Silly Spike

The best laid plans seem to have been for naught. I certainly foresaw the fact that Spike and wet paint were not a good combination, especially when it was in virtually every room of the house. It was pretty easy to keep him out of it since he is never far from me, but I had an appointment and when I got home there was no hiding the fact that the inevitable had happened....Good thing he has an appointment at the doggie salon soon....

We awoke this morning to...puddles of water on the ground! I don't know if it will be called rain, but it certainly was good for the psyche in this parched and fire prone land.  As we move into fire season, it feels as if everyone is collectively waiting. We go about our business, but the specter fire is never far from our minds.   I chatted with the woman who drew blood from my arm in the lab yesterday and we ended up talking about fire (as one does). Everyone has a story of loss and recovery. Her brother lost his house in the Tubbs fire and she was affected by the Kincade fire. She said they dealt with their anxiety by getting together their 'go bags' and planning their exit strategy. I said we had never really unpacked our bags and have only one exit .

 It has been overcast all day so it is hard to tell if the smoke has cleared but we could almost feel the accumulated tension letting up at least for today. It's funny. I feel that we have done all we can to protect our house and are doing a pretty good job of  getting on with our lives, but then a blessing in the form of a smattering of moisture in the air allows us to relax a little and we realize how much tension has surreptitiously accumulated.

Even on a damp overcast day, there are triggers. This evening there was a great clatter of noise above the house as five helicopters flew over  and we speculated about their purpose.  My gut reaction to helicopter noise began after the Loma Prieta earthquake  in Berkeley when they flew above the city night and day. In that case they were news helicopters. Today there were too many of them to be PG&E ones checking power lines as they frequently do. They haven't come back, so perhaps they were on their way to the big fires north of us.

I'm back in the mask business as the mandate has been reinstated in the face of the Delta variant.  Dana, who is back to in-person learning has to wear a mask all day every day, and most of us have lost/worn out/gotten sick of the ones we had. I have dug out the boxes of colorful fabrics and tried to pick out some that make me smile....