I move in two weeks. So far I have tried to pack things that I don't need for my immediate survival, like stuff I never use. Instead of throwing it away. Who knows why. I have marked out the dimensions of my shipping container on the floor in the living room and experimentally put some stuff in the defined space. I think everything will fit. Some of it goes in the car, and I think it will fit, too. We'll find out, won't we?
California is on fire. This is what CNN tells me. I realize CNN has a slight tendency to hyperbolize the news. My only concern there is if the smoke from the wildfires in North California will be a health hazard--I sit not quite squarely among the high-risk population of old people with heart and respiratory problems. I read that hot dry summers and more wildfires is the "new normal" for California, so perhaps this will be my first and last summer in The Valley and I'll have to move to some place with better air quality.
I found this interesting: one climatologist said that what's going on is California has been having a wet century, but now that's over and it is returning to its own norm. So, not the new normal, but the old normal. Not that that makes a lot of difference.
I want to write something witty, even pithy, if possible, but not acerbic. But I don't think I have it in me this morning. I woke up with a headache and now I want to eat breakfast, but I'm going out, and had to kill some time to let the rush hour subside.
CA is a big weird place (oh, that's news). Fires are a natural part of the ecological process, and some of the indigenous peoples lit and controlled them to better manage the environment. Periodically it floods too, and before Americans redesigned the water systems to make big ag profitable, the entire Valley would flood now and then. So floods and fires and droughts and deluges are all just what we get, and since Man has come in and tried to put the kabosh on all that, Nature seems more determined than ever to have Her way.
ReplyDeleteI can smell the smoke today, but it's not bad. I haven't read what it's like up north, but a friend drove from here to Shasta the other day, which means she went through Chico, and her comment on the air quality was that you could smell it but it was fine. Her version of fine and yours may differ.
Thanks for the info. If nothing else, one summer in Chico, especially maybe this particular summer, will tell me what I need to know. Otherwise, excited to leave Kansas City and become a Californian again. I hope I'm weird enough!
ReplyDeleteNot all of us are weird. I, myself, am quite normal. On alternate Tuesdays. Usually.
ReplyDeleteDon't know about Chico but for the last few weeks the air in Ashland and Medford Oregon, both OR/CA border towns, has been really toxic. There summer is now know as fire season. We are in the long slow beginnings of moving as well and are thinking Portland because of it. Nevada is also becoming unlivable during fire season. And it's not just the air. I have friends in Ashland who were briefly put on Level something or other Alert because of the fires. That meant they had to pack a few essentials and leave the bag in the entry of their homes should they need to make an emergency escape if fires got any closer. It's very scary. My son and his family lives there and I worry about them every day.
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