Inferno!

I borrowed these images from the Times, just to show how scary it looked on TV! I'm so lucky to have been far away from these fires, but even so, we've been ringed with them and subjected to smoke and ash - and continual TV coverage - since they began last week. I woke up on Saturday, November 15th, with the whole house smelling like smoke. I had to close windows and run the fans inside throughout the weekend, because I was having trouble breathing.

When I ran around doing errands on Saturday, I could see this giant cloud to the south-east of Whittier. It just hung there in the sky looking ominous and scary. We've had a lot of wind recently and you could smell the burned wood in the air.


When I awoke on Sunday the smell and air quality was even worse. When I got to church I felt like I couldn't breathe. One of the little girls I teach volunteered that she had a friend in Brea whose school had been burned down (I couldn't confirm if that was true). By the time I left church, it looked like snow had been falling in the parking lot - the cars were covered in a fine grey ash and speckles of black soot. This was only after a few hours being parked outside!

I spoke to my friend Roxie, who lives in Walnut/Diamond Bar area, close to the fire. She said it was the closest they'd ever been to flames in all the years they'd lived there. They had packed the car ready to evacuate, if need be, but thankfully that never happened. However, she added that the air quality was worse in Whittier on Friday night, as that's where the wind was blowing all the ash and particulates in the air. Of course! I just love living in 'shake 'n bake' country. (said with sarcasm) If I could figure out somewhere to live without winter snow/ice, tornadoes, hurricanes, typhoons, tsunamis, extreme summer heat, or floods, I'd move in a flash.

So, I'll have you know I made a big emergency preparedness purchase this past week: a whistle! It's a nickel plated Acme thunderer, the whistle preferred by Italian traffic police (I'm not making this up!). Now there'll be no problem in locating my broken body when the BIG ONE hits and whatever building I'm in collapses on me. They say we're overdue for a BIG quake, that 7.8 on the San Andreas fault. I've seen the simulations on ShakeOut.org and it ain't pretty, folks. I'd rather not be here to see/feel/experience it! Yikes.

On a happier note, we have a new squirrel with a huge, fluffy tail in the neighborhood. I used to see them on my way to work down on Broadway all the time, running on the telephone lines across the road from tree to tree. They were so beautiful. Now, it appears they've moved into UpTown where I live!

My cat is on the lookout for this little guy. She isn't happy with him. I've always liked squirrels, since my initial introduction to them as a child. I met a fabulous one in the King's Park in Oslo when I was about four. That one would play 'hide and seek' with me around the tree where it lived and was very tame. I've tried to explain the concept of peaceful squirrel co-existence to Emily, but so far she's not buying into that argument. She prefers to pursue a more agressive house protection policy which includes lots of howling and growling if said squirrel or neighborhood cats come snooping around.