Protected: It’s Hot Out There
In case you didn’t know that the “little artist’s enclave” (
CNN) of Sierra Madre was the very same one we live in, I’ll update you from the Treehouse News Station.
Now Playing – Cut Copy – “Hearts on Fire”
Saturday April 27, 2008 -- 10.09 PM – Firecat
We were out at the beach Saturday with friends and on the way home when the same friend called to give us the update she knew we didn’t have. Sierra Madre was on fire – or at least the hills behind Sierra Madre were. We raced home to orange sky just about 6 blocks west and north of our home. Ashes flew, the sky was as hot as it was bright. The hot wind hit my face as we got out of the car. It had a noise that was heavy too.
11.29 PM -- To top it off, our family cat Bosco has been missing since the prior Thursday morning. We issued lost postings on about 40 poles throughout the zone. A message blinking on the voicemail indicated that someone had spotted Bosco. I contacted said cat spotter and found that she lived on an evacuated street. Tears welled up in her throat as she said she couldn't wait on me but would meet another day to show me the Bosco site.
11.38 PM – Knowing Kristin wasn’t going to wait that long to see Bosco, I needed to go. After having confirmed that the mandatory evacuation was just a few blocks from Treehouse but not in our zone, I set out on foot (and in flip flops) to check for Bosco. Small flashlight in hand, I walked about 2 miles through a few Police blockades and up steep hills. The town was alive. It was like 6PM on July 4. Everyone was awake and in the streets. It reminded me of the scene in War of the Worlds where the street in Brooklyn was filled with chaos as the martians attacked.
As I passed gawker after gawker, I was struck with the magic of fire and how humans can't get the love for this beautiful, but destructive science out of their caveman beings. After all, we just sat at a bonfire on the beach not three hours before. But, I instantly wished that we could somehow take this gene permanently out of our micro system. The love of fire and what a spark can do is what caused this catastrophy in the first place.
Somewhere beyond Midnight – I made it up the street to Bosco’s last seen whereabouts. There were a few folks in their front yards in lawn chairs. Many had the cokes and beer at the ready. It was a free mega-sized bonfire after all. Why not enjoy it?
The house with said cat spotter was abandoned but I did my Bosco tongue-click that he recognizes and shined my light among the hundreds of bushes on Liliano Drive. The best part was that all the homes were vacant so I was able to go in backyards with ease. I felt like the ultimate cat burglar. If only I could burgle my cat.
GOOD OL BOB -- I met Bob who was across the street with his son. Bob had been there since minute one. Bob was listening to a police scanner and watching the next brush pile flare. Bob and I chatted a while and his son took my phone number.
Apparently the Liliano’s were one of Sierra Madre’s elite. They sold and subdivided the parcel into the lots like the one Bob owned. It’s an 80’s ET-family-like neighborhood. Nothing remarkable. He said the Lilianos got to name the street and the one adjacent. Arno. Their favorite river in Italy. I think Bob wished there was a river there now.
On the way down, I shined my light and clicked and whistled a few [what seemed like] thousand times before getting to the rescue station at the bottom of Liliano. The Sierra Madre rescue station is one of those Northern California looking brick structures with cool fire trucks (better looking green ones) parked inside. This morning the place was full of guys getting their hot Red Cross coffee and sharpening axes. It’s gonna be a long night.
I flip flopped back the 2-point-whatever miles and, on the way, cell phoned Kristin to update her as to no Bosco. The good news, I said, was that the fires were not imminent for our address. I then cell phoned my two neighbors and updated them to ease their minds. One was asleep. One awake.
It’s 2 AM NOW – I went to bed after showering the smoke off.
3:42 AM – Bob calls to say “Bosco” [we haven’t confirmed his match yet”] just darted about and into a bush. I said I’d hit the trail at daylight and thanked him.
5 Something (ask Auge) – I geared up with better shoes and we decided as a family to go on the Bosco hunt. I warned Krstin that it wouldn’t work and that we’d be stopped. After all, you need a stroller and gear to get a 10 mo. old up the hill. The helicopters roared again and went all day Sunday. They were (by the scanner at Bob's) 800 to 1000 ft above. Loud.
We were stopped.
We came home.
I went back on foot.
It’s 7ish NOW -- This time I was caught at many intersections by newly sworn McDonald’s coffee-toting 18-year-old cops from outlying cities.
I tried the honesty approach: “My cat has been missing”... as I motioned over to the Lost Cat sign with two missing phone number tabs. “They’ve been calling me all night”....“He’s up there, I said confidently”.
Junior Play-Cop said no way Carlos.
I went down and around and finally found a hole where a sherriff's deputy was too busy on his mobile to notice me. I then headed down Grandview not looking back. I watched the helicopter take in water at the reservoir and then fly up the mountain and do it’s dump. I watched this about four times and marked my calendar for a few hours later when I’d take Lars back to watch this phenomenon.
