Big Damn Heroes

The fire still rages, but somewhat to the north and east of us, and also to the west. It is over a hundred thousand acres burned by now and they are anticipating it will take until September 15th to contain fully. Two firefighters have been killed and more injured. One of the firefighters who died was due to be a father within weeks, his first child, who will grow up never knowing him. Structures have burned, people have lost their livelihoods, homes and everything they own. Woodland creatures have died. Our hills look like a lunar landscape and when the rains come (it is supposed to be an el Nino year) they will slide. There are still homes at risk of burning, still livelihoods and lives at risk of being lost and more woodland creatures dying. There are more hills that will burn and slide into our homes and communities, come the winter rains.

And? It was arson.

I’m just baffled, really. Baffled, sad and angry. Why would someone do this on purpose?

The men and women on the fire lines and working in our communities, in shelters and keeping people safe and alive are Big Damn Heroes. Every last one. Bless ‘em. The LA Times has done a great job of documenting their heroism and keeping us informed, so have local blogs. Unfortunately local network news organizations are more interested in covering Michael Jackson’s (second) funeral instead of keeping the public informed about wildfires in our backyards.

While we’re on the subject of cultural icons, in other, maybe slightly happier news? Maybe, just maybe Harvey Milk will be getting his own special day. We’ll see if Ahnold vetoes it again or if the cranio-rectal inversion has been cured. Here’s hoping. If MJ can cost the city of Los Angeles over 3 million dollars in funeral related expenses and people are sort of… fine with that… then I think Harvey should get his own day. It won’t cost a dime.

Anyway. I digress. What I wanted to say when I started this post is, thanks, firefighters. The world is a better place because you are in it. I wish someone hadn’t gone and started a fire that put you all at risk.

I’ve been sitting, waiting, wishing…

Another day, much like the last two. Just sitting at home, monitoring various news sources, walking outside to cast worried glances up at the ridge, and waiting to see what the fire will do.

taken about 12pm from our corner.

We are currently under “voluntary evacuation” and so, of course, we are staying put. We do plan to leave if they make it mandatory, no stupid heroics here. We have packed cats twice now, thinking we were about to be told to leave, the latest happening late yesterday afternoon, when they blocked off our street and were only allowing people to walk in. They removed the blocks and went away a little later, so we uncrated the cats again. Mittens has now taken refuge under the wok in the kitchen cupboard, and will only come out for tuna or diced sauteed shrimp. Then he runs back into his wok cave. Tiki hid under my bed all night.

another view of the ridge, slightly to the left.

Last night the canyon up the road exploded in flames as the fire hit some brush or trees, and there were immense glowing red clouds and flames shooting tens of tens of feet into the air. We sat and watched it, horrified but also in awe of how terribly, destructively beautiful it was. Wish I’d gotten pictures but didn’t have my camera and wasn’t about to go get it. There was talk of extending the mandatory evacuation area down to about two blocks above our place, but the fire died down and they did not. This morning it appears that there is one ridge left standing between the fire and various populated areas of Altadena. The fire came within 50 yards of homes in La Crescenta/La Canada Flintridge last night, and the firemen leapt into action! The homes were heroically saved. The firemen are valiant and amazing, working in weather that has exceeded 100 degrees for days in a row, without ceasing. We are so grateful to them! One of the problems they are encountering is that they can not get into the brush and dense mountainous areas so must wait for fire to burn down to them. They are so good at their jobs. We are taking cupcakes to our local FD and to the county FD by way of a thank you when this is all over.

Water drop on the ridge, shot from my corner.

Today we are cleaning the house and waiting to see what happens. We are not out of the woods yet, but we are not in any imminent or real physical danger at all right now. LAFD will evacuate well in advance of the fire and we are packed and ready to go at a moment’s notice. The cats are the only issue that might slow us down, but we have scouted out all feline hiding places and are secure in the belief that we can catch and crate everyone very quickly.

not our house. Someone else’s. Imagine they are worried re: the view.

This map is being updated frequently with evacuations, and the progress of the fire. The fire has just exploded over the last two days, quadrupling in size. I am very worried about people in the towns of Ravenna and Acton, as well as the folks here in the Foothill communities that are adjacent to us. Mt. Wilson is another problematic area, because the communications array up there is a major hub for most of Southern CA. If that goes down, we’re kind of fucked.

helicopter and the ridge

Need more info? If you Twitter, then @CalFireNews is good to follow for updates. So is @lafd. The LA Times has good coverage. The City of La Canada Flintridge is posting hourly updates on their city website, though they are .pdf files, and will d/l onto your computer if you click them. Altadenablog.com is a community based resource that is doing a fantastic job of compiling reports, including first hand accounts from residents. Inciweb is another good one.

spiderweb in the front yard. I imagine Ms. Spider is not thrilled about the ashes in her living room.

