Improvements in Small Steps

I am back to 10-fingered typing. The arm still feels like lead, but at least I'm able to keep up with my thoughts and not look at my fingers. I feel like I'm pounding on an old manual typewriter, though, in terms of the finger strength I don't have.

Since I last posted, I've been out of the cast and into a brace. Surgery was avoided. I figure I'm probably another month from getting back on Ace--getting on isn't the problem, but I do need the left arm to get off and I haven't started physical therapy yet. I'm allowed to start weaning myself from the brace by taking it off to sleep, which I've now done for two nights. It makes it easier to jump in the shower in the morning, which does make me happy.

During the day, I'm not willing to give it up because I'm emptying boxes. We finished moving out of the rental house on Sunday night. Instead of going to our traditional Oscar-watching party, I stayed at the house and packed up Len's office. His mistake. I was able to throw away a lot of his junk and junk food (not the marzipan, dear, it's in that rolling bag in your office) while he was at our house with friends. When the Oscars were over, everyone showed up with cars and carted the rest of the boxes back to our house. I did a final cleaning, and I think we left the house in really good shape. Me, not so much.

Our house looks quite nice inside, but it is no larger than before. What's particularly nice is that the front third of the house is open. The kitchen finally has a logical lay-out and a pantry. The cabinets look very nice. I got it cleared up enough to make dinner last night. Pictures will be forthcoming. Biggest complaints: there's never enough counter space and the contractor didn't listen when I said the sink was to be a single tub large sink. He put in a double sink where one side is larger and deeper than the other, but not large enough for a turkey roaster to be put for soaking. I waited 15 years to get that sink in our renovated kitchen and I had the use of it for less than two years. Someday when I get to build my real dream kitchen, I'll have one.

There is now a breakfast counter. It is not exactly what I had in mind and it also means there's no place to put my round table when it comes back from storage. I knew there would not be room for my great-grandmother's Hoosier kitchen base, and that's a shame because every built-in counter in the house is too high for me. I guess the new normal height for a woman is 5'8". My friend Gillian, who is around 6' tall, would be very happy in it. My Hoosier kitchen has a work space that is probably 7-9" lower than my new counters--much easier for chopping & rolling out pie dough.

Photos will be forthcoming. Maybe even of the mallard couple who decided that our pool was their private playground after the fire. When Dexter saw them through the bedroom window on Saturday morning, he was very clear that he knew exactly what his purpose in life was. It was hysterical.

Autumn Arrives

I seem to have found a few days of respite. I finished a blog that will be posted elsewhere (and I'll do a link when it finally gets put up), provided the accountant with information for our taxes (which we'll file after Len adds money to his retirement fund later today), and I'm ready to take an overnight trip to Phoenix to the wedding of my first-cousin-once-removed (whom I look forward to meeting.) I hear the weather will be warmer than it is here in L.A. right now.

The rain started on Monday night as I drove home from talking about copyright to the Women's Artistic Network in Camarillo. It came down much harder yesterday and I had trouble sleeping because of the noise on the plastic awning outside our bedroom window. I hope that the roofers covered things at our house, because I would hate to lose to the rain the rest of the comic books in the garage that the thieves didn't get.

There will be no riding today. Gayle said she's cutting trenches and Ace is irritated that she's not feeding him every time she walks in and out of the gate. I hear that the Santa Cruz area got 10" of rain, scary for the areas where there was fire earlier this year. My friend Erin can't get to her horses again because of mud-slide fears in the L.A. burn areas. Roads have been closed, but we haven't had quite the levels of rain the north has, at least not yet.

We do need the rain. I hope it brings the roses at my house back from near dead. I went into my garden and looked at dead grape vines and tomato plants and herbs and wanted to cry. I had finished planting the garden, putting several hundred dollars into it, the night before the fire. What a shame.

A Sense of Normalcy

We threw a party on Sunday to thank everyone who pitched in with post-fire help and got us settled into the rental house, which happens to be a great party house. It's got a large, built-in gas grill (somewhat larger than our own propane grill, which we did bring down from our place for safe-keeping) and enough patios to give everyone a place to hang out. There were more than 30 people who came by, which was almost everyone who dug through ashes, loaded cars, counted rags, rearranged the garage, babysat Dexter, or did anything else to help during the crisis. And, after all, what would Memorial Day Weekend be if the Wein-Valada household didn't throw a barbecue?

