Fires on Tuesday

Smoke from the Fire

 

Yesterday, I mentioned the Santa Ana winds.  One of the dangers of the Santa Ana winds is the threat of wildfires.   There is a major wildfire not too far from where I live (but not close enough to threaten me), which started overnight or very early this morning.  I could see the billowing smoke from my house, this morning, and I took a couple of pictures on my way to the office.

 

Today, I called the hospital (since that was the number that was on the authorization form) to schedule the surgery.  Of course they had no idea what I was calling about and I was told to call the surgeon's office!  So, I called the surgeon's office and they had no clue, either!  In this day of supposedly having everything online, they couldn't find anything!  Eventually, I had to make a photocopy of the form and drive over to the surgeon's office to hand it to them.  Apparently, the US Postal Service is faster than the internet!

The drive home after work took practically forever, since there were some freeway and other road closures due to the fire.  There were several contingents of police cars and fire trucks speeding on their way to the fire, too, with sirens blaring, so traffic was quite bad.  But I was grateful that the freeway I take was still open and I was able to get home without any detours, etc.  

 

I could smell the smoke from the fire when I came home and it started to affect me in the short time I was outside, collecting the mail, bringing the trash cans in, and looking for the garden cats' water dish which had blown off to the side yard!  I took my emergency "rescue" inhaler and feel OK, now. 

This fire is very close to where one of my friends lives (she's the friend who invited us to Thanksgiving).  In fact, the area to the south of her is under mandatory evacuations orders.  When I saw the evacuation map online, I called her to check on her.  She said she is not under evacuation orders, but they are prepared to evacuate if needed.  I offered her my house as a place to evacuate to.   Another friend of mine called, too, to say that they had to close the school where she works early due to the smoke and ash; they'll be closed tomorrow, as well.  I told her that if she needed to leave, to let me know, I can come for her.  She said she's OK.  But she said they closed the road to traffic, earlier in the day.  

 

Ash

 

This is a picture of my bathroom window sill - the black dust is soot and ash that have blown in from tiny gaps in the caulking!

More Ash

I can only imagine how much worse it must be closer to the fire.

Today, I am grateful for:
- The fire is not close enough to threaten my house
- My friends are safe and not under mandatory evacuation orders
- The winds seem to have slowed down and hopefully, that will help the firefighters
- The freeway I take home was open so I could get home without much difficulty
- Rescue inhalers

I didn't do anything much after I came home, other than check on my friends, exchange emails with another friend, and video chat with daughter.

I also checked the weekly grocery specials as the sales ads came in today's mail.  The Kroger affiliate stores in my area are having a "Mix and Match" sale,  One must buy 5 participating items but the items include peanut butter, 4 lb. bags of sugar, cream cheese, eggs, cake and brownie mixes and they are $.99 each.  I have been waiting for peanut butter to go on sale (I am almost at the end of my last jar) and I need to buy eggs for the almsgiving.  I can buy cake mixes at that price from the dollar stores, but I might get a brownie mix and bake it for one of the almsgiving desserts.  And sugar at $.25/lb?  It doesn't specify cane sugar (I've checked the ingredients list on these bags of sugar and all it says is, "sugar"!), but sugar is sugar, right?  

How was your Tuesday?  Did you have a good day?