Looks grim

Post #420,749 by rcareaga 10/11/17 10:35:43 AM 10/11/17 10:35:43 AM Reply	Looks grim A’s street in Kenwood is half in, half out of the “active fire” zone. apprehensively,
Post #420,750 by Another Scott 10/11/17 10:43:07 AM 10/11/17 10:43:07 AM Reply	:-(
Post #420,752 by mmoffitt 10/11/17 1:35:40 PM 10/11/17 1:35:40 PM Reply	Any news from A? bcnu, Mikem It's mourning in America again.
Post #420,753 by rcareaga 10/11/17 3:42:14 PM 10/11/17 3:42:14 PM Reply	Re: Any news from A? Nothing since Monday. I’ll try rattling his chain this afternoon. He may be somewhere near a working cellphone repeater. cordially,
Post #420,758 by rcareaga 10/12/17 10:19:44 AM 10/12/17 10:19:44 AM Reply	cryptic text message from AB Received last night at 11:13 PDT. In its entirety: Ar Your guesses are as good as mine. bemusedly,
Post #420,760 by drook 10/12/17 10:21:11 AM 10/12/17 10:21:11 AM Reply	He's a pirate now? -- Drew
Post #420,762 by rcareaga 10/12/17 11:21:08 AM 10/12/17 11:21:08 AM Reply	status update (Great minds run in similar gutters. I asked him that very thing in my response) Received just now (excerpts from the Ashtonese): Mainly hanging out with ill friend, akin to frying pan into fire, as the air tankers seem chimerical as any sort of authentic preventative: now Sonoma is add-to-list…We’re (bipeds n’ cats) looking for the Cosmic humor within this present air war over CA…for the nonce, Stet Fortuna Domus (both)…motto of one Ricketts House. Or as the Orange one’s Duh goes…We’ll /cough/ see shortly. cordially,
Post #420,764 by Another Scott 10/12/17 11:36:38 AM 10/12/17 11:36:38 AM Reply	Thanks. Fingers crossed for him, his ill friend, and everyone else in the vicinity. :-( Cheers, Scott.
Post #420,766 by mmoffitt 10/12/17 11:41:15 AM 10/12/17 11:41:15 AM Reply	Thanks. Send him well wishes from me, if you've the opportunity. bcnu, Mikem It's mourning in America again.
Post #420,782 by a6l6e6x 10/12/17 11:26:00 PM 10/12/17 11:26:00 PM Reply	Amen to that! Just got back from a "retreat" in NC mountains and have been out of the loop. No TV and very sketchy cell phone connections. Thanks for the updates Rand! Alex "There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge." -- Isaac Asimov
Post #420,779 by pwhysall 10/12/17 10:50:50 PM 10/12/17 10:50:50 PM Reply	Well, that's definitely really him, and not an imposter.
Post #420,783 by drook 10/12/17 11:51:25 PM 10/12/17 11:51:25 PM Reply	Trooth -- Drew
Post #420,761 by Another Scott 10/12/17 11:19:54 AM 10/12/17 11:19:54 AM Reply	Good even if it's a "butt text". :-) TLaPD was September 19, so I assume that's not it. ;-)
Post #420,913 by Ashton 10/19/17 12:55:54 AM 10/19/17 12:55:54 AM Reply	Sorry.. (just an oTpy which had no bizness escaping.)
Post #420,770 by rcareaga 10/12/17 6:04:14 PM 10/12/17 6:04:14 PM Reply	Talked to him again at mid-day Looks from the map link mmoffitt provided that his home may be history. He’s some distance away looking after a friend of similarly advanced years who has mobility issues. They may be subject to evacuation orders, in which case we will expect them at The Crumbling Manse™ on short notice. cordially,
Post #420,778 by pwhysall 10/12/17 10:48:52 PM 10/12/17 10:48:52 PM Reply	Re: Talked to him again at mid-day I don't live in an area at risk of wildfire, flood or any other natural disaster. But this does make me think about how much worse such a situation could be for those folk who are inclined to place value in stuff. I don't mean monetary value; a prudent insurance policy covers that. I mean "here's the thing that Bob brought us back from his trip to Darkest Peru", and "this is an ornamental picture frame made out of your dear old dad's luckiest lucky socks". I don't. I have literally one single physical memento of my late father, and I could not tell you right now where it is. For me, losing my home to flood or conflagration would lead to a heavy sigh and a phone call to the insurance company. For someone whose home is filled with physical expressions of their experience and memories, it would be something rather less mundane.
