Insurance Office

It just happens that our insurance renewal date is in October. This proximity to the anniversary date of the fires prompted us to to visit our insurance office and make sure our coverage is adequate. 

It's hard to imagine anything less abstract than an insurance office, but there we were, waiting to talk to our agent, Tammie, about our car and homeowner's insurance and contemplating the strange lighting.

Tammie was having computer problems so while she called the computer help desk somewhere,  I was looking through the frosted glass room divider at the weird  lighting. It  reminded OilMan and me of the lighting in a 25km long tunnel we drove through in Norway. Every 5km there was a wide spot where you could take your car off the road and your eyes off the car ahead. Each alcove was brightly lit by a different color, presumably to keep one from getting mesmerized. I don't know if that was the intent with the lighting in the insurance office, but it wouldn't surprise me. Tammie said the big square over her desk turns off if she stops moving for longer than half an hour. Then people in the surrounding cubicles check to see if she's left the building, gone to sleep or died. She can turn it back on again by waving her arms.  Seems an odd sort of surveillance system.

Everyone in Santa Rosa has a fire story, and, being an insurance agent, Tammie had many. One couple lost their home in Santa Rosa last year and, since they were nearing retirement, decided not to rebuild and moved to Redding to be nearer their son. Less than a year later they lost that home to the Carr fire which burned through Redding in July. They told her they still had insurance checks for their Santa Rosa loss when their new home burned. 

Back at our now well insured house, Caroline was managing to work around two large black dogs. Blake is still slightly redolent of skunk, so she left it smelling better too. He's getting a bath tomorrow . I needn't have worried about how he would behave. He hung out in his kennel which is now behind the couch in the living room.