« Fire! |Main| Week 258: Gaming, fireplaces, and beanstalks »
Scourge of Prometheus October 29, 2003
Thanks to everyone who called or sent an e-mail or instant message expressing concerns about our safety over the last few days. Geralyn and I are both fine and are counting our blessings. The fire that was burning near our house is contained and never really made it close. However, we were a bit stressed out on Sunday night when we could still see the flames on Otay Mountain from our street. Residents in Eastlake were asked to evacuate, and that was just right up the road from us. In fact, the first house we tried to buy here in San Diego was in Eastlake!
We went so far as to pack up a bunch of clothes and a few precious belongings, like photo albums, pictures, our important documents, our insurance paperwork, and the cat. These we set by the door in case the police came knocking at 3:00 am, telling us to get the hell out of town. It's odd when you're faced with the task of choosing only one carload of you belongings to take with you. Irreplacable things like pictures came to mind first, then knick-nacks with personal meaning. The rest of the crap you own loses its luster when you realize how impersonal and meaningless it is.
Monday morning came and everything smelled like spent charcoal. It actually woke me up throughout Sunday night, so I got up at around 5:00 AM to watch the news and grimace at the black and white ash that was still fluttering down like God's own salt and pepper. Breathing outside made my throat dry and my nose clog up with all the itty-bitty bits of burnt things trying to make it up my nostrils.
I called into work around 7:00 to find out that Sempra had closed its corporate offices due to air quality and the general mayhem. They ended up staying closed through Tuesday as well, so I got an unexpected, 4-day weekend. Only thing was, I couldn't really leave the house. The air was bad, many places were closed, and many highways were shut down.
For the first time in a long time, I was bored. I honestly can't remember the last time I was bored. I read, I played some games, and I made some notes on my NaNoWriMo novel. That got me to about 11:00 AM. On Monday. By Tuesday night I was pretty much just hopping up and down in the middle of the living room trying to burn off some of my pent-up energy.
If that's the worst of it, though, I count myself blessed. Many people died or lost their homes. I just had to be bored and deal with a lot of boogers. I'm damn lucky.
Comments (0) |
Permalink | 
File under:
General