Post #420,784 by drook 10/12/17 11:57:11 PM 10/12/17 11:57:11 PM Reply	I once heard an interview with Julio Iglesias (not Junior) He was playing for Real Madrid when he broke his back in a car accident, ending his career. The interviewer asked him if he had any mementos from his playing years. He said that he didn't believe in keeping things as memories. If he ever wants a good memory, he'll go do something worth remembering. -- Drew
Post #420,790 by rcareaga 10/13/17 10:26:29 AM 10/13/17 10:26:29 AM Reply	combustible memories I am acquainted with a couple who were vacationing in Nepal when the Oakland Hills burned in 1991, taking out their home and about 3500 others. The internet was not yet a commercial phenomenon in those days, meine Kinder, and mobile communication technologies in their rather bulky infancy, so my chums were not exactly keeping current with the news as they hiked and explored out in distant Woglandia. When their son picked them up at San Francisco Airport upon their return, they asked him “Anything happen while we were gone?” “You could say,” he replied. The house, goods, chattel were all a total loss, I gather, with not so much as a scrap of paper saved. Talking about it a couple of years later, one of them said that while they’d as soon it had never happened, the loss of everything was strangely liberating. “We’ll never accumulate so much stuff again,” she said. As I look around my cluttered study, crammed to the rafters with the books, files, equipment I transported here last month from BDS—a python attempting to digest a largish porcupine—I feel wistful, though not sufficiently so to take up arson as a retirement hobby. I got the sense that A is disposed to be philosophical about the likely loss of his cottage, although he sounded wistful about a couple of oscilloscopes. I’d cross my fingers for his place, but the efficacy of the gesture is unproven; I have never heard even anecdotal accounts that it is effective ex post facto; it becomes damnably difficult to type with one’s digits so arranged. ashes to Ashton, dust to debris,
Post #420,807 by a6l6e6x 10/13/17 5:20:25 PM 10/13/17 5:20:25 PM Reply	What people grabbed before evacuation. NY Times: Fires Rage. You Must Evacuate. What Do You Take? I wonder what Ashton did with the cats. Alex "There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge." -- Isaac Asimov
Post #420,810 by rcareaga 10/14/17 10:22:26 AM 10/14/17 10:22:26 AM Reply	cats are safe with A Ashton is presently on the west side of the town of Sonoma. The east side has just been ordered evacuated. There’s a good chance we’ll see him and the kitties here by evening. cordially,
Post #420,811 by a6l6e6x 10/14/17 10:50:55 AM 10/14/17 10:50:55 AM Reply	Excellent! I've heard about what it's like to be herding cats, but clearly Ashton managed it. Alex "There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge." -- Isaac Asimov
Post #420,813 by rcareaga 10/14/17 12:26:55 PM 10/14/17 12:26:55 PM Reply	herding cats He reports that it was tricky—one of them is making the transition from feral to domestic, and is more accustomed to being outdoors than in—but that it was his (perhaps fanciful —Ed.) notion that their senses were conveying that Something Bad was going on, and disposing them to perhaps delegate these decisions to Management. cordially,
Post #420,812 by malraux 10/14/17 11:47:51 AM 10/14/17 11:47:51 AM Reply	That's great news Give him and the cats a scritch behind the ears for us. Regards, -scott Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson.
Post #420,814 by Another Scott 10/14/17 12:52:10 PM 10/14/17 12:52:10 PM Reply	Send my best wishes. Let us know how we can help, please. Thanks. Cheers, Scott.
Post #420,912 by Ashton 10/19/17 12:47:12 AM 10/19/17 12:47:12 AM Reply	Scritches/ear area applied.. ack/nak ..purring reported. Biased I am, but have been surprised at the level of acceptance these two* have demonstrated: from hours in back seat as I gathered the necessaries, emptied fridge/unplug and like that, on through release into tiny bathroom (tub prepared by an ept cat-person with one carrier as hiding-place at one end.) It's a week now, some small mews not Yowls and such. (Maybe they're not well.. but appetite, digestion say Fine.) * 'recovering feral' previously had been briefly in my kitchen, then hid silently for a dozen hours/thought he had found door outside ajar/ but nope.. made a sound and got let out at bedtime. This was only his second experience being un-free. How cuth is that ..Y'know? as Ripley was saying (as a drooling vulgarian-Cabinet Operative uncoiled behind her) Lucky.. lucky.. lucky..
Post #420,932 by malraux 10/19/17 11:14:20 AM 10/19/17 11:14:20 AM Reply	Glad to (h)ear it! Regards, -scott Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson.

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