Red Barn Wreath

Life is becoming decidedly surreal. Commonplace items remind me of how precarious life is. Pictures of sunsets make me think of flames. We are cannot go outside except for the most necessary tasks, and then we wear masks. OilMan rakes leaves off the porch every day. By the next day they have been blown back by the eastern Santa Ana winds.

We were awakened in the night by the wind (well, I was and I awakened OilMan) and saw what seemed to be flames in the hills across the road. Turns out it was just streetlights... the same streetlights we see every night. Even so, no going back to sleep after that. 

The air seemed better this morning so we hustled over to Spring Lake so Ozzie could have a decent walk, but the smoke settled in at the lake and we came home again. 

As we were driving up Los Alamos, the road that goes behind our house to the Hood Mountain Regional Park, where fires burned for over a week thirteen months ago, we were passed by a fire engine with lights flashing, and then two or three more. More engines were staging just down the stree from ours. By the time we got home we could see the helicopters overhead. I wondered if they could still see the big blue arrows painted on the street last year saying POOL and pointing down people's driveways.

We left our cars in the driveway in case the power went out and went inside. My hands were shaking and I couldn't think what to do next. The landline rang and I pounced on it before realizing it was some company called Apple Inc. (not the company that makes the phones) which periodically calls us every two hours for several days. They started this morning at 8:30. Can they possibly grasp how awful that is for anybody who is waiting for an important message? I couldn't find my cell phone until a neighbor called it to say that a car had caught fire further up Los Alamos and flames had spread to nearby vegetation. 

OilMan said he was going to pack a bag and put it in the car. I tried to do the same but just stood there unable to think what to pack and how much longer could we go on like this?

It was all over as quickly as it started. Unlike last year, there must be crews strategically placed in critical fire areas because of the speed with which the fire was extinguished. 

It took us much longer to recover...