The big hit of the weekend was a 5-compartment plexiglass gizmo I bought for Len last year which keeps condiments chilled over a bed of ice. It's got a cover, so bugs don't get in. Several of our friends who do a lot of parties ooohed and ahhed over it. I see presents in their futures.

Our friend Gillian Horvath, who had put us up for the nights between the loss of our own bedroom and moving into the rental house, brought a "house cooling" present: a butter bell. We had cooed over the one she had when she explained what it was and what it did. She figured we hadn't had time or thought to buy one for ourselves, but she saw when she arrived that wasn't so. I got one at Le Cruset in cobalt on Saturday, which Gillian saw when she came in to the kitchen. So she suggested I pass her gift on (mathom-style--read Tolkein for the reference) and I shall. As it happens, I was gushing about the joy of room-temperature butter at dinner last week and it will be regifted to the person who helped us bring our new television to the house.

Len tried out the automatic hot-dog turner that Harlan Ellison had given him last year. Many of the barbecue implements were saved from the fire because they were stored outside in the "barzebo" or the file cabinets on the back patio at our house. It worked well until either the batteries slowed down or grease got into the works. We're hoping that the cleaning I did yesterday brought it back to life.

Last Tuesday, I went over to the packers/restorers warehouse and went through 80 boxes of stuff from my kitchen to pick out things I needed to feel settled in the rental (and so I could entertain.) Highest on that last were my 14-cup Cuisinart and my 5-quart Kitchen-Aid mixer, without which I believe no kitchen is complete. I also brought my Oster blender home. I must say this about J.J. Cherokee. They know how to clean things. I don't think the blender has looked this good since it came out of the box. They must have taken things apart to clean them, because the metal clip that holds the Kitchen-Aid bowl in place was upside down (easily fixed), but they did an incredibly thorough job.

I brought home 17 boxes, including one I hadn't intended to bring with me. We're expecting several more boxes once the contents have been cleaned, plus the two boxes with stemware that were accidentally left behind when I came home from the warehouse (containing the missing stemware.) I am so glad to have most of my stainless flatware back, because we kept running out of forks.

Because I had the blender, my friend Michael Olecki made margaritas. Except for a bottle of wine, the tequila and Grand Marnier were the only alcohols in the house (guess what I drink on those rare occasions that I do.) There were two bottles of Temequila blood orange mixer (purchased at the Hollywood Farmers Market) in the refrigerator for that very purpose. Michael said "the only thing missing from your parties is a bar, but I realize you and most of your friends don't drink." We do sometimes, but only in moderation. When I pulled out the tequila, he said "you know this is aged, right?" Yes, I told him. Who wants margaritas with crappy tequila? The margaritas were a big hit, and Michael loves to bartend. The only problem was, none of my stemware is back from the cleaners yet so we had to make do with small portions in big glasses or plastic cups. Not a dissaster by any measure, since it was all about the company.

Michael's wife Karen Bodner and I went to college together and we were both second-career lawyers in IP. She does trademarks, I do copyrights. We became friends after I met her at an interview for a summer clerkship out here in L.A., almost 20 years after we had graduated from New College at Hofstra University. She and Gillian are my two favorite people to have in the kitchen with me at Thanksgiving, because we work very well together. We have spent Christmases with Karen and Michael since about our 5th anniversary, and they are the closest thing we've got to family in Los Angeles. Karen went right to work prepping celery for snacking along with the carrots and getting the cheese out on the beautiful Nambe cheese and cracker server I bought for myself after the fire. You can tell what I consider nessesities by that and by what else I made sure I got back from the cleaners: two dozen appetizer plates which have a slot to hold a stemmed glass and the four dozen small square amuse bouche plates that can take a couple of tidbits so people can graze.

I think we'll be doing a lot of entertaining in the new house.

Monday morning was the first time I've slept late since the fire happened. I think the tequila helped.

