent care of me, too. AND...my housemate (who is the homeowner) arranged all the repairs and stuff so wonderfully, and was even able to get a company to come in and take ALL of our clothes and bedding to be professionally cleaned to remove any smoke smell.
The only bummer, then, was realizing that "clothes and bedding" really meant "everything in your entire freaking room" -- so, when I walked into my room yesterday after a wonderful, relaxing weekend in LA with Joe's family, I was greeted by like 12 HUUUUUGE boxes. I mean, I couldn't really even walk INTO my room. The door wouldn't even open all the way. The boxes had taken over every corner of the place...and my first thought was, "How in the heck do I possibly have this much STUFF?" So, I just started digging into the boxes. Most of them were mini-wardrobes, meaning they had a rod across the top so that they could hang my clean clothes up. Once I got all that stuff taken out, boxes flattened, and clothes hung up or folded (all my pants, shorts, and even bathing suits were hung on hangers, too, so I had to take that all apart and put them in my dresser), my room looked a little bit more like a bedroom. But let me sum this up by saying that I spent about five straight hours last night unpacking and organizing stuff, and I'm still nowhere near having my room back in shape. But I am extremely thankful for all the hard work that has been done to get our house restored, and I was glad to finally see one of my two housemates again, and I'll be glad to see the other today, too!
So, thanks to my housemate Sarah, her amazing insurance/fire relief/restoration people, Connie (the lady who let me stay with her), Joe, and everyone else who made these last two and a half weeks more than comfortable for me as I floated around homelessly for awhile...I am seriously blessed!
Anyway, gotta sign off for now. I'll leave you with a haiku.
Haven't you seen Charlie Brown?
I love that bald kid
First order of business is to give the LAST (hopefully) fire update EVER: it's 100% contained! Yay! As far as our house, they're coming in this week to do a bunch of cleaning and restoration, and we're hoping to be living there again sometime next week. Double yay! Side note...is it weird that I'm a little bummed that I probably won't get to see the burn hole/damage on our wall before it gets fixed up? Sounds like it's going to get a temporary fix today until they can fully restore the wall, so unless they don't do it until after 6 or so, I'm gonna walk in to an already-being-restored house, and I'll never have gotten to see it in its original post-fire state. Maybe Sarah has some pictures, though. *Sigh* Okay...I'm officially CLOSING this discussion forever. NEVER gonna talk about the Tea Fire again. Never. Ha. Yeah right. But hopefully there will be nothing new or crazy to report regarding the fire, and anything related to it will be either funny, encouraging, thoughtful or otherwise not devastating, worrisome or boring. That's the plan.
Second: Ho...lee...cow. I have not had a single second to breathe today! I started this post when I first got to work (since I was early) and now it's 4:15 and I'm forcing myself to take a five minute break. But I totally don't remember what the "Second" was going to be, waaaaay back when I started writing. So...okay then. How about another haiku...or two?
Work takes much focus
Sometimes, I possess little
Please don't tell my boss
I love Christmas-time
Especially gift shopping!
What's on your wish list?
What's your favorite thing to eat for Sunday breakfast/brunch?
I love breakfast ANY time of day. My all-time favorite place to go out for breakfast food is Danny's Kosher Pickle in Azusa, CA. BEST pancakes of my life. But since I don't live there anymore, now I will settle for IHOP or even Denny's...but my new second-favorite place is Domingo's Cafe in Goleta. Almost the best pancakes. But whatever Domingo's may lack in pancake awesomeness, it makes up for in the fact that I get to go there with Joe. :-)
P.S. Last I've heard on the fire in my neighborhood is that it's about 60% containment. And there's a list of properties lost, which totals about 150, twenty of which are in my immediate neighborhood. So far, praise the Lord, my house has not shown up on that list. I haven't been back to the Santa Barbara area yet since Thursday night, so tonight will be interesting...finding out how soon I can get back in and live there. What my street looks like with several houses obliterated. Smelling the destruction seeping from every corner of my home. I'm not really looking forward to going back to reality.
Okay, this is really getting ridiculous. I am being followed. By fire. Last night, Joe and I went swing dancing in Whittier, and came home to his parents' in the San Fernando Valley and there was a definite smoke smell in the air. This morning I woke up to news that there are like SIX separate fires in LA County today. Yorba Linda, Brea, Sylmar (right across the way from Joe's parents' backyard view), Corona... What is going on??
The fire in my neighborhood in Montecito is now 40% contained. I'm relieved to hear that they are making progress. But now all these new fires are making me feel just as vulnerable as ever. Honestly, is this Armageddon or something? I'm only half kidding.
My allergies are going crazy. Funny, because I can't take my allergy medicine until after I have my appointment this coming Wednesday to test for...allergies. Talk about timing.
I just...don't even know what else to write today. But hey, I'm still sticking to my post-a-day commitment. That's dedication, wouldn't you say? Or maybe it's just distraction.
