If our skies are this bad, imagine what it's like in Butte County. Not a lot of people out and about this afternoon, but many are wearing masks.

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Smoky sunrise from the Camp Fire in Butte County. 😟

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This is my nightmare.

Happy Halloween. #cranephobia #itsarealthing #formeatleast
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Juror #11

4+ weeks of jury duty finally over. What an experience. One of the hardest things I've done.
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A Broken Jaw

So my newly bar mitzvah'd nephew was at the ball park Thursday, playing with his buddies in the outside field while his younger brother played baseball. He hit a pole and nearly knocked out his teeth...he would have but a very close family friend, he's been up to the cabin several times with the summertime crew, is the head athletic trainer at the colleges in their town and was there to push his teeth back in place and stop the bleeding. Massive amounts of bleeding. They rushed him to the hospital and middle nephew has to have his jaw wired shut for the next 4-6 weeks.

They play hard. If you've been reading my blog for a while, you know how hard they play from our week at the hideaway. All 3 nephews are athletes. It's inevitable when both of their parents are coaches. They're not unfamiliar with pain. But a wired jaw is something else.

I was asked to make Jakee's Bar Mitzvah montage. My brother-in-law posted it to his facebook page the day after Jakee's accident and even though I spent over 50 hours looking and working on that video, watching it the day after his accident brought me to tears. The boy has such an amazing and infectious smile. And to think that he won't be able to smile for over a month, not to mention not being able to eat solid food...just breaks my heart.

Another One Bites the Dust

I say that with the utmost respect. But my friend and old boss, who was snarky and sassy as hell, died last week. She'd want me to be sassy in paying respect or tribute to her.
I met Leigh in 1994 when we both worked at a stamp store in the mall during the Christmas season. She's always been a force of nature. Speaking her mind, standing up for what she believed in and jumping into something head first, flying fast. She had charisma, people automatically liked her the 1st time they met her, and learned early on not to cross her. It was very easy for me to be friends with her because she was straightforward, so I knew what her plans were and the direction she wanted to go. We were opposites, really, but we got along very well. She knew how to push me to motivate me, but knew when to stop. She understood that I have buckets of tolerance and patience, but if I'm right at the edge, to back off because I'll burst. She pushed me creatively, had a lot more faith in my abilities than I had in myself, and trusted me more than I thought I deserved. I was lucky that I was friends with her before I started working for her, because I never felt like I had to tiptoe around the boss. I could speak with her candidly.

Grand opening of her store, 1996.

In 1998 she had to close the store because her manufacturing company took off and she needed the space for warehouse and shipping.

Company photo, 2000.

Company photo, 2001.

After my mom died, she gave me a lot of leeway. She knew that I would need a lot of time to figure everything out and I needed to do it at my pace. She understood that I process things different than she does. But 9 months later, I was still trapped in my own headspace, and she bluntly but with kindness said: "ok madeline. it's time to come back to work." And I knew it wasn't because she needed me as an employee, but because it was just time to get out of my own head.

She had wanderlust more than anyone I knew. She used to tell me stories about growing up in New Zealand, her maori 'family', living and working on a kibbutz in Israel, working in the south, traveling through Europe. When she felt the desire to travel to Singapore and Bali, she asked me to go with her. I couldn't refuse.At a temple in Bali.

She bought that big yellow dragon kite above her for her son.

Another temple in Bali.

At a Hindu temple in Singapore.

After selling her business, she and her family moved to Florida because there were more programs available there for her kids. After they finished high school, she traveled a lot more. I would enjoy seeing her photos from all over the world. She was spending a lot of time in Israel again. Last month she was hiking through the sandy deserts in Jordan. The sand in the air as well as smoke from fires in Slovenia, aggravated her asthma enough for her to go to the ER. She started posting snarky photos from the hospital. Making fun of her bruises, joking around about being transferred to ICU. Showing photos of a dragon she bought for her son with an oxygen mask on, saying "uh oh, it's not looking very good". Unfortunately, it was a lot worse than anyone thought. Especially since she was still posting just hours before she passed away. And still being sassy...

Saying Goodbye

Sunday started out as a typical lazy day at home. Around 3pm, I logged onto facebook to see what was up and I saw lots of postings about the sudden passing of someone I knew. I couldn't believe it, and actually thought that surely, this was wrong information. It was facebook afterall, and who knows what's true till you get the information from a trusted source. She was only 2 years older than me and at first I honestly thought it couldn't be true. Unfortunately, it was.

