I’m currently sitting on the couch (covered with tarp and quilt to protect from random cat pee-age), watching RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD and trying to shut my brain off. All day I’ve been following the fires in San Diego (my home town) and Los Angeles (home for 10 years after leaving the nest) and finally decided to take a break. I’ve called everyone I can think of who might be in danger, found out they’re either okay or have safely evacuated, have looked at the updates and maps several dozen times, and still can’t believe it’s really happening. The fires in ’03 were horrible, but these are nearly biblical in proportion. It makes ever petty annoyance or stress I’ve had the last few weeks seem trivial.
Heh. I had to write about this myself. Biblical indeed…
Hey, check the lnk you have for Zhadis’ den – it takes you to a weird page as opposed to your main blog page
Is your cat on the ceiling?
OL, we’re still working on the glitches and fine tuning the website, so thanks for bringing that to my attention!
Nessa, the cats are stealth pee-ers, but luckily not ceiling climbers. That would be…kinda horrific. “Look, it’s raining pee!” *shudder*…
Stealth pee-ers? Thats disturbing. At least my cats have the decency to try and sneak off into a corner if they’re gonna try and go somewhere they shouldn’t. I really don’t know what I’d do if they were so brazen as to take that whizz on the blanket I was using while I was watching a dvd.
Can’t really say anything nice with regards to the fires. “Good start” comes to mind (with regards to the L.A area) or “Glad I’m not out there anymore.” But thats not nice. Since I don’t have friends or family out there its easy to indulge in the “bitter curmudgeon” reactions to the disaster. 🙂
My cats are brazen. And I think Raven only peed on me when I was watching TV ’cause she was still too young to hold it and was more or less dozing and purring at the time.
Um…in regards to not saying anything nice about the fires, probably better not to say anything other than ‘I hope your family is okay.’ Most of the people being harmed, even in L.A., aren’t rolling in dough. Some of the houses that have burned are in the richer areas, but Malibu? A lot of old time residents that bought in before it was popular, a lot of animal rescue places and wild animals. It’s hard to take the bitter curmudgeon reaction when this hits so close to home. THat being said, I know you didn’t mean anything by it!
I am relieved and grateful to report that I only personally know one family who lost their home. Of course, there are others in the friend-of-a-friend category, and even those hit a little too close to home. We didn’t have to evacuate in 2003, but did this time. I’m glad to be home.
Yikes!! I thought certainly your area would be a safe one. Kinda like Venice beach when compared to the malibu fires.
But then what do I really know.
Glad everyone is well.
Yeah, Peggy, I’m so glad to hear that everything’s okay with you!
Hi Dana,
Somehow I seem to have lost your e-mail address again, but I found your blog!
I was also sitting around glued to the fire coverage at around the same time you were. My whole family was evacuated, but luckily no one’s house burned down. I do have a friend from my writing critique group whose daughter had Ms. Fox as a teacher in 6th grade, though. Ms. Fox and her husband did not make it out of their house in Poway although they had talked to friends & said they were evacuating–very sad.
Speaking of cat pee, I’ve been very lucky that our cats have so far decided to stick to the litter box. Maybe because they get to go outside and run around quite a bit. I don’t know how to get the two fat kitties to stop eating so much, though. We try to give them only a certain amount of diet cat food each day, but I’m afraid the two fat kitties are eating most of it & our poor skinny black kitty is letting them have it all!
I hope everything’s going well with you! Send me an e-mail if you get a chance! Take care,
Kathy