Fire Report

I thought I would post a few pictures of the fire aftermath. Here is one of the few Breyer horses I owned, the Christmas Arabian Knight from a few years back. The cellophane window has melted onto the horse. He's a total loss. Fortunately, the ceramic chestnut Arabian they did for a Christmas ornament around the same time was in the garage and survived just fine

In the second photograph, we have the remains of several Wolverine figures. I don't know if they can be replaced. There's one Sideshow Collectibles diorama which I found disfigured and is definitely too expensive to buy again.














We had a bookcase in the hallway between the bedrooms. It had only paperbacks on it, some of them quite old and some of them worth a good deal of money to collectors. The third picture is what the upper part of the bookshelf looked like. There were 9 or 10 shelves altogether. The books on the lower part looked better, but only because the framed posters that stood in front of the shelf protected them from the flames. Most of them were fused together or water damaged. They fell to pieces in my hand when I tried to remove them. My insurance agent wanted me to list each one of the books. I can't even see what many of them were.














In a shelf that kitty-cornered this one (picture an L, where our bedroom door is near the angle of the bend, the shelf shown was on the underside of the base line of the L, then there was another bookshelf--Len's brag shelf, then my son's door was on the same side of the baseline near the serif, his bathroom was at the serif, the door to Len's office was opposite the door to Michael's room and kitty-corner shelf was to the left of Len's door) were a pretty complete set of DC and Marvel Showcases--hardback reprints of comic books. They were all in mint condition, complete with pristine jackets. Many were still shrink-wrapped, and they fused together shelf by shelf.














The fourth photograph gives you a sense of what the back of the house looked like after the fire. The plywood covers what used to be the windows to our bedroom. The roof rafters are covered with plastic, in case it rains. There were more than 30 bags filled with clothing, blankets, shoes, and books in the pile, and that didn't even come close to containing all of the debris. To the left of the area in the picture are two hugepiles of wood and roofing material and what was left of the furniture from the room. There were various other piles of clothing, books, DVDS, and belongings down the middle of the lawn.

I'm picturing a second story and/or a build-out that goes to where the gate should be on the fence in the rebuilt house. Maybe a windowseat looking out at the pool or a balcony on a scond level. We need the space, and if we aren't going to find a different house, we should make the most of the one we've got. It's in a great location, although I'd prefer one where I could have Ace in the back yard.

The pool is pretty disgusting, but a mated pair of mallards have been calling it home for several weeks. I don't think there's a nest--at least I haven't found one. I've startled them several times when I've walked into the pool area. It's amazing they can get themselves into the air at an angle of about 80 degrees.














Once I realized it had to be there somewhere, I spent a lot of time over the past month looking for my high school ring. I found it in the ash near the house on Sunday. all I saw was the plain gold of the back side of the ring, and the color appears to be redder than it once was, no doubt thanks to the heat. I'm really glad I found it because it became terribly important to me that it be found. I'm still remembering pieces of jewelery that haven't been found and probably won't be: the gold ring as wide all around this one is in front that has five ovals of different colored jade, the black pearl drop necklaces and earrings we've had made from pearls we've gotten from oysters at the county fair, a lovely rhinestone bracelet, a fused-glass horse pin, the Noble Collection horse-head pin from the Lord of the Rings collection, a moon-face ear cuff and a necklace with charms based on The Hobbit from Marty Magic. A few of the pieces that wound up as silver slag were new enough that I could order replacements, but most cannot be replaced that easily. I'm hoping the Lord of the Rings piece will show up on E-bay. I will eventually take all of the silver lumps to a jeweler and have a new piece made. I'm thinking about a phoenix (ah, yes, the symbology) or a horse jumping through a hoop of fire.

The New House

We got moved in on Friday, with a bunch of friends gathering at Gillian Horvath's to collect the stuff we brought there to the new house. The downside is that the new house smells of smoke from the old stuff, but we've got to have the old stuff with us (taxes must be finished, you know.)

