Bald and Beautiful

Like everyone around here, my vocabulary has expanded. Why, I’m practically an honorary smoke jumper, from a verbal perspective. My neighbors and I debate the advisability of prescribed burns in our hills, and then swap information from Incident Information Web.

I impress myself – which, according to those who know me is an all too common event. While taking a friend on a tour of the hills yesterday, I said something to the effect of, “According to Inci, the dozer lines stopped the fire on the eastern flank, and hot shots kept the flames from marching on to Echo Mountain.”

He said something to the effect of “insufferable.”

Over the weekend, there were quite a few garage sales around the Altadena area. After the past week it makes sense to shed stuff. When everyone considered evacuation a distinct possibility, I was amazed at how few things really mattered to me. How little I was psychologically invested in what I had.

Then again, I didn’t have to actually evacuate. The rubber didn’t hit the road.

One couple I know had an hour and half to lock the house and get off the hill. According to them, it was almost too much time. They had already stacked the essentials in preparation for this, but the additional time made them realize there were other things they really, really didn’t want to leave behind. So they added more and more stuff to the piles, and when only half of it would fit in the cars, had to re-evaluate everything all over again.

Maybe it’s like an IQ test. Your first answer is probably right.

And finally, I was amazed at the support and interest around the globe. Sure, we ended up losing the web top ten search to notables such as Whitney Houston and Katy Mixon (Katy Mixon? Mixon??), but we made brief appearances from time to time, maybe after some story claimed an actor lived here, or used to live here, or thought about living here, or once upon a time visited someone here.

Whatever. The air is clear, the birds are back, and the squirrels have returned to escalate their systematic war against my dogs. Mostly, I’m just grateful.