Do you want to help? I’m sure the Red Cross could use some donations. I know for sure that the Pasadena Humane Society has put out the call for donations, because they are caring for a LOT of displaced animals right now. If we get evacuated, we have a safe place to take our 6 cats and 1 dog, but not everyone is so lucky. They could use some help.

Lastly… time lapse video of the smoke plume from the fire… breathtaking…

It isn’t all just Mount Doom over here

though last night, watching the fire race down the hillside, it did look a little Tolkeinesque… forgive the blurry picture quality, I have no tripod, my camera has no depth of field and the person whose shoulder I was using to shoot the pictures was attached to a VERY nervous little dog.

So, that was fun. Not actually. I didn’t fall asleep easily last night, with the mental image of all that fresh in my brain. This morning when I awoke, there was a light dusting of ash on my car and smoke was obscuring the hills, laying like a thick fog over everything. The house reeks of campfire. We are hiding inside today with our a/c and some netflix, occasionally checking LA Co FD’s twitter feed for updates.

For a change, though, I actually have actual, quantifiable knitting progress to show off for once! WHOOOOO! I did a good whack of knitting while on vacation. First up, we have sock 1 of 2, I just need to graft the toe and we’re good to go. I cast on the second while we were at Julie and Julia, which I recommend highly as both a good knitting movie and just plain fun.

Gorgeous non? And also, there is some real progress being made on my Juno Regina. I am nearly done with colorway #2 of 4, which is exciting! You can’t really see the gradient quality of the colors in this pic, but when she’s done it will be very obvious. This is taking forever, just columns of st st and yarn overs. It is not the most scintillating knitting I’ve ever done, but the scarf will rock when finished. I am so in love with this yarn from the Unique Sheep, it’s got a great hand.

There’s also been a good bit of food porn going on around here. Earlier this week before the skies began raining ash and embers, #1 Girlie and I hied off to Eagle Rock in search of the elusive Kogi BBQ Truck. We actually saw the huge plume of smoke from the Morris Fire starting over Azusa, as we were driving home from Eagle Rock. If we only knew what the week would hold! The Kogi truck, for those as don’t know, is a taco truck that specializes in Korean bbq tacos. They actually have a fleet of trucks that park around the Southern Ca/LA area and you find out where the trucks will be by going to their Twitter feed or website. They sell some staples like short ribs, tofu, spicy pork and chicken, but they always have special flavors or treats. They do hot dogs and burritos too. Food trucks rock.

Kogi short rib Korean beef bbq taco, with cabbage and greens and some kind of pickled, tangy sauce.

They do ‘em up tofu style too, which makes #1 Girlie very happy as she is vegetarian.

Then off to Altadena and Lake, where Bulgarini Gelato nestles at the back of the Rite Aid lot, a little hidden gem in Altadena, where you can get the best ever gelato this side of Italy. I went with chocolate, but the milk with lime was tempting, as was the olive oil and yogurt. Just trust me. It was way better than it sounds…

We capped off the evening by viewing the moon from the parking lot, with all of Los Angeles and downtown spread out before us like jewels. The moon is the white squiggle up top, as opposed to the green squiggle which is a streetlight. Nice to remember the crystal clear summer evening at times like this when smoke is thick like fog and visibility is nonexistent.

Finally?

Disaster readiness, Crazy Cat Lady Style…

normally I love our mountain view…

But not so much today.

That’s the view of one edge of the Station Fire currently burning above La Canada, as seen from my next door neighbor’s front yard. A few more pics are up on my flickr.

We are eating iceberg wedges with blue cheese dressing for dinner. When stressed, the classics appeal.

You’d better believe my knitting is packed and ready to be loaded in the car.

Enough with Chris Brown, already.

You know, I’m kind of pissed off about the Chris Brown/Rihanna thing, but maybe not for the reasons you’d think.

When I was 5 months pregnant with my oldest, her bio dad (NOT the ex Mr. Honey and Ollie) got mad one night and slapped me around, then choked me almost into unconsciousness. He probably wouldn’t have stopped, but the person we were living with heard the altercation and called 911. It was not the first time. It was, sadly, not the last, but I take personal responsibility for that part.

I ended up in the hospital that night and they had to keep me for observation to make sure the baby was ok.

In the end, he received 3 months of “anger management” classes which ended up being little more than a bunch of agro jerks sitting around justifying their behavior to one another. He also got 6 months of probation. That’s IT. All. Everything. It was JUST a misdemeanor. Nobody cared.