I think there must be some kind of a racket going on with the rental furniture. When the stuff arrived, it had no relationship to what the woman and I discussed on the phone. Where I asked for light woods, I got dark wood--virtually black. Where I asked for a king sized bed and a full sized bed, I got two queens. Where I asked for a desk, intending it for computers, I got "writing desks" which really aren't appropriate. She told me there wasn't a catalog. She lied. The place our furniture is coming from has an on-line catalog. I would have chosen different, and cheaper, pieces than she sent me. I'm used to a 26 cubic foot refrigerator with an ice maker and a water dispenser. They sent a 19 cubic foot refrigerator with almost no freezer space--totally inadequate. It's only for a limited time and I can live with almost anything for a limited time. We did get the mattresses replaced and now I can't wait to buy our own again since the rentals are not comfortable.

I made the right decision to not rent household necessities. They charge outrageous amounts to rent dishes, linens, and those sorts of things. We're paying less to buy them than the amount that would have been wasted in rent and we need to buy them anyway. A friend has offered to throw us a "restocking shower" and I'm looking forward to that for the rest of the linens and things we need.

We still have no phone. Time Warner Cable has yet to relinquish Len's number of 22 years back to AT&T. So people calling the house are getting the usless message to try again. If I could have convinced Len to cancel our cable and Internet service with TW, I would have done so gladly. He wasn't happy about switching out the phone service, but he'll thank me someday. TW said we couldn't move our number 3 blocks south of our damaged house. AT&T had no problem and it's sending a check to thank us for "coming home to AT&T." A monopoly is a good to have for some things. Why AT&T was forced to break up is foolish in retrospect.

If I owe you a phone call or e-mail, this is why you haven't heard from me.

We got our hero dog Dexter back from my friend Suzanne on Friday evening, and he now has a house where he can look out the windows onto the world. He loves it. Michael likes having a real bed again, instead of the loft mattress, and likes the fact that Dex can join him on the bed.

I love have a window over the kitchen sink, so I can look out at the pretty flowers around the landscaped front yard while scrubbing soot off my Stangl dishes (Country Garden, which looks quite cute in the new space.)

Suzanne found the Nambe cheese and crackers server I fell in love with when I was in Santa Fe in November and brought one back to me from her quick trip there last week. I've asked for the rest of my Nambe back from the packers and I'll display it as well. I'd like to get some art up on the walls and at least one Wolverine and one Swamp Thing statue on the mantle. Then it will look like home.

We've found flatscreen HD televisions for Len's desk and our bedroom and want to get a large TV for the living room. We've seen one we like, but we've got to find someone with a truck to get it home from Costco. It's too tall for the back of my SUV. Cable and Internet arrive tomorrow.

Now, I've got to find a dress and shoes for the Nebula Awards ceremony on Saturday night. The truly impossible mission.

Fire Damage

To look at the front of the house, you really wouldn't know anything was wrong. Except for the smoke-enhanced cobwebs and the growing pile of trash, it looks like a complete house. Inside, it's a different story.

There are boxes holding things we might be able to save and other boxes marked "total loss." The smoke engulfed the house, so even things which were not scorched may be lost forever. The master bedroom and its bath are totally charred and empty. What was in them was thrown out into the back and side yards and we've been digging through the piles ever since, trying to assess the loss.

Art throughout the rest of the house is also damaged to a greater or lesser extent: we pulled some boxes out of Michael's room and discovered that the container sides which were against the wall of our bedroom were scorched. The were all covered with soot and eveything smells of smoke. Paper just soaks up that smell.

While framed work generally fared better than unframed work, my signed and numbered print (#2, actually) of the Michael Whelan painting The Eagles Are Coming from a 1980s Tolkien calendar melted in its frame. Fortunately, the pencil sketch on tracing paper of Sam and Frodo done for the full-sized painting, survived although it will have to be reframed. A painted color study of Yoda which Michael did for the cover of My Jedi Journal has smoke damage but should be o.k. Ditto two Frank Frazetta drawings. Most of the framed movie posters that were in the hall, including all three of the X-men films, the two new Batman films, and the two Swamp Thing films are pretty much ruined. My poster of the first of the new Zorro films, autographed by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, may be o.k. once it is reframed. The lobby cards for Swamp Thing are pretty much ruined. There was a 16 x 20 pencil drawing of Captain America that Jack Kirby did for Len as a get well card more than 40 years ago, which is in pretty bad shape.