She wasn't just an old high school friend, which would have been tragic in itself. But I have known her all my life. She was also an only child, we were somehow related (it all gets mixed up in our culture sometimes how we're related but we were). I think our mother's were cousin's in some way or another. Her parents were my godparents, and up until we went to school, I probably spent the most time with her growing up. Back then, we thought of each other as sisters. I looked up to her and wanted to be just like her.

My mom made these matching outfits for us. I may have been around 5 years old, she would have been 7.

This was Christmas 1970. I was 2 1/2 years old.

We still remained close though elementary school, but as we became teenagers, 2 years became a big gap in age and we belonged in very different social circles. But we had a bond that would last forever. We'd still hang out one on one every now and then and act like sisters do. Throughout the years, as we both grew up, got married, lost our parents, we always had respect and love for each other. Even though we hadn't seen each other in over 15 years, we still kept in touch.

She had 2 boys, the youngest just graduated high school last year. Her oldest got married within the last couple of years. Her husband of almost 30 years is inconsolable. My heart breaks for my own loss, but can imagine the heartache her family and her closest friends are feeling. It's not suppose to happen at 48, it's impossible to wrap my head around it.

When I got a call Sunday evening from the oldest one in this photo, who is 6 years older than me, there was no escaping the truth. She had just returned from the hospital and gave me the details. She was considered the oldest "sister" of all of us. I could always count on her the most, as I'm sure she was the one who always had the most responsibilities. After my mom died, she gave me the most help when I had to go back and forth to the High Desert every few weeks to sort everything out. She was always there and helped the most on arrangements. Once again, she's there to step up the responsibilities as oldest 'sister' with the passing of one of our own.


One funny little anecdote I remember from junior high school...
I was in 7th grade science class. One of the boys sitting next to me asked if was related Lourdes. I said yes. I can't forget the tone of his voice when he said "She is the hottest girl at this school."
At the time I thought it was funny that a 7th grader was saying that about a 9th grader, but you know what? It was true. Everyone at that school knew that she was one of the prettiest girls there.

Everything Will Be Ok in the End. If It's Not Ok, It's Not the End.

I just read that quote on a facebook friend's photo and I'm trying to take that saying to heart. The firefighters have created a couple of "contingency line construction in advance of the communities in the Highway 108 corridor." Our hideway is in that corridor. Basically that means more lines of defense.

The Rim Fire grew overnight another 20,000 acres, but it's a little more contained. It's an odd notion for me, as a layperson, to have it still growing that much, yet be more contained.. Oh, now I get it. I just didn't think it through before I wrote that. What really matters is that our community continues to be protected as much as it possibly can be.

Here's a cool animated gif I found at Mother Jones.
It shows how quickly the fire grew and how it's still growing, but nothing like it had been.

They've extended the Evacuation Advisory to Pinecrest Lake.
We were there a month ago with The Crew.
I'm in the Zodiac with the rest of the adults towing the canoe with Jimmy and the younger kids, towing the oldest nephew on his surfboard. It's a no-tow lake. We like to see what we can get away with. heehee, just kidding. What they actually mean by 'no-tow' is no recreational tubing. We're just towing from the dock to our little cove on the other side of the lake. We've done this for 6 years and no one has stopped us. We're going very slow.

Jimmy and I did this ride on our ATV last year. 80% of where we were is now ash. Everything from the 1 minute mark, along with the hills in the background, are gone.


These cows were probably displaced. They're less than 1/2 a mile from the fire in this video. Those hills in the background are all gone.

Thankfully, the community has made a big effort to find places for cattle to be kept till the fire is over. There are various ranches that have opened their land for people to take their horses, cows, goats, etc. And the Red Cross shelter allowed you to bring your house pets.

Inciweb and My Motherlode have been good sources for fire updates.

Rim Fire

So. I suspect everyone knows about the Rim Fire near Yosemite that's burning out of control, right? Well, it started near Groveland, a small community on Highway 120 that goes to Yosemite. It's pretty far from our hideaway and we never would have thought we'd be threatened by it. There was just too much land between them and us for it to even get close. Well, as you probably know, the size of the fire grew exponentially and by Friday morning, it was within 8-10 miles from our cabin.

This was our regular weekend to go up. We left San Francisco after dinner Thursday night and expected to get there around 10:30pm. On the drive up, as we split away from Highway 120, we were able to see a shockingly huge orange glow in the distance to our right. But we still didn't realize how close it was to our place.

We started smelling smoke, but just thought that the wind was blowing the smoke in our direction, so of course we would smell it.

