Smoke

I took this picture last night from the kitchen window as the smoke rolled in like fog. Only it wasn't like fog at all because it was brown and smelled like smoke. A red sun sank, exhausted  behind the mountains.

I woke up a 5am and couldn't sleep, so I got up and read comments from so many of you wonderful Blippers. It IS very cheering to know that so many people all over the world are thinking of us. And I realize that writing a daily report gives me something to focus on. I'm writing this early so I can post it before they turn the power off at 4pm...maybe or earlier, or later....

As we were driving to the store for a few provisions the phone blared in my pocket with the news that the towns of Windsor and Healdsburg were being evacuated. High winds are expected later today which will cause the fire up there to burn more erratically and they want to give everybody time to get out of town in an orderly manner...I texted Kathy and offered them a place to stay but they are outside the city limits of Windsor and are hanging tight.

Dana sent me the picture of the Command Center at the fairgrounds here* which she passed on the way to Costco. She said she liked the field of tents and the rows of bulldozers, but couldn't get close enough to get a good picture. Somebody has been trying to plan ahead...

...but it isn't PG&E. OilMan got the usual vague and uninformative message last night that we have learned to read as: "you will be affected but we can't really tell you how, when or for how long....Haven't heard anything more until about an hour ago when we got the same message again. I told OilMan that it looked like the PG&E brass had already evacuated. "No. he said. It's the weekend. They don't work on weekends...."

As we walked back to the car from Whole Foods, a group of men carrying plastic wrapped formal wear were gathered around a car. One of them was saying, "The wedding is cancelled, Windsor is under mandatory evacuation. Put all that stuff in the back and let's get out of here...."

OilMan was determined not to throw away another Blue Apron box of food, so he cooked quite an elaborate meal featuring barley Japanese veggies and seasoning while I boiled some eggs, cooked some green beans and potatoes and made some salad dressing  so I could wash everything before the water goes away. We'll be eating salad, and cheese and crackers, and peanut butter and apples for the next couple of days. We've packed our bags too, mostly because there's nothing else to do.

It's a strange way to live, a sort of nightmarish deja vu . We have invited the neighbors over for a glass of wine. They are both retired from the Air Force and are good at coping with all kinds of emergencies. And, they have a generator....

*extra