Diego

Today was so busy - again! - that I barely had time to look around to see what was on my desk top at work.  Here's Diego, a temporary resident until - at least - after the return of the Santa Ana winds next week (please: no.  Please make it rain ...).  He actually belongs to Alice, and looks as though he might bolt and clatter off on his purple hooves at any moment.

Behind him, dimly - and with an discolored sky, for such is the unsustainability of whatever ink I used - is a drawing of Runswick, in West Yorkshire, that I did as a Christmas present for my grandmother in 1975, only she died ten days before Christmas that year, and so I kept it.  I hope that she would have liked it: she used to go on holiday to this seaside fishing (and artists') village as a little girl, and used to tell a memorable story about being in church one sunny summer's Sunday, and - the church door being open - looking back at the doorway of the cottage in which they were staying, and seeing the lobster that was destined for Sunday lunch walking down the path.  I hope it made it back to the sea ...

 

Wood Pizza's demise

No, nothing to do with the fires - an economic casualty of some kind, I suspect.  Wood Pizza, which had been open for ten years, closed in December: by now, it's boarded up and completely covered in graffiti. It was a mystifying establishment: the pizzas were - average, to say the best - utterly unmemorable, and likewise the atmosphere.  We ate there once or twice when it opened, but it never became a regular ... and nor, it would seem, was it anyone else's favorite.  It usually had just a desultory, scattered few diners - and so, how did it keep going this long?  I guess, in the end, it didn't.

Fires: air still hazy; so many lives absolutely upended.  But, for now, the winds have died down, even if the fires themselves are burning on, albeit with ever-improving containment.  It's Wednesday - it feels like Friday.

 

particulate matter

Beautiful clear days may well be deceptive, although of course, in fact, the golden haze of the sunset, as seen from the USC parking structure roof (more or less over the Palisades fire) should give the game away in the first place.  It might have looked like an idyllic Californian winter's scene, but not all pollution is thick and sooty and like an illustration to Victorian industrialization.  This air, indeed, could well contain asbestos, from properties built before the mid 1980s, and heavy metals, and plastics, and who knows what - such things, I learned today, don't (unlike smoke) show up on air quality indices, which state, unconvincingly, that the AQ is Good today.  It's a good job that we all have stocks of Covid masks, still ...

 

collateral damage

Taking a couple more bags to my USC office for temporary safe keeping - and finding that some of my possessions look surprisingly happy there - I wasn't pleased to hear a clunk of this (I had thought carefully wrapped) mug against stone - and the handle broke off.  It's mendable - this is no major deal.  The mug belonged - a christening present, maybe? - to my great grandfather, William Arthur Parker - a shoddy manufacturer (i.e. someone making blankets, etc out of recycled clothes) in Hanging Heaton, near Batley, near Leeds.  I'm not distressed by having to glue together the handle: this seems quite sensible since almost all my parents' ornaments and antiques have been lovingly mended in their time: not only was this how they could afford them, but my father took enormous pride in the neatness of all his careful repair work.  

Meanwhile, outside, we're told to expect horrible, gale force winds again tonight.  It was actually great to be on campus, and catch up with others, and even to teach - but so many stories, all harrowing, in various ways.  I've been pretty impressed by the displays of human resilience: given how jangled I am, I can't believe that everyone else is as inwardly calm as they appear to be outwardly.  They can't be.  I'm sure there's a metaphor in that mug, somewhere, but I'm not forcing it.

 

Fiddling, Rome, burning etc.

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.

 

evac and back

We couldn't sleep. None of us could sleep.  I kept looking out of the window at the flames from the Palisades fire, and the huge red glow in the sky (about seven miles from where we were staying, and about the same from our house).  And once it was light, then we were back watching endless live TV footage, very much of it of planes and helicopters dropping water on the Mandeville Canyon fire - which meant getting aerial views of a house belonging to a friend of ours.  We so hope it makes it: we were so impressed by the firefighting techniques, whether from the air or the ground - an absolute case study on what a difference is made when the wind is gentle enough to let aircraft up.  

Moth is, in fact, illuminated by a large globe.  We headed home to pack up some more things and take them to relative safety -for these big fires are by no means tamed yet, and the winds are getting up again over the next couple of days - so we remain very nervous.  But we have power back, and the back yard looked wonderful - a reminder of why, despite all, we live in Los Angeles.

And, of course, because we have jobs here ... and that means that we have offices into which we can decant our possessions.  Indeed, back down at USC, it was hard to realize that there are fires raging away - which in turn perhaps explains the ongoing tone-deafness of our administration.  So ... one day, or at least some of it, in which to do my teaching prep - assuming, or at least hoping, that there'll be no fiery interruptions.  

The sonic backdrop to this week will be the pinging of the Watch Duty app - which gives us updates and more updates on the fires, and the sound of sirens.  

Wish us a quiet night.

 

evacuation, day 2 - calm to newly terrifying

For much of today, things seemed quieter: very little wind, and therefore a sense that the firefighters were getting a grip on the fires.  And then this evening, the plume from the Palisades fire started getting thicker; and a couple of hours back exploded again, with television images of huge flames moving west and north.  Indeed, still not much wind - but it's due to come back.  And arsonists seem to be setting little fires in various other places - so far, not spread by wind - but also terrifying.  And yes, more emails from USC about Monday's teaching, paired with emails arriving from students saying their parents' house has burnt down, etc.  I can't imagine getting much sleep tonight - and if this gets worse, then what?  We were hoping to head back to our house tomorrow, but it's so close to Griffith Park, it doesn't feel safe to me.  But.

The fruit above?  Pomelos.  Exotic Californian thingies.  I guess that a dream of lotus (or pomelo) eating in the citrus state isn't quite working out.