In my office, the framed celebrity photographs I took when I used to freelance for the Washington Post are not visible because the soot is that bad. I hope they can be cleaned or reframed, because I don't have those negatives. The half-dozen framed prints from the science fiction portrait project, which were in "floater" frames are probably not salvageable, but I do own those negatives. My Epson 2400 printer has been declared a total loss, like all of the electronics in the house, wherever they were.

The few items hanging in the living room, like the diptych Michael Whelan did of the cover of Marion Zimmer Bradley's Bloody Sun, may need reframing, but will be o.k. I'll learn to live with any smoke smell from that, thank you. The statuary and awards that were on the mantle may be too damaged to salvage.

Len's office, which had an entire wall covered with awards and sketches, is in very bad shape. His Shazam Awards, which had been sealed on wood mounts are charred, melted, and not replaceable. He had a number of portraits of himself done by people like Sergio Aragones and Frank Kelly Freas which may be ruined beyond repair. Sergio's still alive, but Kelly died a number of years ago. I'm not sure how many of Len's original scripts, which a university recently requested for their collection, will survive. We haven't had a chance to get that far into things.

On Saturday, we did a repacking of our garage in case that all has to be moved out as well. Among the papers were found were a hand-written note from Alan Moore to Len which accompanied the delivery of the first issue of Watchmen. And that's why I keep referring to things as our archeological dig.

I will eventually post a few pictures, but I've got to replace some of my computer equipment before I start downloading images.

Lessons from the Fire, continued.

Eight, newspapers do a poor job of reporting and don't even bother with the who, what, when, where, how, and why these days. Here's a report about the fire and a picture in the Daily News. Here's a bigger version of the photograph. Wouldn't it have made a better story if the headline had read "Wolverine Creator Safe, Original Wolverine Art Destroyed in Early Morning Fire." I do appreciate them noticing the dog's loss, though. And here's a video report from the LAPD, which has a video which is not actually our house.

Nine, have a great relationship with your insurance agent. Ours was immediately responsive, came to the house as soon as he could, and got good people there, protecting us from the vultures who respond to the fire department calls in order to snag 10% of your insurance coverage as "independent appraisers." We are not anywhere near being at war with our insurance company, who did a good job after the 1994 earthquake.

Ten, realize that when a fire engulfs your bathroom and bedroom, you're going to go shopping. If you like shopping, it's a real plus. If you are indifferent, its not so great. I am particularly sorry to loose the brand new paddock boots and lacers that were in the closet in reserve. And my rarely worn cowboy boots. And my worn once black dress boots. And the clothes I thought I would wear to the Nebula Awards banquet. The only clothes I had left were the ones I was wearing to work that morning.

Things I've Learned from the Fire, Part 1

On Monday, about half an hour after I got to work, I got a scary call. "There's been a small fire at your house."

"Small, what do you mean small."

"You'll have to come home to see and judge for yourself. Your husband and son are safe."

One of our dogs was not. Our beloved Sheba, scared and confused, got away from Len and ran back into the house. She died of smoke inhalation in her "safe space." We are heartbroken. All the rest is just stuff. Unfortunately, some of it was very valuable stuff. That's the downside of being collectors where value appreciates but insurance rates for those things are astronomical.

The first thing I've learned from the fire is never ignore a dog when he's trying to tell you something. Len thought the smell of smoke was outside, not inside. Dexter was wimpering, and trying to get Len to leave the house. Eventually, Len left his office and realized the problem was in our bedroom, got Michael out of bed, grabbed the dogs and called the fire department when they got outside.

Second, store store valuables in a Lane Chest. The outside is charred, the inside pristine. If the art had been in that, it would still be with us, because what wasn't charred, was water damaged.

Third, it takes a very long time for wood to actually burn. It can char, but to totally eat away at it would have taken much, much longer. My beloved six-month-old table in the living room is fine, but of the six 18" leaves in my hall closet, three are kind of charred, and there may be some water damage and scratching from the firemen throwing the out into a pile of rubbish including most of the roof of our bedroom, but I think they'll be restorable. If not, I'll be getting a new table when we move back home--someday. So if you don't have a Lane Chest, use really good wood dressers and cabinets, and keep the doors closed.

