Deja vu all over again...

By -

 I was going to write about books today but it's pretty hard to concentrate, and I'm just going to put up a little update.  Most readers know that California has been on fire for the last few weeks, and it's been awful.  Our little part of the state has been smoky and unpleasant, but now it's much worse; a wildfire near Oroville (about 20 miles away, in the foothills -- where the dam made the news about 3 years ago) exploded overnight into a quarter-million acres.  We woke up to ashy, orange darkness -- again.  It's very much like the day after the Camp Fire up in Paradise, and I'm sure a lot of folks are having a horrible day filled with terrible memories.  Quite a few people who used to live in Paradise live in Oroville now and are evacuated.

This is the view near my house this morning, an hour after sunrise.  The first photo faces east, and then goes in a counter-clockwise circle to the north, west, and south, ending in the southeast.  I'm just saving these for posterity...




The sun should be in this area.

Nobody needs to worry about my safety, but any good vibes or prayers you can send to the firefighters and the people threatened by the fire are nice.

I can't say this puts me in a mood to read RIP titles.  I think The Enchanted April sounds like a good choice...

Comments

  1. LorySeptember 9, 2020 at 11:33 AM

    I'm glad you think you are safe, Jean, but what a scene to behold. This is huge. So sorry for all those affected.

    Wisteria and sunshine sounds nice to escape to, but a dose of gray, rainy English weather would be better in reality.

    ReplyDelete
  2. JeanSeptember 9, 2020 at 11:38 AM

    You are so right, Lory! I'd give almost anything for a good long rainstorm (without lightning!).

    ReplyDelete
  3. mudpuddleSeptember 9, 2020 at 12:55 PM

    my kids live in the west foothills of the Cascades and they both have had to evacuate. we're housebound by the dense smoke, but i don't think we'll be burned out... fingers crossed

    ReplyDelete
  4. Jenny @ Reading the EndSeptember 10, 2020 at 4:49 AM

    Oh, friend, this is really scary and awful. I'm glad you're safe and I am indeed saying prayers for those more directly in the fire's path, and for the people who are fighting it.

    ReplyDelete
  5. JeanSeptember 10, 2020 at 8:21 AM

    I hope you're OK, mudpuddle, and that your kids' homes are safe!

    Thank you, Jenny <3

    Today doesn't look so much like the apocalypse; the smoke has descended, so everything is grey and yucky (and surprisingly cold), but the sky isn't dark orange any more. I had to go out and do some errands yesterday and it was very weird -- in the old-fashioned, spooky sense!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Ruth @ with freedom and booksSeptember 10, 2020 at 8:28 AM

    Absolutely eerie. Definitely praying for those firefighters!

    Down in SoCal, we're [the High Desert] dealing with a couple of fires...one on the other side of the San Gabriel Mts. and the other was in Yucaipa, caused by a gender reveal explosion! So for the weekend we have had to deal with a layer of smoke in the High Desert, raining ash on us. But since the wind shifted yesterday, the smoke has finally lifted.

    Having said all that, it is NOTHING compared to what you all are living through.

    ReplyDelete
  7. JeanSeptember 10, 2020 at 11:33 AM

    Oh, Ruth, that Yucaipa one was something else. Who blows something up for a gender reveal party in the middle of fire season?? I'm going to hope that this means Instagram-ready gender reveals have jumped the shark. Hope hope hope.

    ReplyDelete
  8. amanda @ simplerpastimesSeptember 10, 2020 at 5:20 PM

    I heard there was a fire up in the region near Paradise and immediately thought of you and wondered if you were impacted. I'm glad your okay, and hoping it stays that way. I keep seeing the photos and just can't even imagine.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Michelle AnnSeptember 11, 2020 at 12:38 AM

    So sad to hear of the problems you're having. Hope things have now improved slightly.

    ReplyDelete
  10. JeanSeptember 11, 2020 at 8:37 AM

    This fire actually overlaps a little bit with the 2018 fire area, so yep -- right close by. Happily, the wind shifted again and so things have calmed down a lot. It's just grey and smoky instead of looking like Doomsday.

    ReplyDelete
  11. BronaSeptember 14, 2020 at 4:13 PM

    Oh Jean! I can't believe this is happening again. I saw it on our news over the weekend and thought of you, but hadn't seen a post so thought it must in a different part of the state.
    But I've been rather absent from blogging of late & realised I had simply missed you post.
    I'm glad you're alright, but it makes me rather nervous for our approaching summer again. This seems to be happening to us both every year of late.

    Stay safe - our face masks may have to be a permanent thing for two very good reasons.

    ReplyDelete
  12. JeanSeptember 14, 2020 at 10:19 PM

    It sure does. And this year is just completely off the rails. I hope your Australian summer goes a LOT better!

    It is so surreal, trying to figure out which mask to take where...or my oldest is just wearing one of each (N95 and cloth) at work. I wore a mask to go get the mail. I definitely wore one while sweeping ash off the front walk, and after that I smelled like a campfire.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I'd love to know what you think, so please comment!

Popular posts from this blog

The Four Ages of Poetry

By -
Image
  "The Four Ages of Poetry," by Thomas Love Peacock I am becoming fond of Thomas Love Peacock.  Besides his unbeatable name, he was a lot of fun.  Peacock was a minor literary figure of the early 19th century; he tried his hand at poetry but mainly succeeded in satire.  I read his short novel Nightmare Abbey last year, but at the time I didn't know that the young hero of the story, Scythrop, was modeled on Peacock's good friend Percy Shelley.  He and Shelley were quite close and Peacock was the executor of Shelley's will. Thomas Love Peacock Percy Bysshe Shelley "The Four Ages of Poetry," a tongue-in-cheek essay on the history and development of poetry, was published in 1820 in a new magazine called Literary Miscellany , which promptly died.  It would probably have been completely obscure and unknown--it nearly is anyway--but for Shelley.  Peacock sent a copy to his friend, who I guess didn't really have much of a sense of
Read more

A few short stories in Urdu

By -
Image
 Back in August, I got hold of a book of Urdu short stories translated into English.  It's a large book, so I wanted to read just the women authors for WIT, and that would still be a good amount.  August got away from me, and I only read one or two stories back then, but I've continued reading them since.  I've now finished all the short stories in the book that were written by women (luckily for me, there are short biographies in an appendix, since I could only tell from the name about half the time).  I'll just highlight a couple: "The Wagon," by Khalida Asghar, is a hallucinatory, apocalyptic story.  The narrator meets three strange men who are watching the evening sky and point out that it has become red.  No one had noticed until they said so, but the sky is now strangely red.  Then a smell arrives, so offensive and sickening that it causes real pain -- but only once it's pointed out.  And finally, a mysterious wagon, which may be the source of the s
Read more

Faerie Queen Readalong I: Redcrosse, the Knight of Holiness

By -
Image
I did it, I read all of Book I!  My minimum requirement was two cantos a day, but I managed three a couple of times.  I'm hoping to read ahead, because I'll be gone for two weeks in the middle of this event and I'd like to be able to prep a post ahead of time...but the schedule is already pretty demanding.  The reading is not terribly difficult, but it is slow.  I keep thinking that I've read a large chunk, only to look back and realize that in fact I have read six verses.  So here we go with analysis... Each book in the Faerie Queene features a knight, and a story, about a particular virtue.  The Redcrosse Knight, to be known as St. George after he accomplishes his feats, is all about Holinesse .  This does not mean that Redcrosse already exemplifies holiness; he doesn't.  Holiness is what he's working towards and struggling with.  His foes symbolize various forms of unholiness, and he falls into their clutches at least as often as he defeats or avoids th
Read more