Yeah. Talk about a reality check. Even when the fire was less than a mile from my house, as I was casually packing up some things "just in case," I didn't believe it would come close enough to really affect me, save for a little smoky smell and some ash, when it was all said and done. But when Joe, who loves me more than I think I'd ever realized until last night, darted into my room telling me to hurry the hell up and get what I needed because the fire was getting closer and the winds stronger, I started to get it. But I think I was so in shock at the idea that I was really in the middle of a serious threat to my home and, potentially even my life, that I still didn't think like a person in the middle of a disaster. I couldn't come up with any rational plan of action to find essential things I could grab and leave behind everything else that could be replaced. I just started grabbing things and throwing them in a backpack, a bag, a purse. I mean for Pete's sake, I brought my shampoo and conditioner, my laundry detergent (AND fabric softener sheets), but I didn't get my favorite, gigantic green blanket that I crocheted in less than two weeks' time. I didn't get the file of all the silly poetry I wrote in high school, or my keepsakes from my trips to Romania. I got my laptop, the pink slip to my car, my phone charger, most of my dirty clothes (which happened to be most of ALL my clothes), some jewelry, the seven-dollar Keds I bought at a thrift store last weekend...but I didn't get any of my favorite books, or my extra checks, or my seven seasons of Gilmore Girls. I mean, I guess what I left behind is still just stuff. And of course, when it comes down to getting out of my house to a place of safety, or risking that extra minute to save my Gilmore Girls addiction, I know I did the right thing. But if I could do it all over again...
And let's not even talk about the ridiculous week I had that led up to last night. On Monday, I was freezing. I wore three or four layers of clothes, plus a scarf and long socks. I complained all day about how cold it was. And yesterday, the weather was warm. The wind was strong. And the fire started. Then, all week I had been telling myself I needed to clean up my room. It was a disaster...I mean like it used to be back in high school, when I couldn't see a scrap of carpet. And I kept putting it off, and telling myself I could get to it on Friday morning before Joe and I would head out of town for the weekend. And then the fire started. And when that moment of reality hit, when Joe said so firmly that I had to decide between getting angry with him for yelling at me, or recognizing his serious concern for our safety, the first thing I thought was, This would be so much easier if I had cleaned my room earlier this week. And my second thought was, So much for doing my laundry BEFORE we left town. Because yesterday Joe and I got into a stupid argument over how he wanted me to take all my laundry to his parents' to do it there, so that we could have more time to relax at their place, whereas I wanted to stay home later on Friday morning, get my laundry done and room cleaned, and then we could go once I felt like my life was back in order.
It's amazing how quickly your eyes can be opened to the frivolity of the things you fight about with the people you love. How petty it was for me to be so obstinate about what I wanted to do, when just a couple of hours later, none of it would matter at all. My house was no longer safe. My lack of organization and clean laundry was no longer something worth fussing over...though now I think I'll make more of an effort to stay tidy, because the fact is now, has always been and ever will be, that you just can't prepare enough for these kinds of unexpected emergencies. And I know now that it would have been much easier to locate the most important things, had I been able to maneuver around more easily, and had things been in their designated places.
But anyway...I'm not writing this to reprimand myself for being habitually unprepared for hazardous circumstances. I'm writing because it's all I know how to do to keep myself from way overthinking this thing. Letting anxiety and fear dominate and turn me into a fearful wreck. I'm safe now. I know that I'm safe, but I don't ever want to take that for granted again. It's a tough mindset to acclimate myself to. Somehow I need to be more alert, but not paranoid. More rational, but not looking over my shoulder every second waiting for another disaster to strike.
And the good news is, at least as of this morning, my house is still standing. It could have been SO much worse...like it was for my neighbors across the street. Just a hundred feet away from my front door, another home DID burn to the ground. I can only pray that they were able to salvage their valuables and get out safely, too. And thank God for how very fortunate I have been, in spite of the utterly unfortunate event of last night, because I'm safe, I'm unhurt, and my house is very likely to still be one of the lucky ones that survives this awful fire.
No matter what transpires over the next couple of days as firefighters struggle to contain and defeat the Tea Fire...whether my house goes up in flames or not...I now know what it feels like to be a victim. I know the unsettling acknowledgement that my life may never be the same after one night of tragic destruction. I know that as much as I've tried to live fearlessly, I'd better start living more realistically. And I don't want to let another day go by that I'm not thankful for whatever degree of safety and provision I am blessed with. I'm not immune to catastrophe. But I am alive. And in every circumstance...even when my house is in the middle of a major fire, I am protected by God's arms of strength and mercy. Tangible possessions aside, even my own physical LIFE aside, I know that whatever may happen, He's got me in his grip. And after last night's scary reality check, that is something I am really holding onto more now than ever.
My neighborhood and a large surrounding area have been evacuated because of a huge fire in Santa Barbara. It's within maybe an eighth of a mile of my house, if not closer by now. I don't even know how to begin to process this. All I keep thinking about is arguing with Joe today about how I wanted to do my laundry at my house before we went to his parents' for the weekend, instead of taking my laundry there to do it. And then I think about how I have kept meaning to clean my room for the last week or two, and it remained a total disaster. And how when we went to my house to get some things, my first thought was: thank God this isn't really happening, because my room is a wreck and you can't find your left hand in this pigsty. And then my second thought, when Joe busted in, all panicked, saying he had seen a live ember and the wind was picking up in the exact WRONG direction, was, "Crap. This is really happening." And I started grabbing at anything I could get my hands on. I probably left my million-dollar lotto ticket right next to my freaking cell phone.
So...if you stumble across this, my NaBloPoMo post for Day 10, please pray. Not so much for me or for my stuff or anything, but for the people in my neighborhood, their families, pets, memories...pray that the fire will be contained before too much gets destroyed. Pray for the wind to subside and the firefighters to succeed miraculously fast at containing and killing this monstrous fire. Pray for my selfish heart, and that if my house does get burned, I will be thankful for what I salvaged, and be able to move on, and not live in fear of losing everything in the blink of an eye. I am really, really scared. And I don't even know how to show it.