Four, if you live in an older house, with electric wall heaters you have never used in the 22 years you've owned a home, get them removed. The firemen think that some sort of a power surge went through our lines, heating the unit which we have never, ever turned on, and setting fire (I'll bet to dust first) to my laundry hamper and from there it went up. I would not have kept things close to a unit we actually used, and I think some of the news reports have given a mistaken impression of what happened.

Five, and I knew this before, good friends are worth more than all of the gold stored in New York City. On Tuesday, we had 10 friends doing an archeological dig in the debris that had been thrown our of our now stripped bedroom and bath, looking for any of our jewelery that might be intact. We've been surprised by what we have found and what hasn't shown up, when things were originally next to each other or in the same container.

Six, store all jewelery in boxes (preferably a closed jewelery box) and not on any plexiglass display--they melt. They will probably make excellent works of modern art someday, somewhere, but I've lost countless necklaces and earings. My engagement ring, an opal ring my ex-husband gave me, and a black pearl ring were all in a small cardboard ring box in my top dresser drawer. My underwear melted, but I've got my rings unharmed. We have yet to find anything we can identify as our 22" television set except a twisted, stretched piece of plastic which might have covered the screen. My horse jewelery was in display boxes on top of it. We've only found some of the pieces, in varying conditions. We are thrilled that we found the beautiful horse and malachite necklace and earing set Len had made for me last Christmas, especially that my friends found all three pieces. I know that they were in a box that must have been damaged, because we haven't found it or other pieces that were in the same cardboard box.

Seven, silver melts. But not all the time. I think I have found a heavy lump of silver which may have been my Rohirrim-inspired horse head pin from the Noble Collection of Lord of the Rings collectibles. Both pendants Len bought me in December and the one I bought in February are missing, but may be some of the smaller puddles of silver we've found. We need to borrow a metal detector. Pot metals and gold seemed to fare better, but not always. An 18 karat Italian gold ring I bought in Florence will need to be reshaped, because it bent, but it cleaned up with no effort. I have no idea where my box of cultured pearls that I've collected over the years at the county fair have wound up. Some of my pearl jewelery is just fine, so I don't know how fire affects pearls. I do recall from The Man from U.N.C.L.E. that they can dissolve in wine, so if an acid formed in the room, that may be where they went.

We did have insurance. We are greatly inconvenienced, but not destitute. And we still have a sense of humor about this.

Fire Season Part 4

We got an unexpected holiday yesterday when the president closed down the school at 10 a.m. I got out about 11:30, caught some lunch, and went to check on Ace. Gayle had moved Ace back to his own barn because the air was so much better than it had been the day before and there were no close hot spots from the fire. In fact, once I got off campus, I thought the air was so much better than it had been on Monday that I couldn't figure out why they had closed down school. (AQMD had rated the air really bad, but gave an all-clear for Wednesday.)

I could see smoke occasionally curl up from behind the ridges, but the worst of the fire had moved on to Simi Valley to the west. Ace was settled in with clean water and I gave him his snack before I left. His meal buckets were already for today. We won't be riding for a few days--time to let the air and his lungs clear out. The vet Gayle consulted said the horses will begin coughing, which shouldn't worry us unless it is accompanied by fever. The coughing will get rid of the crap in their lungs, since we couldn't find horsey dust masks to put over their noses. I wish we could have gotten those goggle masks which are put on race horses. The fly masks don't help much, but they were better than nothing for keeping goop out of their eyes.

The wind is down to nothing this morning, but it promises to be very hot with humidity less than 10%, so the red flag warnings are still up. The Senson/Porter Ranch fire is 20% contained, but I can't see any smoke on the San Fernando Valley side of the mountains. This is a good thing.

Fire Season, Part 3

Ace had a lot to say about his current living arrangement and kept calling to me when I left the barn last night. The winds keep shifting, but so far things are north and way west of where he is. The air, however, is a different story. I wish there was a mask we could put over their noses to keep them from breathing in this smoke.