When I got to the point to shoot up the hill to Liliano, I was met with resistance again. This time it was one of our cops. I thought of a plan to be lost.
“Is Liliano off this street?”, I asked.
The gal cop said “Ya… this street dead ends into the top of Liliano”.
I quickly said, “well… my brother lives up there and I have to get his cat out!”
I knew I was going to hit 777 on the slot machine behind her eyes or get two avocados and a plum.
777 it was. A cat owner.
“Awwww… uh…ok, you can go”
My friend always says the single gals always have lot of cats at home.
He was right.
Up the hill and over the dell I passed South Pas and San Marino firemen. They were lying in the yards of abandoned homes looking up at the sky or catching some shuteye. I couldn’t help wonder if San Marino firemen ever got to fight any big wild fires. For those not in the know, it’s a land-locked Beverly Hills type neighborhood. Their trucks were the newest. One of the sleepy guys said they saw a cat in another bush.
8:37 AM – Bob was there on his lawn chair. Hadnt' left one minute. Bob pointed to the bush where Bosco was to have entered. It was daylight now so I went about my whistling and beating of bushes. No Bosco. No cats at all. I went in about 25 backyards. I Looked over walls and in the cracks. I looked under houses in crawl spaces. Bosco didn’t answer me. I looked and called into gutters. Bob had been there for 17+ hours now. The fire was basically over.
I came down and passed the same stop-cops and winked as I walked by. I got home and we went to a mind-filling breakfast at Cocos with friends and updated them on the night. We tried to go back to Liliano to try again as a family and the blockades are still in place. We let Lars watch the helicopter for a while and then went home.
UPDATE – The LA County website has a cat looking like Bosco. We will check it in person today when they open.
SLEEP since Friday night – 7.37 hours.
Luckily and thanks to
Chubb Insurance (see
this post on the Hothead main page) we will have Wildfire Defense Systems (WDS) in place in June. I already spoke with commander Dave at WDS and he tutored me on his company’s plan for our home if we have fires from June out. Apparently Chubb is the only insurance company using their services and they are comprised of a crack team of Montana and California wildfire aces that created a company to defend property in the West.
Basically WDS sprays baby-diaper gel on your home and in outlying areas. The gel becomes thousands of micro-layers of water that hold back the fire and cool the home at the same time. I never thought I'd appreciate anything to do with baby diapers but I do now.
I love entrepreneurs.
I hope we never see Dave.
[CONTACT-FORM]
Saturday April 27, 2008 -- 10.09 PM – Firecat
We were out at the beach Saturday with friends and on the way home when the same friend called to give us the update she knew we didn’t have. Sierra Madre was on fire – or at least the hills behind Sierra Madre were. We raced home to orange sky just about 6 blocks west and north of our home. Ashes flew, the sky was as hot as it was bright. The hot wind hit my face as we got out of the car. It had a noise that was heavy too.
11.29 PM -- To top it off, our family cat Bosco has been missing since the prior Thursday morning. We issued lost postings on about 40 poles throughout the zone. A message blinking on the voicemail indicated that someone had spotted Bosco. I contacted said cat spotter and found that she lived on an evacuated street. Tears welled up in her throat as she said she couldn't wait on me but would meet another day to show me the Bosco site.
11.38 PM – Knowing Kristin wasn’t going to wait that long to see Bosco, I needed to go. After having confirmed that the mandatory evacuation was just a few blocks from Treehouse but not in our zone, I set out on foot (and in flip flops) to check for Bosco. Small flashlight in hand, I walked about 2 miles through a few Police blockades and up steep hills. The town was alive. It was like 6PM on July 4. Everyone was awake and in the streets. It reminded me of the scene in War of the Worlds where the street in Brooklyn was filled with chaos as the martians attacked.
As I passed gawker after gawker, I was struck with the magic of fire and how humans can't get the love for this beautiful, but destructive science out of their caveman beings. After all, we just sat at a bonfire on the beach not three hours before. But, I instantly wished that we could somehow take this gene permanently out of our micro system. The love of fire and what a spark can do is what caused this catastrophy in the first place.
Somewhere beyond Midnight – I made it up the street to Bosco’s last seen whereabouts. There were a few folks in their front yards in lawn chairs. Many had the cokes and beer at the ready. It was a free mega-sized bonfire after all. Why not enjoy it?
The house with said cat spotter was abandoned but I did my Bosco tongue-click that he recognizes and shined my light among the hundreds of bushes on Liliano Drive. The best part was that all the homes were vacant so I was able to go in backyards with ease. I felt like the ultimate cat burglar. If only I could burgle my cat.
GOOD OL BOB -- I met Bob who was across the street with his son. Bob had been there since minute one. Bob was listening to a police scanner and watching the next brush pile flare. Bob and I chatted a while and his son took my phone number.