When I was sitting in my house, after the assault, pregnant, bleeding, bruised and so terrified that I was going to lose the baby that I could not stop hyperventilating, one of the paramedics rolled his eyes and said, “This shit is a waste of our time.” meaning… me and what I’d just experienced.

“This shit.”

Me.

My baby.

Nice. Because that will encourage women to come forward and press charges against their abusers, right?

All the people who are bitching because Chris Brown “only” got 5 years of probation AND and 52 weeks of domestic violence classes AND public community service, who are saying that it isn’t ENOUGH? PUHlease. Reality time, kids. He received a very harsh sentence compared to what most abusers get. He got this sentence because the media picked up the case and people paid attention, because Rihanna is a pop star and everyone was horrified that it could happen to her “too.”

If he’d been an ordinary angry white man beating the shit out of his 20 year old pregnant girlfriend badly enough to hospitalize her? He’d have received a perfunctory fingershake from the judge. At best.

Ask me how I know.

If you want to get angry, get angry about what happens in DV cases when CNN isn’t following every development. Because that’s the crime. So yeah, I’m sick of Chris Brown and Rihanna. Where was CNN for the thousands of DV cases that have been in the courts since the Brown/Rihanna thing happened? Why aren’t we asking what all those guys received by way of punishment? Why isn’t that being beaten to death in the blogosphere? Whatever they got, I bet you Brown got worse. And that’s not fair.

Hold on, before you flame me, ok? When I say it isn’t fair, I am not defending Brown’s actions. I think it was reprehensible what he did, and I’m glad he is being held acountable. I think that his sentence was appropriate. I’m quite sure that some abusers do merit prison time. I’m simply not convinced it was necessary in this case and obviously neither was the judge. I genuinely hope that 52 weeks of DV classes will be what Brown needs to get his head out of his ass and start to mend whatever it is that is broken enough to make him think that abusing women is acceptable.

What isn’t fair is that others have not received equivalent punishments. It isn’t fair that others have gotten off more easily than Brown. People are getting angry about this for all the wrong reasons. Let’s see if CNN will move on to the next case in the court docket. Let’s see if they report about what that guy gets. I bet you they don’t. Let’s see if people care? I bet you they won’t, because it isn’t a pop star, just some poor ordinary woman who got hurt.

I actually think the Brown sentencing has potentially raised the bar, and that’s a good thing.

Ganked from… well… all over.
I propose a US health care meme which might help put faces on how screwed up the current system is.

If you are a US citizen and could never under any circumstances afford private health insurance, copy this meme to your LJ, blog or website. Even if you have health care through work now, write as if your “one-layoff-away-from-losing-it” has happened and you’re facing the job of getting insurance on your own.

If you have friends or family members who are in the same boat, feel free to mention them too. I suggest thumbnail descriptions which include no names or identifying information, in the interests of privacy.

We currently get our health insurance through COBRA, because the Ex Mr. Honey and Ollie got laid off last February and his company stopped paying for it. Because of the Obama administration’s rules about layoffs, we are able to afford COBRA. They pay 65% of it. Our cost to insure our family of 4, with that assistance, is currently almost $400/mo. If it were not for the government subsidizing most of the cost, we would not have health insurance at all, because our out of pocket cost would be a little over $1300/mo. Seriously. That’s almost what I pay in rent.

My youngest child suffers from chronic and debilitating migraine headaches for which she takes a preventative medication daily. This medication costs, out of pocket, $158.00/mo. The pills she has to take when the migraines break through cost $22.00 each and sometimes she has to take several in a week. Neither of the medications that my daughter takes are available in generic.

My own medication which I take daily to treat chronic depression, is $273.19/mo. Fortunately, I can get this in generic which means I can get it for super cheap at Target or Walmart. I’m no big fan of Walmart? But G-d bless them for their generic drug program. I have fibroid tumors, endometriosis and ovarian cysts. I spend a large chunk of each month in excruciating pain and have had several related surgeries, both in and outpatient.

Our out of pocket fee to see our family doctor is $75 up front, per visit. He bills us for anything not included in that feel. There is always a bill. I have two children. We are at the doctor’s office frequently, though less than we were when they were small. My daughter’s neurologist charges $160 per visit, up front.

Because we are able to COBRA our benefits, we can afford our medications and my kids can go see the doctor when they are sick. My daughter is not forced to endure migraine headaches that often last for up to 10 days without relief from pain. If we didn’t have COBRA, we would be fucked. When the COBRA runs out, we will be fucked. My husband is still not a salaried employee in his field and freelance work is worrisome and unstable.

