Month: September 2024

As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, there are multiple fires burning in Southern California.

Tuesday afternoon I got an evacuation notice on my phone. Then, there was a helicopter flying overhead announcing mandatory evacuation. Then there was another evacuation notice on my phone, and finally there was the sheriffs department driving up & down the streets announcing evacuation on their loudspeakers.

Hmm, says I, they must want us to leave.

I suspected it was coming and I’d already planned to stage stuff in the event there was an evacuation. I didn’t get a chance to execute my cunning plan before the evacuation was upon me.

So I grabbed some stuff, put the dog in the car and away we went. 

By the time we left the house, it looked very much like somehow the neighborhood had been relocated to Mars on a very bad day.

Jesse was freaked out and would not settle down.

I was annoyed by that and of course the usual California driving skills or more properly lack thereof.

I made a brief stop, or what was supposed to be a brief stop at a storage locker where I unloaded a bunch of stuff in an attempt to give the dog more room to lie down & relax. This as it turns out was an error.

While I was able to offload, I wasn’t able to get back on the damn freeway. Either the exits were closed, or they were blocked by the aforementioned Excellent California Drivers. Many of whom wouldn’t allow a change of lanes. At least one of whom used the emergency lane to “get ahead” and forced me out of the lane so I was unable to get on the freeway safely. 

Mind you by this point we were 15 – 20 miles away from the evacuation zone and in no danger whatsoever. This was just normal California assholery. It is also the kind of behavior that begets freeway shootings.

I figured “Screw it” and stopped for gas. Then I found a whole string of entrance ramps blocked off forcing me to take surface streets parallel to the freeway until just before Pomona.

Once on the freeway it was a simple matter to get to Orange County and stay with some friends. It’s good to have great friends that will put you up in a pinch. It’s even better to have friends that will put you and your big ass dog up when they have a lovely pet free home and it is pet free for a reason.

My friends have gone above and beyond in this instance and I truly have no idea how to thank them.

At this point I know the firefighters are doing all they can do. I know that there’re no guarantees but I hate not knowing what is likely to happen. Is my house going to burn? Is it not? If it burns, then I have a clear direction. If it’s not going to burn, I’d really rather be home and not imposing on my friends like this.

In an attempt to minimize the mess and stuff that a dog invariably brings into your life, I had Jesse groomed today, while I was at it I had my car washed and my hair cut too. My hope with Jesse being groomed was that he’d shed a little less and wouldn’t be in any way offensive in terms of dog stink.

He’s been sleeping since we got back and I know I’m going to have to take him out on at least one, maybe two more walks tonight.

I don’t really think about it, but having a fenced in back yard is super nice. Their yard is not fenced in, so I’ve been walking Jesse on his leash a lot. Normally Jesse & I go for our morning walk, then I leave the sliders open so he comes and goes as he wishes the rest of the day.

If I move off the mountain, either because of the house burning down, or just because It’s time for me to move on, I will be looking for new digs that have a fenced in back yard after this experience, I’ve decided that is a must have.