It’s that time of year again, the scary season when the sky turns black in the middle of the day, and sun looks like a huge red ball in the sky.
The light comes through the windows and it’s all wrong, like it’s coming from the wrong direction for the time of day. Orangey-yellow cast to everything inside, and just grey outside if you are dumb enough to venture out.
And the smell. I opened the clothes dryer this morning to empty it, and found that everything in it smelled like smoke. The smell came in through the vent.
Well, I was stupid, for a bit, and discovered this outside my back door. It was swirling around in a little ashy-tornado by my back step.

It was everywhere and it’s really scary because if the ash can come this far, could an ember? I’m all the way in Long Beach, so the fires are pretty far away, but out of the 5 years we’ve lived in this house, this is the most scary ash we’ve had here. In the past, it’s just been the grey fluffy stuff, but this was black and white and grey and everywhere, coiled up in the garden hose, all over the car and collected in little piles by the strange geography of our backyard.

As we stepped over it, J said, “Ugh, that’s probably someone’s back porch.”

I had a great time at my sister’s house for Thanksgiving. She invited the huz and I to her new home in Palm Springs, a place I had never been before. Her house was lovely, and I have to say, I am a bit jealous of her beautiful white walls and large master bedroom.. you see, my house is 60 years old, and the walls are covered in panelling. Most of the walls, that is. One wall in the master bedroom, all the walls in the living/dining/kitchen. I am afraid to take down the panelling because I am afraid to know what’s behind it. It could be plaster walls that are falling apart, it could be nothing (which would explain the cold). It could be satanic curses to all future occupants of the house. Who knows? So I leave up the panelling. I’ve thought of painting it, or hiring painters to do it, so it won’t look like crap. But then I drift off into that if-I-won-the-lottery daydream of just gutting the whole thing and building a house that I want. Who am I kidding — I a)never buy lottery tickets, and b) wouldn’t be living here if I could build the house of my dreams. It would be out in the middle of nowhere where only the UPS man knows, and the cable guy for my internet access.
Anyway, my sister’s house is beautiful, her table was beautiful, and we had a great time. Her Mom was there, with a guy friend, and her father-in-law was there too. I don’t think I had seen him since the wedding or shortly after, at least 10 years ago. It was nice to see her (my sis) as hostess with her Mom as the guest. It’s usually the other way around.
The day after Thanksgiving was the day of wax. My sister is in school to become an esthetician. She practiced on me on Friday, removing all the hair from my legs, and doing a great brow shaping with wax and tweezers. I have to say it wasn’t any more painful having her rip all the hair out of my legs than it is when I pay for it at a spa, so I think she’s going to do a great job when she gets her licence. Now, I am not one who usually shaves my legs, I just wax it off a few times a year, but I picked the wrong weekend to do it. It has been so cold the past few days and my skin isn’t used to being so bare. It makes me extra cold not to have that layer of hair trapping in the warm air. I know, I’ll get over it.
(For those of you keeping score at home, my sister isn’t actually related to me, she’s just my best friend since 1978, and I lived with her and her sisters and Mom for a while and I look at them as my family.)
But back to giving thanks… My huz and I have had some rough stuff to deal with this year, and we have come through it really well, even better than when we started, and for that I am really thankful this year.

Went driving in the neighborhood this afternoon, and turned onto this street and had to take a picture. It looked like it was snowing, with the Jacaranda flowers falling in the breeze, and the tires making a popping sound while driving over them on the pavement. What I liked was that the street was so empty of cars and made it look so desolate.

There are none on my street, save a single tree in the yard of the house directly across from mine. We all have trees that produce strange berries in the fall.

My Grammy passed in April. I went up to Saint John, NB to stay with my Grampy, and I saw my Aunts, Uncles, and my mother for the first time in a while. It was wierd. I ended up with some photos though, and my Grammy’s knitting needles, which is really nice.
What was really strange is seeing all the distant relatives. I remember visiting Saint John as a kid and meeting everyone, but after many, many years, they all look like their parents looked to me 20 years ago. I could tell who was who, because I remembered what their Moms looked like, and could match them up.
There was a neighbor of my Grandparents whose dad built a rocketship treehouse in the back yard. His mom came to the viewing, and was so surprised to see me, she told her son and then later on he came too. I was so wierded out about my Grammy that I didn’t get to talk to him and after I returned home I felt really bad that I hadn’t been able to carry on a normal conversation. Here’s a pic of the rocketship. I scanned an old yellowed photo and tried to balance the color, but it came out a bit tile-y in the sky. I am not a graphic artist, so I am not worried about it.

Yeah, that’s me in the front, in the yellow space suit. 😉 I just thought that was the coolest treehouse I had ever heard of in my life. I still do. I can’t wait to build one for my kids, if they ever appear.
Since returning from Canada, I have poked around on Ancestry.com and found lots of info on my Grampy’s side of the family, back to the 1740s. What really surprised me is that most of the people were born in Canada until the really early years, and even they were born in NY. I always thought they had migrated more recently than that. That’s the maternal side of the family. On the paternal side, I’ve got nothing.

Today, my husband and I got to take the day off from working on the house because we had men there putting the final coat of polyurethane on the newly finished floors. They look really nice and I am really getting excited about moving in. All we really need to do now is clean up and get the handyman in to fix a few little things. Then we can move in!
The whole day was so weird. When I woke, the entire sky was brown, and the sun was an orange ball. We had gone to sleep with the windows open because it was nice and cool Friday night. We got up and closed the windows because there was ash falling and the smell of smoke was in the air. We went outside after noon and I thought it was going to be hot, but it was actually really cool, in the 60’s maybe. It was eerie.

We went to Borders and picked up some books and maps of Paris so that we can come up with an itinerary for our vacation that we are planning for next fall. This will be our first vacation aside from our honeymoon. After Borders, we went to Costco and the market, and the temperature was still quite cool. By the time we got home, I could feel the car being pulled by the wind. The air looked more clear, but the smell of smoke was much stronger and there was ash everywhere.
The devil wind has arrived.
On the news, they mentioned all the fires going on but the news here is so LA-centric that we never figured out which fire was blowing our way. I feel so sad for the 100s of people that have lost their homes. When one person loses their home to a fire, it’s terrible, but someone can offer shelter to them. When 200 homes are destroyed, who can offer shelter to that many people?