My mom requires huge amounts of morphine just to roll out of bed each morning, and the drugs that keep her liver failure in remission cost nearly a thousand dollars each month. I like my mom. I like having her alive and relatively pain free.

So yeah, I support Obama’s health care plan. I think Britain has it pretty good. I’ve wistfully thought about Canada’s services. I’m sadly aware that we have it pretty good. We are damn lucky and others have it much, much worse. For them as much for myself, I wish the idiots in Congress and at the Town Hall Meetings across the country would shut the fuck up and get out of the way of progress in health care reform. You know? Just, shut up and go away.

Spread the word.

HOME!

Fantastic trip.

We totally ate like wee piggies…

Which made me very happy! I’m especially happy in this shot because everyone else was eating raw oysters and I played the kosher card for all it was worth. I really dislike raw oysters. The taste is ok, but it’s a textural thing. The girlie, OTOH, ballsed up and slurped down shellfish with the big girls.

We did nothing but eat for 6 days. Holy cow. I think I gained ten pounds. Then, I think I walked it all off. Our hotel was 6 blocks from the UC Berkeley campus, right on Telegraph. We tromped everywhere, took BART under the Bay, saw good friends and did I mention the food? Korean, Ethiopian, Fenton’s ice cream, the Crepevine in Rockridge, oysters, salmon bruschetta and pommes frites in San Francisco, Peet’s Coffee and of course, Zachary’s pizza pies…

The whole point of this little trip, though, was to acquaint the girlie with the UC Berkeley campus and give her a taste of what she might get to enjoy if she keeps her grades up and works hard for the remainder of high school. It seems to have taken.

I really miss Berkeley. I have to admit that by the second day of our trip I was entertaining thoughts of going back there to live one day. It is one of a handful of places on this earth that truly feel like Home to me. Oh… and… I might have acquired a thousand yards of laceweight pashmina and eight hundred yards of silk/merino laceweight plus some bone dpns at Lacis, there on Adeline @ Ashby. There’s a ton of other yarn stores which we didn’t make it to. I may have to take a second trip.

(I totally ganked this photo from here, btw, I didn’t take it. Copyright totally to someone else…)

We’re off to Morro Bay! And then up to Berkeley to look at colleges! It should be a fun, whirlwind week. Since most of mah peeps are up in that area, I’m hoping to connect with as many as possible, while still maximizing time with the girlie. Pictures and commentary from the road will be forthcoming, I am quite sure…

The Batlady Cleans…

We’ve all heard about the Flylady, I’m sure, that uber happy gal who advocates cleaning your house in a very systematic but effective fashion and whose chirpy reminder emails are apparently legion. Er, frequent. Like, crazily so. Well she’s a little bit too happy for me, frankly, I’m a little suspicious of anyone who is that cheerful. Some Goth folks I know started this group called BatLady which is TOTALLY riffing off the Flylady schtick, but without the annoying reminder emails, no religious overtones, and you know, it includes bats. And stompy boots. So, it is right up my alley.

After 4 back to back school terms, my house looks as if a small horde of Mongol raiders swept over it, so I have busted out all my old Batlady journals and am attempting to put together something resembling an organized approach to getting my house back together. It was while contemplating this, that I realized there isn’t much that’s spooky about cleaning the stove. So I came up with a little Goth dance to do at the same time.

1. Fill sink with hot soapy water and waft a little.
2. Turn, back step, flail arms, and dance to stove.
3. Pick up the burner plate.
4. Embrace the burner plate.
5. Realize there is gravy all over the burner plate.
6. Reject the nasty burner plate and push it from you with great drama.
7. Mince back to sink utilizing the “With Cat Like Tread” GoffDanceStep(tm), found here.
8. Swish the burner plate in hot soapy water. You can utilize the “My Artificial Hip Joint” step here, if you want to mix it up a little.
9. Half turn, waft more.
10. Dance back to stove with Catlike Tread, swish cloth over top of stove utilizing the Sweeping The Floor move, then do the Artificial Hip Joint again, knee up, half turn, back step, front step.
11. Repeat with each burner plate, until stove is done.

If you do this, and pop some Sisters of Mercy on the ipod, you will find your Batlady experience suitably enhanced.

My daughter would like me to point out that I normally have Bollywood soundtracks going when Batlady-ing my house. It’s true. I tend to find Bollywood a little more engaging for these sorts of activities, and Bollywood dance moves, like Goff dance moves, lend themselves to cleaning very nicely. They’re also sort of mix and match, so you can retain valuable Goth Points while bouncing all over the place.

At any rate. It’s amazing how much nicer things are when you clean them regularly, is what I am trying to say…

Most charming video ever. I love it so much.