Day Two

Last night I knocked on the front door of my neighbor's house.  They're lifelong CA residents and are very calm about CA tragedies.  When I was in OH I never worried about tornadoes - I had been through a few of them, I knew what to do, and I understood that the likelihood of direct personal tragedy was pretty low.  I was reassured and felt better after hanging out with them for 15 minutes - so reassured, in fact, that I made my somewhat more skittish wife head on over for a reassurance session as well.  As night fell and the sky darkened things seemed more ominous.  The parade of helicopters has been relentless.  One chopper kept making low passes over our house in a continuous loop that took it to the east, downwind.  I don't know why it made this circuit but it was easy to imagine that the fires had kicked up and were being blown in our direction.

I sleep like a rock.  I'm not sure I would wake up if someone was pounding on my front door.  I'm really counting on SuperK to save me.

Made it through night two OK.  I woke up a few times, once with a wet T-shirt - there was obviously a lot of internal stress going on that was determined to make its presence felt.  You gotta go through what you gotta go through - acting cool when you're soaked with nervous perspiration is not going to fool anyone.  Each time I woke up I crept over to the window and peeked out the blinds, tensing against red glows or tendrils of black smoke, each time relieved to see neither.  When I looked to the west, where the fires were still raging, I could see the evil brightness and knew some shit was still going down.

I woke up this morning and laid in bed for a half hour.  Listening.  Sensing.  Looking.  Everything seemed calm and indeed it was.  I got out today and went for a swim at the club and to the grocery store afterwards.  It was good to be around people.  There were some conversations about The Troubles but not as much as you would think - I guess people were trying to maintain some normalcy in their lives.  I talked to people who were in the middle of the shit and some who were miles away, happy for the equanimity.  The market was crowded but not excessively slow.  Everyone was patient.  The store sent a young woman around, handing out cookies, a nice touch.

I confess to some guilt.  I confess to thinking: "Flames, go elsewhere and leave me safe.  Burn up someone else."  I know this is probably normal.  I have said prayers for those affected, heartfelt prayers, but I still don't want to get burned up.

I think we've got a little more spine after making it through what we've made through so far.  That first night we were out of it.  No electricity, no way to recharge discharged electronics and no internet anyway.  We just went to bed.  We have a travel charger which you can use to recharge phones or electronic readers on the fly - say if you're on a plane and run down your battery.  The first night SuperK plugged in her fucking Kindle instead of her phone.  The next morning, desperate for information, we had a discharged phone but a fully charged reader.

Night three is approaching and the winds are supposed to begin howling again.  We had a calm day in that department which hopefully gave the fire people a break in putting out the flames.  When the wind is blowing with purpose it's hard to stop the embers from traveling.  The sunset is incredible.  All of the material in the air is making for a red, red sun.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.  Sometimes it kills you, though.  That's what you gotta watch out for.