This morning I woke up and got ready for work per the usual Monday morning routine. I was watching the news and they were giving updates on two fires in San Diego county that had broke out yesterday afternoon.
As we are having Santana winds, everyone in Southern California knows that this can be a challenge for the area Firefighters. However, after the Cedar Creek fires of 2003, I don't know if anyone in San Diego county will ever look at another fire storm as predictable again.
I go to work, and some of the people that I work with were being affected by evacuation orders and there seemed to be a lighter number of people in the building. The next indication that we were needing to brace ourselves was a call from the two school districts that Jillian and Janeva are in. School was canceled!
Well, I managed to stick around work for a couple of hours, not really able to get any work done as I was getting radio news and internet news of road closures and evacuations orders. It is times like this that even if you are not directly impacted, you just want to be with your family. So I left work and went home.
To be truthful, the air quality in our area was better than I expected, the roadways that I traveled were clear and the traffic was fine. Seemed like overkill really. But, I convinced myself to continue onward to home.
When I got home the girls seemed glad that I came home. We discussed the lessons learned from the 2003 fires and I decided that I would go NOW to get the car fueled and get some provisions....like water....batteries......and some COMFORT food (which explains why the girls were happy to see me).
Grant was home on a day off, so I convinced him to go with me to COSTCO...(for our Australian fans, that is a huge warehouse where you buy food in bulk, saving massive amounts of money on the "per unit" cost, but never can manage to get out of the damn place for under 300 dollars and watching your husband blow an "O" ring from shock!!!) So Grant and I wandered through the warehouse and I was thinking back to the 2003 fires remembering how bad the smoke and ash got and how miserable it was to go for a quick food run to the corner grocery store. Well......I was on top of it this time....I was on a mission. I bought a boat load of meat....a case of toilet paper (nothing makes you feel worse during a Natural Disaster than realizing that the roll on the dispenser is half gone and is the LAST roll in the house!! eeeeek!!!!) We bought a case of size C batteries (still haven't found anything in this house that actually takes C batteries though) and then cases upon cases of water, diet soda, and regular soda. OH...and I bought a magazine too!! Grant looked at me sideways when I put the magazine in the cart but I pretended to not notice.
After I wrote the check, and Grant picked himself off the floor, we made our way to the car. I was actually feeling pretty smuggly and confident that we were set for just about anything now.....THEN IT HIT ME!!! I turned to Grant and said "OMG....this is a FIRST for US!!!" Hugs were given in the parking lot and Grant pulled back with a look of concern and said "WHAT, is a first for us?" (I think he was trying to figure out if that was the largest check I had written at Costco) I said, "This is our FIRST Natural Disaster......TOGETHER!!" He acted like I was nuts.
Later in the day, the news was informing viewers what to take in the event of an evacuation order. Grant decided that this would actually be a good day to kinda work out a family plan and we should actually prepare as if we were going to evacuate. So.....Grant gathers up the pink slips to the cars, insurance policies, his immigration papers...INCLUDING his Greencard......our passports, birth certificates and marriage certificates and all that practical crap.
Meanwhile, I get my preparedness bag ready. I sort out knit patterns, picked our 5 projects our that I want to make (this was soooo difficult), went through my yarn stash and coordinated the appropriate yarn and quantities with the right patterns. (this was also a tremendous task) I placed each pattern with it's appropriate yarn in those large ziplock bags....the BIG ones. Then I got a change of underwear and my toothbrush, a pillow and a pair of comfy shoes and headed for the living room. Janeva arrives in the living room, with her favorite blanket, a pillow and a stuffed toy and the remote to her tv. Jillian came out with her ENTIRE wardrobe, her entire set of bedding, all of her shoes and her Curling Iron.
Grant has spent the rest of the afternoon and evening, drinking.
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