This has not been the best day of my life, I’ll tell you what. I am so glad to actually be online and communicating with the community here, that relief you simply cannot know until you’ve been impeded by coming here from some problem beyond your control and I thought coping with triple digit temperatures was bad enough. Sweet Jesus, what an unpleasant day and it’s not over by a long shot. It started out with my realization that the air conditioner had gone off and of course my electric clock with it. So I waited. And I waited. Then I thought, “Oh, no this is going to be serious,” images of the Northridge quake dancing in my head, where power came and went, capriciously for days.
I went downstairs where Jason, the millenial, was obliviously watching anime, which is his wont to do and asked him what was going on. He made a vague reference to “the sirens and shit that’s going on around us.” I said, “Are you referring to the fire in La Tuna Canyon or the one in Santa Clarita?” He said, “Is that where it is?” I asked him if he could just give me the time of day, please, and he said, “11:38.” Power had already been down for at least half an hour and that’s a bad sign. If power doesn’t come back up in three minutes, it’s down for hours, could be days, and now is the time to test Your Emergency Preparedness, and best of luck from your friends at DWP.
So I ate a banana, not wanting to open the fridge unnecessarily, and went back upstairs and started reading. An hour later I heard Gerry’s baritone voice echoing through the kitchen, informing Jason of his latest transgression so I started another tentative descent down the stairs, favoring my bad right leg. Gerry for your information, owns this house and I rent the upstairs from him. He’s a good friend of mine, he used to be my computer techie, that’s how we met.
In any event, he informed me about 12:30 p.m. that if the power didn’t come back on in an hour that he would go out and hook up the gasoline generator so that the food in the refrigerator wouldn’t rot. That was the least of my worries, I had to get online here. I was getting very impatient and ill tempered as most junkies get when jones-ing.
We have a gasoline powered generator because we are into Emergency Preparedness in this household. We, meaning mostly Gerry but we all tactitly go along with him, “go along to get along” that kind of thinking; are also into The Second Coming and The Coming End Times; although it’s debatable exactly what is coming to an end, our culture, or the entire world. In any event, Gerry has no intention whatsoever of going gently into anybody’s dark night and so he is Prepared. We have five pound cans of tuna and 50 pounds sacks of rice and all kinds of stuff. And if anybody wants to come take away any of this stuff, Gerry is prepared to defend it. The less said on that topic, the better.
So, bottom line, this is the only internet connection working possibly for miles. Local businesses that are dependent upon computers are closing up early from what I can gather. I don’t even have a transistor radio, I’m going on word of mouth from the neighbors. Gerry just checked with DWP (which is Department of Water and Power if it’s not that everywhere) and they informed him that it would take “several hours” which is DWP-speak for it could take several days. The cell phones in the house all now say “Emergency Calls Only” and the landline is dead.
A plane that drops fire retardant passed over the house a half hour ago, I think headed to La Tuna Canyon. What makes that fire especially problematic is its proximity to the 210 Freeway, which caused gridlock traffic here on surface streets last night. I don’t know what’s going on in Santa Clarita. Last summer when the fires were going on there I woke up one morning to find an inch of ash covering the yard, the Volkswagen, eveything, like people living close to but not too close to Vesuvius must have woken up to.
So I sit at the dining room table as the hours tick by. It’s now 2:58 p.m. my computer clock informs me. Somebody else just fired up a gas powered lawn mower, probably out of boredom, so the lawn mower and the generator have a little symphony going on out there. Some of the neighbors are drifting out into their yards, I guess to look at each other since the teevees are dead. That happened during Northridge too. Many neighbors met each other for the first time. There were touching human interest stories on the teevee, seriously.
Normally this is a serene little cul de sac. It’s built on a slope of the alluvial fan coming down from the San Gabriel mountains. The cul de sac is stairstepped, meaning that the house on the left is built eight feet lower than the house on the right, which is eight feet higher. It’s a nice group of people that live here. I keep telling myself that as I think of that Twilight Zone episode, “The Shelter.” If you haven’t seen that episode, a family on the block had the only bomb shelter. They had the only shelter, we have the only generator and food store.
I also find myself thinking of Mad Max, a role which Gerry will be reprising if DWP doesn’t get on the stick and we need to fill up the generator. And if he gets into his truck with his gas cans, you know who’ll be riding shotgun.
Sunday, Sep 3, 2017 · 1:41:36 AM +00:00 · ursulafaw
Friends, I just got back online less than two minutes ago. I went offline around 4:00 or 4:30 and it’s 6:36 as I type this, so thank you for having this on the rec list, let alone in the top slot. I am honored and deeply gratified, as always.
Here’s what’s happening here. We took a little jaunt over to my pharmacy to get my high blood pressure medication and three ridges over flames are leaping off the hills and descending the hill to Glendale.
Gerry cheerfully suggested that I pack a bag in case we have to evacuate. I’ll tell you something, when it comes down to figuring what to put into a bag, value and sentiment vye for space and maybe I’ll write about that later.
Also, I was sitting outside about an hour ago and three planes headed to the fire scene.
I’ll keep you informed if anything changes. On to answer emails and kosmails unless I lose signal again.
Cheers.
Sunday, Sep 3, 2017 · 2:26:51 AM +00:00 · ursulafaw
Hi again,
I can tell how thoroughly spaced out I am today. In my last update I said that I “went offline” — the internet crashed is what happened. I didn’t just decide, “Oh, it’s a lovely time to go offline,” and go shopping or something.
Anyhow, our neighbor said she spoke with a firefighter a little while ago and our street has been declared “safe” meaning we don’t have to evacuate. I’m on the northern side of a mountain ridge. If you go down its southern face you will reach the 210 freeway and across the 210 freeway everything is still up for grabs — now realize that I’m not getting exactly wonderful news here and I can’t fact check anything so take it all for what it’s worth.
But I’ll let you know what goes on here. I’m operating by flashlight and light from the screen. Gerry has some cockamamie notion of putting the microwave on the porch and making baked potatoes. Yeah, great, let’s have a luow.
Oh my stars, the kitchen light just came on. Now I will go offlline voluntarily while we unplug the generator from the internet.
Cheers.