Back so soon? I am indeed.
(Source)
As you may recall, I began my last Corona-related post by saying "It's been another month and a half of little to say."
I know better than to say that again.
The last 10 days have been insane.
It started with a post going around Facebook among my local friends. We were told to be aware of an impending "wind event" on Monday the 7th, which may cause downed power lines, which may cause fires. This turned out to be accurate. Our power went out for about 5 hours Monday evening, an event which not only triggered the emergency lights I got on Amazon six years ago and have rarely been able to utilize ("yay, they work!") but also panic ("The freezer's off! Save the ice cream!")
The winds continued for several days, and the news came that wildfires were starting to pop up everywhere. Usually I don't think much about wildfires. I live in the suburbs. The forests are all over... thatway. But now they felt substantially closer. Like the ominous lights of the intruding City in The Little House.
News buzzed about evacuation zones. Several of my co-workers and relatives were in Zone 2, meaning "be ready to get the hell outta there."
On Wednesday it was still dry, warm, and windy. We have a group of people living across the street who smoke out on their driveway day and night. On Wednesday someone didn't put out their cigarette properly when they threw it in the coffee can with the 100 butts already in there. They'd gone back inside when I saw the smoke billowing toward our house. I admit to panicking a little. I kept remembering something about how you're not supposed to douse campfires with water. Not that a can full of burning cigarettes = a campfire, but wasn't there something about water scattering burning ash everywhere? Anyway, I'd just watered one of our bushes, so I grabbed a handful of wet dirt, sprinkled it into the can, and that seemed to do the trick. Of course, for days afterward, I was peeking through the window, making sure their cigarette can was behaving itself.
By Thursday night, some of my relatives from Zone 2, who had been experiencing awful air for days, came to stay with us. At that point, our air was still okay, and since we were in Zone Nada, it seemed like the best option. My relatives brought a carload of stuff. I began thinking about what things I would take if I had to evacuate. It came down to my baby blanket, my journals, and a photo album. If the rest got burned I'd still miss it, but at least I'd have something. These thoughts, man...
The relatives were with us for a week. The smoke here got worse, but we kept it mostly at bay via towels under the doors, an air filter, and a pot of boiling water on the stove. Being trapped indoors? Ah, memories of mid-March, 2020! So long ago, and yet such a familiar time...
We (the Pacific Northwest being "we") kept waiting and hoping for rain. First it was supposed to come on Tuesday the 15th. But it didn't. Then we heard Thursday, maybe Friday.
Today, Friday morning, it came. It came in with a literal bang -- thunder. I don't often wake to noises, but I woke to that. Under the pretense of making sure the cat, who spends most nights in his cat cave in the basement bathroom, was okay (but really, I wanted him to comfort me), at 4am I got up, went downstairs, opened the bathroom door, and stepped in something wet.
The bathroom was flooding. Because of course it was.
We have a back stairwell, and the drain had apparently gotten clogged. I hurried outside and bailed out several buckets of water, cleared the drain of dead leaves, and then helped my mom towel off the bathroom floor for the next 20 minutes. (The cat ran upstairs without offering any help whatsoever.)
After the bathroom was dry, I asked my mom if she thought the storm drain out on the street might need attention. She said it had been clear the day before. But then she looked out the window and saw a lake forming in the street. So I put on long rubber gloves, plunged my arms into the rushing, freezing cold water, and tried to clear the clog. During the storm, all the debris from the entire street -- pine needles, leaves, dirt -- had flowed down toward us and gotten trapped. As I worked, there was still thunder and lightning happening (though the storm itself seemed to have moved a few miles away), so I had visions of being electrocuted with my hands in the gutter. That would be one helluva way to go.
But I lived. And the rain did cleanse the air a bit, though overall it's still awful and the whole world is a mess. The wildfires continue to burn, though most evacuees who didn't lose their homes have been able to return, I've heard. Still, many did lose their homes.
Distance learning was supposed to begin this Monday in our school district. It didn't. We couldn't get computers or supplies distributed to kids' families due to the air quality, so we couldn't start classes.
We're supposed to start next week, now.
As one of my coworkers has said, next week we're due for zombies.
If this ends up being my last update, you can safely assume they ate my brain.
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