Bits and Pieces......
Things that really cheered me up about this fire experience:
One:
My inside winery/vineyard guy who was our mole in the evacuated area. He was up at the top of Kincannon on the crazy night of backburns in Anastasia, cut off even from my relief runs with the whole world turned into boiling crimson fire.
His means of coping?
He read "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy.
"It made it all seem so much more real......and so much easier."
Have you read The Road?
Why does this make me laugh? In a really fun way......
Two:
Matthew, my Gruet connection at The Grapevine mentioned he was reading some cool stuff. Eric Fromm. "The Art of Living." He had "The Art of Loving" lined up for next.
I mentioned that I had a First Edition copy of "The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness" sitting on my shelf, three feet from my head......since 1973.
"Wow. I have been looking for a copy of that to buy."
"Matt. I will bring it by......"
I found note cards inside from the essay that got me my only 'A' in college.....a graduate level philosophy course conducted in French.....the card mentioned my concerns about "liminalists" and the whole Life/Death thing. The word "Thanatos" was printed in really nice neat print of mine from 1976.
Matthew was really happy.
Three:
A tale of two Goddesses. First, Diana.
The idiot Sheriff gave the CHP the wrong coordinates for the first road closure. The CHP set up where the dirt started and locked down all traffic.
They were four miles short of their mark.
Our Diana hit the blockade and was cockblocked. When the officer refused to listen to the fact that her 14 year old daughter was alone in the house, a mile from the fireline.....she ran for it.
Well, drove for it. Fuck you. Her family has been in the Valley since Noah.....
The Chippies chased her down, forced her off-road, and chained her up.
The best part......when her husband arrived to help settle things out. When he saw Diana all chained and shackled, he did the courageous husband thing......
He laughed his ass off.
It is a tribute to Diana that she still talks to him......and even laughs about it herself.
Goddess.
Two:
When we got the mandatory evac order we were right in the middle of packing for a party that we were short-handed for.
Nike was working.....and realized her Dad and all her dog and kitty friends were trapped inside the evac zone.
Nike is 15, and balancing on a probation thing. She was possibly not even supposed to be working......and was balancing love for her Dad from fear of her mom, who had a court injunction to stay away but was ignoring it.
Nike prepped and packed our party, and then caught a ride up to her Dad's place. She loaded up the three dogs......and the fourteen cats and new kitties in the old Jeep......and drove it back down to The Store. When we rolled out for the party, she drove the Jeep up to our house so the animals could be safe.
Upon arrival at our house, the Jeep would not shut off.
"Oh, this is what it does. I just need an ice-pick or a ten-penny nail. You jam it in this hole here on the steering column and kind of pull, and the motor turns off. It sparks a lot."
Then went on to run the kitchen at an engagement party for another eight hours.
The driving age in California is somewhat higher than 15....
Goddess.......
Four:
Deputies showed up at The Store. Casual conversation.
"Uh.....we read the blog. We really like it......."
Five:
Vicki from the Store:
"Those HotShots from Virginia are so cute.......we are all talking with Virgina accents now."
Six:
Driving up to the poor fuck CHP at the Check Point yesterday:
"Dude......Boredom is not fatal."
"Prove it........."
"Yeah, well. Thank you for your work. I wish it meant something....."
"Yeah, that makes twenty of us......."
Reality check. We have had CHP monitoring of Carmel Valley Road at Sleepy Hollow for weeks now.
I pay $250 a day for beginning caterers....with no benefits.
CHP guys start at $45,000, plus benefits. Plus the car.
Water guys in the fire are getting $900 a day each, plus $1900 a day for the truck. And none of these guys ever had to take tests, or run around tracks, or pee in bottles.....or even fill out very many forms.
We have a budget shortfall of massive proportions in California.
I am not begrudging the water trucks.......Vicki had four of them working for OtterPops today, watering my garden at the Store, and keeping down the dust around my compost heaps. Our hollyhocks are worth at least $8,000 a day, don't you think?
A useless, meaningless CHP, 24-7.....just because Sheriff Mike has ED, and ridiculous political ambitions?
We are pissing away a few hundred million dollars a day in Iraq. I really hate to see us pissing away $10,000 a day of state money at Sleepy Hollow......just to keep out Kurt Cobain....and failing.
Hey, Big Mike.......check out that whole Cialis thing. Might save us all a whole lot of trouble.
Oh.....and there is thing called "after-shave".........
One:
My inside winery/vineyard guy who was our mole in the evacuated area. He was up at the top of Kincannon on the crazy night of backburns in Anastasia, cut off even from my relief runs with the whole world turned into boiling crimson fire.
