THIS MORNING, with all the clarity of a George W. Bush condemnation of torture, the Orange County Fire Authority issued an announcement that could be interpreted as the end of mandatory evacuations for the residents of Modjeska, Trabuco, Live 0ak, and other canyons in the Santa Ana Mountains (but not Silverado Canyon).In truth, the new verbiage that appeared on the OCFA website just after 10:00 a.m. was stunningly unclear, and so I called up the OCFA number I'd been using, hoping that I would encounter a real, live, plain-spoken human being.
That number had been "deactivated"—yes, really—but at least I got a new number, which I called. A chirpy woman did then inform me that residents—at least those of my canyon and Reb/Red/Lou's—could finally drive to their homes.
It was excellent news. I called Red Emma, but he had just heard it himself. I interrupted Reb's class just to tell her.
I couldn't get away from school until about 3:30 p.m. Then, I went to collect the Sunny Bear at Jan's. When the Little Beast saw me load up the cat carrier, she immediately became suspicious and darted under a bed. I asked her to come out, but it was no use. Drat! So I sat and watched Mythbusters until she climbed up on me. Gotcha! She loves that show.
The cop at Cook's Corner didn't seem very interested in my ID. He seemed more interested in Sunny Bear, who must have appeared like some sort of weird appendage sprouting from my right arm pit, where she hid her head. She didn't pull it out of there until I rolled up to my place. I let her out of the car and she weaseled around like a lunatic. Then she ran inside and yammered piteously, but not for long.
By then, I could really see what the fire had done to the west part of the Santa Ana Mountains, from the peaks over toward Modjeska. It looked pretty bad, like the moon. I took a snap of my "evacuation notice." Pretty cool.
Got out the appropriate lens and took a pic of Vulture Crag, a local landmark, which used to be home to the California condor. The condors haven't been seen out here for years.
As you can see, the fire burned everything around Vulture Crag. (Click on the top photo.)
A water-dropping helicopter soon flew over my place. It and another chopper were taking out a flare-up up toward Modjeska Peak (see). The larger chopper actually landed up there. No doubt, it was loading or unloading firefighters. It's seriously rugged up there, I know.
I JUST GOT A CALL from the Reb, who is in LA on her way to a Bruce Springsteen concert. She wanted to know how things were out here. She's looking forward to being back home, but, tonight, she and Red Emma just had to go to see The Boss with their old pal Gary, a bigshot with iTunes. Last time she went to a concert with Gary, they saw the great Billy Bragg, and she actually got to meet him.
Reb seemed happy. "It's like we're on a date," she said.
The "Dissent" crew is a happy crew, I'll tell ya for sure.