We got to the hideaway, the smell was very strong. But it was nighttime, so we couldn't see any evidence aside from some ash on the driveway. We had to open the windows because it was warm, but closed them before going to sleep because we had read that the air quality was unsafe and all windows should be kept closed during the duration of the fire.

When we woke up, we were shocked at how brown and gray the sky was. I called my cousin who was suppose to come up later that day with her family for a fun weekend on the boat and ATV. It was still early, so I was still convinced that the smokey haze was just that and not that it was close enough to actually be a worry. I told her they could still come up, but I was very concerned about them breathing the smoke, and that we wouldn't be able to go out on the boat or ATV. We decided it would be best to postpone our fun weekend for another time.


In the meantime, Jimmy left for a meeting at the water company and I read more about the fire online, realizing it was closer than I had thought...
Less than 10 miles from our cabin. Logically, I knew it was very unlikely to hit us because this community is relatively large, around 4500 homes in our and other nearby communities. I knew that the firefighters would do everything to save the homes and keep the fire away from this area. But I also know that fire has a mind of its own and wind plays a major role in what will happen. So I took video of all of our valuable possessions in case the worst happened and we needed that information for insurance.
And I started taking photos of as many momentos as I could. I have boxes of letters and cards Jimmy and I sent each other over the years. It would be sad if we lost the physical pieces of paper, but at least I've captured digitally what we wrote to each other.

Ashes collecting on our car, less than 15 hours after we got here.

There was a community town hall meeting at 2pm. We went with our neighbor, who is a retired Forest Service Firefighter, so he has a lot of experience and knowledge on what was happening.
I was surprised at how many people where there. All the seats were filled and several people had to stand. We guessed there were over 300 people there. They gave us a briefing of what was happening. Explained what the different evacuation terms meant and what we'd need to do if we received one. They let us know that the local fire department maintains a defensible space of clearing surrounding the town. And that there were over 1500 firefighters there to protect our homes and fight the fire. (As of this post, there are over 3000 firefighters working on this blaze.)

Afterwards, we left with our firefighter neighbor and drove towards Toulumne so he could get an eye on what the smoke was doing.
He was careful to say anything specific but he did express concern.
I took a few snapshots from the backseat.

You can see how dry the brush is, feeding fuel for the fire.

Here's a short video I took during the drive:


I didn't feel like making dinner, so we drove down to Sonora to pick something up. When we got back, we realized that our town had received an Advisory Evacuation Warning. That basically means that you don't have to leave yet, but get your emergency supplies and most treasured valuables near the door or in the car. If you receive an Mandatory Evacuation Order, you need to leave now and won't have time to collect your things. While I evaluated what to take back to San Francisco with us, Jimmy went over to the neighbors to get a little more information. We decided to wait till the morning to leave.

We both woke up early from the thick smell of smoke. We did a little research and it hadn't spread as much overnight as it had the past few days. But we still planned on leaving that day. I packed up 3 small boxes of our most important momentos. Just the rest of our letters and 2 boxes of my parents momentos. But we had to leave so much behind.
These are just some of the precious personal things we had to leave behind, not to mention all of our furniture, the boat, the ATV and the cabin itself that has been the source of so many of our most treasured memories.

While we were packing up the car, the neighbor came over and mentioned that the smoke coming from the area he was most concerned about looked a little bit better. Since we have faith in his expertise, we left feeling a little more hopeful. But we also know that winds can pick up and change things in the blink of an eye.

An assembly of firefighters gathered in our town for what looked like a briefing. We are so grateful for all of them, risking their lives to save ours and our homes.

January Challenge

January is always a slow blogging month for me because I've pretty much used all my blogging energy for my Daily December challenge. So I gave myself a whole week off, and I'm gonna try to do a M-F photo of the day challenge. No pressure to blog on the weekends. Probably lots of photo blogging from my phone.

So here's my photo for today with a little background...

I've mentioned before about my unexplainable phobia of cranes. Not entirely sure why I literally go into a panic attack whenever I see one, but I like to blame it on a past life accident, LOL. I'm not afraid of heights. I love architecture, tall buildings, walking on glass floors 40+ stories high - like at the CN Tower in Toronto or at the top of the Sears Tower in Chicago and flying up high in the sky and looking down at the vast landscape below, so really...not sure why I hate them so much. I have a fear that whatever the crane is carrying will fall on someone and smash 'em like a bug. Or that the crane itself, which looks so very unstable to me, will tip over and fall on someone and smash 'em like a bug. It's happened before so those events justify my irrational behavior.