I had no trouble getting to him last night, even though the news report talked about heavy street traffic. I went to his boarding facility and picked up his Strongid and snack, which I took to him and then cleaned out his stall. It's a good thing he's gotten used to the goats at FEC--he hated the Boer goats when he was at Pierce and now two of them are in the pen next to him. Ally, the Arabian filly that boarded near his stall at Ranch at the Falls was in the Arena at FEC--that barn had a mandatory evacuation yesterday morning. Fire was my big fear the entire time Ace lived there, because it was right on the hills and there have been bad fires there in the recent past. If the FEC horses have to evacuate, they will be going to the Ventura County Fairgrounds, because there is no place closer with space, including here at Pierce.

The air is not as bad as it was yesterday morning, nor as good as it was when I left work yesterday. I didn't hear the winds pick up until early this morning, but they were bad up in the hills. In addition to the uncontained Porter Ranch fire, the flames moved east to Granada Hills and one of my co-workers discovered the house where she rents a room was being evacuated as she started to come to work at 5. I think she's happy that most of her personal property is in storage somewhere in the south part of L.A. She says she grabbed both of the first edition books she had that were signed by Bill and Hillary Clinton and got out.

Len and I discussed where the artwork is that will pay for a new house (above the insurance pay-off.) My computer and hard drives where I keep my digital images is packed and ready to go. If we had to evacuate, I'd also try to get the four drawers of the file cabinet housing my 20 years of portraits of science fiction writers and artists into boxes and into the car. They are my most valuable assets, much more valuable than my saddles, which can be replaced. Harlan Ellison called last night to let us know we can go to his place, along with Michael and our "two dogs." Harlan missed the memo that there are three of them again.

We're going to be all right. Our house is going to be all right. There's 7 miles between us and the fires. It's Ace's lungs which may not be all right.

Fire Season Part 2

What a difference a few hours makes. Porter Ranch is up in smoke, very close to where Ace is. I'm having my trainer move him to be with her horses, in case of an evacuation. I got a call saying they could bring him to Pierce, but I don't want to do that--yet. The news reports have the fire skirting Chatsworth and heading down into the canyons on the way to Malibu. The evacuation area is north and west of where Ace is--and includes the barn he was at 18 months ago. I'll get to him in about two hours, unless traffic is blocked. I'm a lot more stressed than I was this morning.

Fire Season

The winds are hitting 65 mph and the air is moving from north east to south west, so we are getting the residue from the fires burning in Hansen Dam. Hansen Dam is a big horse area in Los Angeles, but I think the horses are being evacuated to the Los Angeles Equestrian Center in Burbank, which is probably six miles south of the fires.

At the moment, Pierce College is really in no shape to accept horses because of the construction going on by the stables to put in the new arenas. The school horse lots are also under construction, so the school horses are taking up the 18 stalls of the mare motel. I just heard my boss indicate that there's a new flare-up somewhere, so despite the construction, we may be getting evacuated animals before the day is out.

Right now, the north west corner of the valley where Ace is still has clear air. The wind direction is still to the east . When I went up to the Performing Arts Building parking lot this morning, there was a clear division between smoky air and clean air, but it was creeping westward. I won't be able to upload pictures until later.

Fire Plans

I went over our fire evacuation plan with Gayle last night because it just feels like a firestorm is coming. Last night the winds were pretty strong and combined with the dry heat, we've got a disaster in the making.

The FEC horses go to Moorpark or Hansen Dam if there's a problem in Chatsworth--depending on where a fire is. Moorpark got burned out pretty badly two years ago. My girlfriend relayed the problems of getting her giant alpha Holsteiner mare evacuated. The last big fire along the ridge of hills in Chatsworth was three years ago. Where Ace is was in no danger of fire, but the smoke was bad there. Last year, the smoke from the fire in Malibu was pretty bad in the West Valley where I had him then.

When Ace was at Pierce, fire was not a worry because Pierce is an evacuation center for horses and other livestock in emergencies. Several times, we were threatened that they were going to put evacuated horses in either the inside or outside stalls where our horses resided. Can you imagine the stupidity of doing that with horses whose immunization and health histories aren't known? Fortunately, we were able to stop that from happening, but I noticed during the evacuation last year, the indoor/outdoor stalls became two holding pens and horses were in all of them. I don't want Ace brought to Pierce during an evacuation unless I can get one of my friends living in Melody Acres to let me walk him over there!

