Because Southern California hasn’t had rain in something like six months, the areas around Los Angeles are burning. People are being evacuated, and those who refuse to leave then find themselves in need of rescue (assholes). 12,000 homes are threatened, and two firefighters have died trying to stop the blaze.
Armageddon seems to have hit.
We’re fine where we are, thanks for asking. But the air quality is crappy. So crappy, in fact, that I have conceded to closing the windows and using the air conditioner, a state of affairs that would please my husband if I were just willing to set it lower than 77. You can see smoke in the distance, but you can’t see much of anything else. Getting out of the car on Sunday, Zachary whined, “I can’t breathe.”
Given that my mother died of non-smoker’s lung cancer in her thirties, you can imagine how such a statement resonated with me. So, the kids are staying indoors, which is going about as well as you think it is. Every three-year-old likes to be kept inside all day. And the baby is ever so pleased, as well.
I just don’t get why L.A. is considered some sort of paradise. Every summer, the hills are alive with the sound of helicopters spraying flame retardant chemicals. In the winter, the rains bring down the mountainside. Periodically, the entire earth shakes and people start talking about “the big one.”
Not to mention the public schools with twenty-five kids to a kindergarten and many more in the older grades, fire departments in a state of “brown out,” and domestic violence shelters closing because there is no money. For the privilege of all of this, we have an exorbitant cost of living and obscenely high taxes.
Makes a girl homesick for Philly.