Nocturnal Wandering

It's not even 3 a.m. yet. We now have flashes of dry lightning illuminating the dark rooms of this house. Erik cried off and on until 2 a.m., and I eventually found him standing in the corner of his room sobbing and repeatedly muttering "fireworks." I put him in bed with us, which I never normally do, but now I can't sleep. I listened to Erik's heaving, sob-filled chest slowly relax and his breathing deepen before I got out of bed and went to lie down in his. I finally gave up on sleep, and here I am.

I don't know if I can do this another night. The weather report doesn't look good.

A Scent of Hell

Since we moved into this house three and one-half years ago, we have called the police four times: For (1) a yet unidentified amateur sniper firing a shotgun three times into the front window of the house next door, (2) a young, furious drunkard in the same house screaming bloody murder at 2 a.m. and plunging his limbs through yet another of his own windows because he was locked out, (3) a Marilyn Manson lookalike in black attire ranting and raving for hours and attempting to sneak water from our house before holing up in a cave across the street, and, tonight's excitement, (4) FIRE. Ah, life in the country.

Tonight the thunderstorms came one day early. There is a "red flag alert" for tomorrow, which always sounds like "double secret probation" to me. They were wrong about the timing. I was working at my desk around 7 p.m. when the scent of smoke rolled in, probably from a distant fire sparked by lightning. The sun began to set, and the sky blushed a deep orange/pink. Bugs began to fill the air in some sort of freaky, desperate air dance, and I could suddenly hardly breathe, even from the place I found to sit on the porch outside. A curtain of darkness soon came in with a bizarre, hot wind, and cracks of thunder began to shake the house after blinding bolts of lightning began. I sat down in a chair on the back porch and saw a thick, jagged, blinding bolt spike horizontally across the sky in front of the mountains and veer towards the earth. Brian joined me on the back porch, and I explained what I saw. Shortly thereafter, he said, "I see flames." We stood and walked to the far end of the porch to witness orange and yellow fire shooting up around a ponderosa pine above a dark, scrubby line of junipers and sage. We called 911. I felt a little sick to my stomach, as I knew if it didn't rain, we could be in real trouble. Everything was as dry as death. In addition, a car had stopped across the street, and a stubby fire engine soon stopped behind it for reasons we never did quite determine. They had apparently also called 911, and there may have been yet another strike there. The air was soon filled with weird, white noise followed by a barrage of giant raindrops. The gutter next to me began vomiting gallons of runoff from our steep roof. The flames across the street quickly died, and the silhouette of the victimized tree went dark. Everything was soon soaked.

Erik is still crying, and there isn't a thing I can do for him. I turned on his Veggie Tales CD and tried to explain sirens and thunder, but the thick wall that is WS remains between us in situations like this. Logic does little to soothe away the type of anxiety he is manifesting, and explaining relaxation techniques to a severely delayed 2-year-old seems ridiculously premature, although I still try. I laid by his side in his little bed and talked to him, but he just sobbed.

Uh-oh. More sirens. I had better go check on him.

Wildfire

If you ever catch on fire, try to avoid seeing yourself in the mirror, because I bet that's what really throws you into a panic.

~Jack Handey (Saturday Night Live)

I was working yesterday in my sauna of an office when my neighbor called from her car driving our direction. She was obviously quite excited about something and asked, "What's up with the fire?" Since it was hot, my blinds were closed to shield me from any afternoon heat. When I opened them, this is what I saw. As the last post contained enough profanity to last us a month, I will spare you from what I said. Because the wind was blowing the other direction, even though the fire was quickly spreading, it was headed away from our house. However, I did do a quick mental inventory of things to throw in the car in case the wind shifted. The lumbering rumble of borate bombers began over our house, casting eerie, floating shadows over the ground as they flew over and making me feel as if I was in a war movie. Brian witnessed one drop a scarlet cloud of fire retardant over the flames as he drove home from work.

It's funny because the last time my old neighborhood caught fire, I was also blissfully unaware of the orange flames shooting up through the trees less than one block away. My friend's husband called me and was surprised I was still at home. When I looked out the window, there were indeed flames snaking through the branches across the street, and soon firefighters had blocked off our little cul-de-sac, so there was nothing to do but watch and pray they knew what they were doing. I should probably look out the window more often!

This morning my throat is scratchy from breathing smoke all night, but there is only a thick, low-lying cloud of leftover haze obscuring the site of the blaze.

* Update 8:05 a.m. The wind has now shifted, bringing in choking clouds of smoke and haze. According to our local news, the fire is apparently not close to being contained, but they are still working on it. When I took the photo yesterday, it was at a mere 10 acres. It's now 200 acres! Thunderstorms are due this afternoon, which won't be helping things. So far, though, we are out of danger.

* 4:50 p.m. Fire 30% contained at 589 acres and looking good.