The fire evacuations are enlightening. You realize how much better care you take of your horses than most people do. Several years ago, people brought in a small herd of Arabians, including a 30+ year old stallion. They were all in pitiful state, but him especially. It looked like he hadn't been groomed in years, and his feet desperately needed trimming. His teeth must have needed floating because he was nothing but skin and bones. Animal control should have confiscated all six of the horses from these owners. There was a sweet young filly I could have been convinced to adopt. Unfortunately, they were all sent home with their owner.

Ace trailer loads pretty well. He does need a few minutes to consider the box, but he stands well when he gets in and will eat any treats left for him. He's always pretty anxious to get out, however. He'll load a step-up or a ramp, thanks to a lot of work by Rod Bergen. Around here, everyone needs to make sure their horses load with little hesitation. Emergency evacuation teams will leave horses behind when there's no time to waste.

The dry hills of the California summer are something that's still a disconnect to me. I grew up in the western foothills of the Catskills. I often miss the green. Flooding has been a problem in my home town several times over the past few years, but I can't remember a fire that engulfed even an acre of land when I was growing up there. Too wet.

Excitement We Don't Need

We've had an exciting few days at home, not in a particularly good way.

On Saturday evening, we lit the menorah (a nice mixed marriage celebrates all the fun holidays) and were watching television. When Len shouted "oh my god!" I thought he had recognized the actress on the Burke's Law episode we were watching, but no. The table cloth behind me was going up in flames. Somehow, one of the candles had dripped or toppled, setting the cloth on fire. Before we got it out, the table was charred, one of the chair seats was melted, my son's jacket was melted (fortunately, not the side with the PS2 and games in the pockets), some newspapers caught fire, and black ash landed everywhere. And the supper I had just started to eat was all over my chair as I rushed to grab a blanket to smother the fire. That's truly a way to get adrenaline pumping.

On Sunday night, after we went to bed, we heard one of our beloved golden retrievers sounding like she was in the race for her life. If you've ever watched dogs, you know they must dream about things like chasing rabbits, because when they are asleep you can see eye movement and sometimes their legs start to run. But you can usually wake them up. We could not get Muffin to stop and she began to foam at the mouth. Finally, it did stop and Len took her to the vet in the morning. Her tests came back fine, but she's had three seizures like that since Sunday night and has trouble getting on her feet afterward. Len's calling the vet again today.

Our other golden, Sheba, turns 13 this week. We got her from a rescue when she was 7 months old. Muffin will be 13 in February. We've had her since she was two months old. They are great dogs who almost never bark (Sheba doesn't like the gardeners) and they have us well-trained.

Fire Season upon Us

This is the view that KNX is showing of the Los Angeles County fires mere minutes ago. It's accurate, because I am looking at the layer of dirty air above me. On the photograph, the spot marked closest to the ocean is the Malibu fire. The one almost perpendicularly north is the Stevenson Ranch fire, and that's the one I've got to keep an eye on, because its march to the sea could include Chatsworth where the Arabian Prince is in residence.

It's a bit like tornado weather around here, except there is no wet and the sky is brown instead of that sickly green that the mid-west gets as a storm approaches. Without the fires, I might even call it "Earthquake Weather," a phrase and title from Tim Power's work. "Earthquake Weather" doesn't usually have this kind of wind. It is warm and dry. The humidity is less than 10%. This is tinderbox time.

As I look out the window to the north, I can see blue sky between the cloudcast and the horizon, but just beyond the hills is black smoke from the fire to the north. Looking out the south window, it is evenly overcast, with the sun making the view a bit warmer than I would expect this time of the afternoon.

The air smells and tastes terrible. My throat hurts every time I take a deep breath. My eyes itch and weep. And I want to rip my skin off.

My friend Jack Dann arrived from Australia last night. He's beginning to think he brings these fires with him, because the last several trips he's made here have been in the Fall, and there were major fires--closer to us, in fact, than they are now. I could see flames from where I am sitting.

We deal with all of the four elements--or are they elementals?--in Southern California: earth, air, fire, and water in the forms of earthquake, wind, fire and floods. Fire and flood sort of alternate. I expect in moderation we would have neither or fewer of each.

That's the price you pay to live in Paradise.