My house is crawling with men

Two guys are installing the new garage doors in front, and three guys are digging out the hillside to prepare the foundation for the new deck. You see that deck in the picture on the top of the blog? It burned to cinders in the CA wildfires last November. And the garage doors were damaged when the neighbors/firefighters used crowbars and feet to remove it to put out the garage fire. It was tacked back up temporarily, but today we will get our brand new garage doors. Yay! I can't wait to hear how quiet the new opener is. The old one was as loud as a jet engine.

That's 5 men working. Now all I need is for the gardeners and the pool guy to show up.

The sweet sound of jackhammers

That is what has been reverberating through my house the past 3 days. Am I being sarcastic to call it sweet? No. I have gotten to the point where I miss my neighbors so much, that I'm willing to put up with this. Kind of like a woman in her 9th month of pregnancy. The discomfort reaches a point where even labor and delivery are looked to as a welcome relief.

In the picture above, that adorable-looking vehicle has a jackhammer attachment in the front and has been tirelessly breaking up the concrete on my neighbor's property.

What will her house provide for me? A relief from the strange loneliness that hangs over this neighborhood. And, frankly, a wind-break. When the winds whip up from the east, we call them Santa Ana winds in our area, they bring with them ash and dirt from the burned hillsides. Before the fire my property felt the winds strongly, but since then it has been much worse. My house is now the wind break for the rest of the neighborhood. And my pool has a constant layer of silt in it which no amount of vacuuming seems to be able to abate.

And I am glad it is specifically my neighbor who is moving in. She has been a wonderful neighbor all these years. No more than 2 parties per year, with music and laughter extending into the night. That I can put up with. And she is a civic-minded citizen. Everybody in the area knows her because she allows her garage to be used as a voting place for each election. It has been so nice all these years to roll out of bed at 7am and scoot next door to vote.

I send my best wishes to all of my neighbors, particularly her and the 7 other neighbors who have yet to break ground on their rebuild.

Neighborhood Pics and a Rant

Here is a view from the deck off the master bedroom. It is up a little higher, so you can see across the yards somewhat. The neighbor next door has cleared off her rubble. The corner house has not.


Here is a view of the tarp we have placed across our hillside from the cul de sac below our house. I bet those folks are glad we are being responsible. If we were to have a mudslide, they are the ones who would me most affected.


I was glad to see that the neighbors are tarping their hillsides as well. If any of the hill were to go, that would weaken our hill, and we would lose some of our property. You know that view I love so much? I guess there is a price tag. Hillside worries. Fire and mudslides.


I went through the answering machine messages today. One of them really ticked me off. And I'm not the only one angry about this. We evacuated at 2:20pm on Saturday the 15th. I decided to leave my garage because, in addition to overwhelming smoke, I felt actual HEAT from the fire. Thank goodness the babies were already buckled into the car. The city called us on reverse 911 at 4:31pm and told us to evacuate. This was over TWO HOURS LATE! Oh, and did I mention that there were no police or fire during the emergency? They showed up over an hour later, after many homes had already burned. There is something really wrong with the system when our officials are not there for us during our time of need. We lucked out at my house that the fire got going slowly enough for the firemen and neighbors to put it out. But really. I think there needs to be a better system of keeping track of the fire. I suggested to the fire captain last week that they should have infrared capability along with GPS in observational aircraft keeping an eye on things. And even if they run our of firefighters, they should at least send in police or a gosh darned meter maid to tell residents to flee. We're really lucky that nobody lost their lives. If there had been an invalid or somebody asleep in their home, they would have burned. We HAVE to do better than this. It's not right.

Neighborhood Heroes

Here is a cell phone video of the news broadcast about our neighborhood. The little kid in the green pajamas is my 5-y-o son. I'm in there too. Sorry about the poor picture and sound quality.