A second carload of things had been sitting at the friend's who so kindly put us up for three nights - and we took them off to our USC offices today, not a little upset by meeting the daughter and son in law of some neighbors opposite, who were just off to Altadena to see the ruins of their house - an allocated 10 a.m. slot. That's now five households I know who no longer have homes there in Altadena.
And the winds are due to return tonight, until - maybe - late Wednesday. The forecasters say that they won't be as strong as last time, but that doesn't mean that I'm not already on edge. Very on edge. That's not so much because of the current fires - which are much more under control, although winds can cause so much damage by spreading sparks and cinders, who can really tell - but the fear of new electrical sparking, and even of arsonists and others who light deliberate or thoughtless conflagrations.
And then, yes, there's teaching tomorrow. While I know some students will be horribly affected, others - well, let's just say that this was the scene in Taper Hall today, where lots of sorority girls were tripping around in long diaphanous dresses. When I say "lots," we're talking maybe a hundred - that's quite enough. It would be good to think that they went off to change, and then to help hand out food or bottled water or whatever - and so proving my anger misplaced that here was more USC tone-deafness - of a different kind to that practiced by our administration, but all part of a whole, really. I periodically disintegrate into rants of rage against that administration.
As it was, I - dressed in sweatpants and a ratty tee shirt, pulling a little cart stuffed full of things, wearing a backpack and carrying a little leather suitcase from the 1930s - felt as though I learned exactly how sorority girls (and, indeed, campus security) look at the unhoused.
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