This is Northern California right now:
There are 15 fires raging, 500+ people missing, at least 30 have died, 2,000+ homes destroyed, 30,000 displaced and evacuated, and it's nowhere near over. Some of the most beautiful parts of NorCal are ash now, and some historical sites are threatened.
Charles Schultz's home, along with a lot of his memorabilia, is gone. His widow escaped, so the important part is covered, but it gives you an idea.
Real people. Their world is on fire, and there's nothing to go home to.
But we're fine where we're at. The closest of the fires, the Atlas Fire, is about 45 miles by road, maybe 25 in a direct line. We had a couple of super smokey days--the Woman was not allowed outside because she has breathing issues--but the wind picked up and blew a lot of the smoke out.
Good for us, not good for firefighters.
The Younger Human got *a lot* of smoke from another fire, so much that the air was brown and seeping in under his doors. But his house should be fine, the fire would have to push closer and jump the Interstate to get to him and his Much Better Half and the dogs.
But still...shit's on fire. And it will be, for quite a while.
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I know, it's been over a month since I blogged. I had stuff to talk about, but I've also had a few people complain because I talk about book stuff too much, and they don't come here to read book stuff. So I just kinda shut up.
But...book stuff...I now have some hardback copies of
The Space Between Whens and I'll pop a link up soon, probably in the sidebar.
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The Woman and I have a daily game going. It's called The Battle of the Straw. I sit on the little table and lean toward the straw, she stops what she's doing and wags her pointy finger and says, "No, you don't." Then she goes back to reading or typing or looking at immature things on Reddit, and I do it again.
She thinks she's winning, but we all know better.
Now Buddah? He tried to play it once but he didn't quite grasp the point. He jumped up there and grabbed the straw right off the bat. So it was over in, like, 1.4 seconds, and what's the fun of that?
Well, it was fun for me. I got to hear her call him a little shit and then she chased him off the table, and had to get a new straw.
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This is what I'm gonna do the rest of the day:
I'm old, doods. All I wanna do is hang out and sleep. I might move to the sofa or the bedroom, but this is it. One nap after the other, interrupted only by snacks.
It's a great life.