Apparently the Liliano’s were one of Sierra Madre’s elite. They sold and subdivided the parcel into the lots like the one Bob owned. It’s an 80’s ET-family-like neighborhood. Nothing remarkable. He said the Lilianos got to name the street and the one adjacent. Arno. Their favorite river in Italy. I think Bob wished there was a river there now.
On the way down, I shined my light and clicked and whistled a few [what seemed like] thousand times before getting to the rescue station at the bottom of Liliano. The Sierra Madre rescue station is one of those Northern California looking brick structures with cool fire trucks (better looking green ones) parked inside. This morning the place was full of guys getting their hot Red Cross coffee and sharpening axes. It’s gonna be a long night.
I flip flopped back the 2-point-whatever miles and, on the way, cell phoned Kristin to update her as to no Bosco. The good news, I said, was that the fires were not imminent for our address. I then cell phoned my two neighbors and updated them to ease their minds. One was asleep. One awake.
It’s 2 AM NOW – I went to bed after showering the smoke off.
3:42 AM – Bob calls to say “Bosco” [we haven’t confirmed his match yet”] just darted about and into a bush. I said I’d hit the trail at daylight and thanked him.
5 Something (ask Auge) – I geared up with better shoes and we decided as a family to go on the Bosco hunt. I warned Krstin that it wouldn’t work and that we’d be stopped. After all, you need a stroller and gear to get a 10 mo. old up the hill. The helicopters roared again and went all day Sunday. They were (by the scanner at Bob's) 800 to 1000 ft above. Loud.
We were stopped.
We came home.
I went back on foot.
It’s 7ish NOW -- This time I was caught at many intersections by newly sworn McDonald’s coffee-toting 18-year-old cops from outlying cities.
I tried the honesty approach: “My cat has been missing”... as I motioned over to the Lost Cat sign with two missing phone number tabs. “They’ve been calling me all night”....“He’s up there, I said confidently”.
Junior Play-Cop said no way Carlos.
I went down and around and finally found a hole where a sherriff's deputy was too busy on his mobile to notice me. I then headed down Grandview not looking back. I watched the helicopter take in water at the reservoir and then fly up the mountain and do it’s dump. I watched this about four times and marked my calendar for a few hours later when I’d take Lars back to watch this phenomenon.
When I got to the point to shoot up the hill to Liliano, I was met with resistance again. This time it was one of our cops. I thought of a plan to be lost.
“Is Liliano off this street?”, I asked.
The gal cop said “Ya… this street dead ends into the top of Liliano”.
I quickly said, “well… my brother lives up there and I have to get his cat out!”
I knew I was going to hit 777 on the slot machine behind her eyes or get two avocados and a plum.
777 it was. A cat owner.
“Awwww… uh…ok, you can go”
My friend always says the single gals always have lot of cats at home.
He was right.
Up the hill and over the dell I passed South Pas and San Marino firemen. They were lying in the yards of abandoned homes looking up at the sky or catching some shuteye. I couldn’t help wonder if San Marino firemen ever got to fight any big wild fires. For those not in the know, it’s a land-locked Beverly Hills type neighborhood. Their trucks were the newest. One of the sleepy guys said they saw a cat in another bush.
8:37 AM – Bob was there on his lawn chair. Hadnt' left one minute. Bob pointed to the bush where Bosco was to have entered. It was daylight now so I went about my whistling and beating of bushes. No Bosco. No cats at all. I went in about 25 backyards. I Looked over walls and in the cracks. I looked under houses in crawl spaces. Bosco didn’t answer me. I looked and called into gutters. Bob had been there for 17+ hours now. The fire was basically over.
I came down and passed the same stop-cops and winked as I walked by. I got home and we went to a mind-filling breakfast at Cocos with friends and updated them on the night. We tried to go back to Liliano to try again as a family and the blockades are still in place. We let Lars watch the helicopter for a while and then went home.
UPDATE – The LA County website has a cat looking like Bosco. We will check it in person today when they open.
SLEEP since Friday night – 7.37 hours.
Luckily and thanks to Chubb Insurance (see this post on the Hothead main page) we will have Wildfire Defense Systems (WDS) in place in June. I already spoke with commander Dave at WDS and he tutored me on his company’s plan for our home if we have fires from June out. Apparently Chubb is the only insurance company using their services and they are comprised of a crack team of Montana and California wildfire aces that created a company to defend property in the West.
Basically WDS sprays baby-diaper gel on your home and in outlying areas. The gel becomes thousands of micro-layers of water that hold back the fire and cool the home at the same time. I never thought I'd appreciate anything to do with baby diapers but I do now.
I love entrepreneurs.
I hope we never see Dave.
[CONTACT-FORM]