Hekate
Hekate's JournalWe left home at 11pm with the clothes on our backs and weren't able to move back for 2 weeks...
Ventura was badly hurt; the fire came down into the city right to the back lot of City Hall. We moved here from Goleta last September, so we have connections up and down the Central Coast and have been close to fire before, but not quite so personally.
Our neighborhood was lucky, as only one house was lost despite our little valley being blackened all over. Firefighters saved us. Other neighborhoods where we looked at houses for sale last year are just gone.
Our adult kids in Santa Barbara had to evacuate as well; worse for our daughter as she had a baby just out of the NICU and was fully in the smoke at Montecito.
Rain. Ventura was lucky. We only got half an inch spread out over many hours. We were in the voluntary evac zone, and I stared at the blackened and denuded hill right across the street from us with my fingers crossed while my husband refused to budge and told me of the excellent drainage on our street.
Montecito, where our daughter lives, got a "cell" wherein the half inch came down on the kiln-forged and denuded hills in 5 minutes, and then more, and I think another "cell." Many in the voluntary evacuation zone were swept away. She lives in a rental on high ground, and was spared. But friends of hers have lost their lives and others whose houses were saved from the fire have now lost their homes. She is in a state of shock and mourning.
I showed my husband some of the FB posts from survivors' cell phones -- the wall of mud and debris came on like a tsunami, absolutely no way to escape. He said he would leave next time we get such an order, but between you and me, since we have two cars, I won't wait for his decision if he hesitates again.
Highway 101 is closed indefinitely between here and there.
Pussyfooting means treading softly like a cat. Always has ...
Trump dragged the secondary meaning out of the gutter and into our living rooms, and here we are.
Nonetheless, pull a Mother Goose volume off your children's bookshelf and find:
1). Pussycat, pussycat, where have you been?
I've been to London to visit the Queen.
Pussy cat, pussy cat, what did you there?
I frightened a little mouse under her chair.
2). Ding-dong bell, pussy's in the well.
Who put her in? Little Tommy Green.
Who pulled her out? Little Bobby Stout.
What a naughty boy was that,
To try to drown poor pussycat,
Who never did him any harm,
But killed the mice in Father's barn.
They came in a wave during the Potato Famine, destitute, illiterate, starved, sick...
The ships were called coffin ships because of the high incidence of typhus aboard. Public health officials at ports in Canada and the US quarantined the ships offshore as a (for real) public health hazard. One of my ancestors started out with her whole family and ended up with just one sister by the time they landed in Canada. They then lied their way across the border into the US.
Illiterate? Mostly. As punisment for Irish obduracy in clinging to Roman Catholicism and refusing to convert to English Protestantism, Irish schools were closed and forbidden.
In the worst assessments, Irish immigrants were considered "apelike" and "incapable of assimilation."
It's a pity all the "white" people in this country don't remember how their ancestors were received when they got here, and practice a whole lotta empathy for newer arrivals.
Hmmm
People are awake -- Hillary WON, for one thing. Also, you may not have noticed the Women's March last year? It was not a one-off, but the beginning of a wave of women signing up to run for political office all over the country.
Did you sign up for Indivisible? Are you following your Senator and Congresscritter on FB? Are you signed up for the "flash" protests nationwide in the event that Mueller is fired?
This nation will not be finished until we stop Resisting and Persisting.
I am reminded of the cardboard sign I saw in a photo from a major airport after the infamous Muslim Ban. "FIRST THEY CAME FOR THE MUSLIMS, AND WE SAID: NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKERS."
Enough with the FUD. Not today, Donkeypoofed.
Not today. Resist. When we stop resisting, it's over. It ain't over.
Show up. Resist.
Persist.
Profile Information
Gender: FemaleHometown: Central Coast, California
Home country: USA
Member since: 2002
Number of posts: 90,674
