Visual Evidence

I did not take this picture, but I assure you what you see really happened. I saw this from the freeway as we were traveling north to get to Rosie's. Yeah, that's the fire - not an atomic bomb going off over where I live. Thank God for adrenaline, because it's amazing I kept driving and didn't pull off to the side of the freeway to lose my damn mind.

I called in sick to work today. I figured I earned it. I also wanted a chance to assess the damage. Driving around today, I have got to say that the state of California has the best firefighters in the world! I was amazed at how many homes were saved. Like nothing ever happened. I'm at a loss for words, truly. Yes, the damage is awful. Yes, we have neighbors who lost everything. But man, it could have been worse. Lordy, could it have been worse. There are a lot of people, me and My Man included, who ended up just being "inconvenienced" by the ordeal. Really makes you take stock of things - that's all I'm saying.

I had to run out to the laundromat today to wash our king-size comforter, so I was able to snap a few pictures of my own. Instead of loading a bunch of them directly on the blog (and having dial-up people hate me), I decided it would be easier to throw them on a Flickr account. You can see my pictures here. The burnt out buildings? They're part of my apartment complex and the only units that were touched by the fire.

Be It Ever So Humble

Another post that will look like a mess - but that will be full of good news.

We're home. And everything is fine. It's just as we left it, only now we have a lovely hickory flavor. Honestly though, the smoke isn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. We've got the air purifier running on high, so hopefully that will put a dent in it.

I don't mind telling you, it's eerie. Driving through the front gates of our apartment complex, it all looked so normal. We still have trees. There's hardly even any ash on our patio. Although I'm sure I'll be singing a different tune at first light. We drove home after dark, so couldn't see any of the surrounding area, which I imagine resembles a war zone. Word is that two buildings on the edge of our complex were completely destroyed.

I want to thank everyone for being so concerned about us, but I do want to single out Rosie and her hubby, GG, for taking us in this weekend. Everyone should have at least one awesome friend in their lives like Rosie. I don't know what we would have done this weekend without them. Well, yeah I do. We would have been alone in a hotel room somewhere slowly becoming unhinged.

Also, mad props to Lori - who was Little Miss Internet Diva. She found news about our apartment complex, and called to tell us the evacuation order had been lifted. Because of her we'll be sleeping in our own bed tonight, hell we know now we still have our bed!, and Rosie and GG have gotten their house back. Big sloppy kisses to you girlfriend!

Now to wade through my e-mail, and thank the Lord above for our good fortune.

Fire

This blog post is going to be a mess, but I wanted to shoot out an update. As many of you know I live in Southern California. Today, the wild fires showed up knocking on my front door. Literally. I had already canceled on the planned So. Cal. Blogger meet-up and in my fretting state, I had the sense to gather up our personal papers. I did not have time to pack clothes. The Boyfriend and I evacuated our apartment around noon today with our personal papers, the clothes on our back, some T-shirts and undies in a garbage bag, the CPU tower to our desktop and our laptop.

I also saved the two library books I checked out Thursday. That should please my boss, and Kristie J since one of them was Broken Wing by Judith James.

So I ended up at the So. Cal. Blogger meet up after all. My Man and I are currently staying at Rosie's. Bless her soul, I owe her BIG TIME! In the morning we'll reassess. As of this typing? All we know is what we've seen on the news, and it doesn't look good. Longtime blog readers - remember our old apartment that went condo? Yeah, in flames. Another complex a couple miles away? Heavy loses. Given that we're in the same neighborhood. Not good. I'm praying we only get smoke damage, but at this point it's very likely we've lost everything.

Everything.

I'm not a religious person. I believe in a higher power and strive to be a decent human being - and that's always seemed to work for me in the past. Right now, I'm praying to every deity I know of and then some.

My Man has been a rock. From helping the little old lady whose key was stuck in her car lock, to calming down my hysterics, to not cracking under pressure. He's tired now. And worried. Hell, he should be. We might be looking for a new place to live tomorrow.

But the important thing is we're safe. We love each other. The rest of that shit is just stuff. We can always buy more stuff.