Anyhoo...there are a lot of cranes in this city. Lots of building happening. I just walk by them, usually on the other side of street, and pretend they're not there, keeping my eyes on the sidewalk.

Well, when we moved here a year and a half ago, we noticed that the 20ish story building across the street was vacant and appeared to be abandoned. The 1st thing I thought of when I saw it was...they're gonna tear that building down while we're living across the street and I'm gonna have to face my fears up close and personal.

Well, that day has come...
This is my view when I immediately walk out the front doors.

Taking deep breaths.

Slow Down {December Daily 12}

Jimmy and I witnessed a major injury accident on the freeway Sunday night. The car right in front of us moved into the next lane and was plowed by the car from behind that swerved into that lane from behind us, missing us by inches. It was the worst accident we've witnessed and I can't stop replaying the scene in my head over and over again. We're all so busy and in a rush, especially this time of the year, but please please please let's all slow down a little. All this rushing around is not worth it if you end up in the hospital or worse.

So all day I was in a bit of a funk. Yes I had to get in the car get on the freeway. Certainly paid a lot more attention, kept extra distance from myself and the other cars, and generally stayed in the slower lanes.

I'm not sure if how I felt today is the reason or excuse that I splurged and bought this Christmas tree. We haven't had a tree in 8 years. We're not Grincy per se, but we're lazy when it comes to clean up and it always seemed like it was more work to take it down than the value was to have it up for a few weeks. Well, we couldn't have been more wrong. Looking at this tree with the colored lights makes me so very very happy. I don't even need ornaments, just the tree with the lights brings me a lot of joy.

A Week In The Life: Day 3

I missed posting last night because we didn't have power till after midnight. Long story regarding that, so I'll lead into it.

Wednesday started out with the regular routine.Enjoyed surprisingly sweet strawberries for breakfast.

Happy package from Fedex. Tickets to see Peter Pan in San Francisco in June.

Around 4:30, Jimmy and I were both in the office when we heard a very loud crash. Funnily, I heard a cracking sound, Jimmy said he also heard the crunching of metal. We had to investigate.

In the backyard, we immediately noticed that the oak tree that covers 3/4 of our yard was gone and we saw this:
gulp.

We called the landlord then went next door to investigate.
The 30 foot Oak Tree, fallen. The culprit of all the noise and the reason the cement in our yard was pulled up. The root system of the tree just popped the cement off.
We live on the other side of the fence to the left, in front of the grey car.


This is the top of the tree. Just grazed that other car.


Unfortunately, that red car didn't do so well.


Firecrew came to check it out.


They assess the situation. The biggest concern was that the tree was pulling tight on the electrical wires and the transformers were sparking and popping. Power went out about 1/2 hr after the tree fell.

You can see that it was pouring rain. We had a lot of rain this winter and I guess the soil under the tree just gave way.


Thankfully, no one was in the cars when the tree fell.
Thankfully, the tree fell in that direction. Otherwise it would have fallen on our roof.
Thankfully, it's an office building back there and thankfully, it was mostly contained to the parking lot.


Jimmy moved the swing and we got another perspective.
Hello neighbors in the brick house. Nice to see you. They have 2 Doberman Pinchers. Thankfully not in the yard when the tree fell. Part of the tree fell on their garage and also busted part of their fence.


A view of the unfortunate car from our yard.


Powerlines and trees aren't compatible. Electricity was out for 6 hours.


Thankfully I already had plans to go to Kristina's to craft. Lots of fun with the added bonus of not having to spend the evening in a dark house with no power. Jimmy had hockey, so he was out of the house, too.


I got home after 10p. I was super happy that I my OTT Light, used for crafting, is cordless and was fully charged. But it only lasts 2 hours and I had no idea how much longer the power would be out. PG&E were still in my backyard, up on a crane, trying to get the power back on for the block.


So I decided to light some candles. Nice warmth coming out of this sucker, too. Bonus. But luckily, our heat is gas, so we weren't in danger of freezing overnight.


I was also grateful that my laptop was fully charged. No wifi, no internet, but I could watch movies till the battery died!

Power came on just after midnight and Jimmy came home from hockey 15 minutes later.

Quite a lot of excitement for a normal boring humpday. Considering how badly the situation could have gone, we are really grateful that no one was hurt. The owner of that car is unhappy, i'm sure, but again considering what could have happened, the blessings have to be counted. If the tree had fallen the other way, it would have fallen right on our home, into our living room and probably breaking the window of the office. Jimmy sits right next to that window.

Anyone want my mundane week? lol!!!
_