His means of coping?
He read "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy.
"It made it all seem so much more real......and so much easier."
Have you read The Road?
Why does this make me laugh? In a really fun way......
Two:
Matthew, my Gruet connection at The Grapevine mentioned he was reading some cool stuff. Eric Fromm. "The Art of Living." He had "The Art of Loving" lined up for next.
I mentioned that I had a First Edition copy of "The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness" sitting on my shelf, three feet from my head......since 1973.
"Wow. I have been looking for a copy of that to buy."
"Matt. I will bring it by......"
I found note cards inside from the essay that got me my only 'A' in college.....a graduate level philosophy course conducted in French.....the card mentioned my concerns about "liminalists" and the whole Life/Death thing. The word "Thanatos" was printed in really nice neat print of mine from 1976.
Matthew was really happy.
Three:
A tale of two Goddesses. First, Diana.
The idiot Sheriff gave the CHP the wrong coordinates for the first road closure. The CHP set up where the dirt started and locked down all traffic.
They were four miles short of their mark.
Our Diana hit the blockade and was cockblocked. When the officer refused to listen to the fact that her 14 year old daughter was alone in the house, a mile from the fireline.....she ran for it.
Well, drove for it. Fuck you. Her family has been in the Valley since Noah.....
The Chippies chased her down, forced her off-road, and chained her up.
The best part......when her husband arrived to help settle things out. When he saw Diana all chained and shackled, he did the courageous husband thing......
He laughed his ass off.
It is a tribute to Diana that she still talks to him......and even laughs about it herself.
Goddess.
Two:
When we got the mandatory evac order we were right in the middle of packing for a party that we were short-handed for.
Nike was working.....and realized her Dad and all her dog and kitty friends were trapped inside the evac zone.
Nike is 15, and balancing on a probation thing. She was possibly not even supposed to be working......and was balancing love for her Dad from fear of her mom, who had a court injunction to stay away but was ignoring it.
Nike prepped and packed our party, and then caught a ride up to her Dad's place. She loaded up the three dogs......and the fourteen cats and new kitties in the old Jeep......and drove it back down to The Store. When we rolled out for the party, she drove the Jeep up to our house so the animals could be safe.
Upon arrival at our house, the Jeep would not shut off.
"Oh, this is what it does. I just need an ice-pick or a ten-penny nail. You jam it in this hole here on the steering column and kind of pull, and the motor turns off. It sparks a lot."
Then went on to run the kitchen at an engagement party for another eight hours.
The driving age in California is somewhat higher than 15....
Goddess.......
Four:
Deputies showed up at The Store. Casual conversation.
"Uh.....we read the blog. We really like it......."
Five:
Vicki from the Store:
"Those HotShots from Virginia are so cute.......we are all talking with Virgina accents now."
Six:
Driving up to the poor fuck CHP at the Check Point yesterday:
"Dude......Boredom is not fatal."
"Prove it........."
"Yeah, well. Thank you for your work. I wish it meant something....."
"Yeah, that makes twenty of us......."
Reality check. We have had CHP monitoring of Carmel Valley Road at Sleepy Hollow for weeks now.
I pay $250 a day for beginning caterers....with no benefits.
CHP guys start at $45,000, plus benefits. Plus the car.
Water guys in the fire are getting $900 a day each, plus $1900 a day for the truck. And none of these guys ever had to take tests, or run around tracks, or pee in bottles.....or even fill out very many forms.
We have a budget shortfall of massive proportions in California.
I am not begrudging the water trucks.......Vicki had four of them working for OtterPops today, watering my garden at the Store, and keeping down the dust around my compost heaps. Our hollyhocks are worth at least $8,000 a day, don't you think?
A useless, meaningless CHP, 24-7.....just because Sheriff Mike has ED, and ridiculous political ambitions?
We are pissing away a few hundred million dollars a day in Iraq. I really hate to see us pissing away $10,000 a day of state money at Sleepy Hollow......just to keep out Kurt Cobain....and failing.
Hey, Big Mike.......check out that whole Cialis thing. Might save us all a whole lot of trouble.
Oh.....and there is thing called "after-shave".........
posted by Txacoli at 10:01 PM
1 Comments:
I talked to Mona Fretias/Nason the other day while visiting her up at the PG UPS store. She mentioned the fires were still burning up on the ridge behind them and that going to bed was un-nerving.
We heard this morning on the KION news the fire is now 79% contained and the voluntary evac will be lifted by 6:pm tonight (7/25/08). YAHOOO ---> NO MORE GREEN PASSES Michael! :)
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