Thursday, July 10, 2008

Follow Through

I'm notoriously bad at this, so here's my attempt at actually following through on some things:

Fire:

Good news, it's mostly out. Despite the heatwave that seems to be raging throughout the rest of the state we have been socked in with our traditional summer fog. Never has a town been so excited to see our usual 'June Gloom'.

The coverage on the fire has been worse than useless. In the first couple of days we had one or two 'reverse 911 calls' where the authorities call your home to give you an update on evacuation orders, necessary precautions etc. That was useful, but not so much when the power is out and the phones are down. We have an old-fashioned non-electric phone somewhere but trying to find that in the dark in the attic with a candle? Not going to happen. The TV channels were regurgitating the same old information from 12+ hours ago (not very useful when it comes to something that moves like, well, wildfire....) and most of Santa Barbara went about it's business trying to ignore the giant gorilla hovering in the background.

We were never under any real threat from the fire as it happens. Despite it's apparent proximity and the 60-100ft flames making it look much closer than reality we had nothing more than some poor air quality and a flurry of ash making it look like 'Cuhmissmass' in July per Anna.

On the plus side. Firemen!! Over the weekend the town was absolutely crawling with them, you couldn't reach a coffee shop without tripping over a pack of grubby yet charming out of town firefighters. No bad thing. Hard to hide the toddler, the wedding ring and the baby bump but you know I tried....

Baby

Just when you thought it was safe to return to these waters...I'm going to start talking about the foetus again. I'm starting to show and a couple of people have done the comedy 'I know I'm going to regret asking this, but are you, possibly, I mean, you're usually on the slimmer side, so' etc etc. I like to watch them squirm. I'm generally giving it away by subconsciously caressing my stomach at every given opportunity. Mother Nature is working her wily ways and almost despite myself I'm giving creature #2 a gentle pat every, oh, 3 seconds or so. I swear I don't even realize I'm doing it. I'm not that affected honest.

I'd been feeling better until suddenly out of the blue on Tuesday I started throwing up like a cholera victim. (Do they throw up or just leak bodily fluids? If only I had the time and energy to research..). Poor old Anna got to witness the entire display with eyes like dinner plates while I gently urged her to please (urrgghh) go downstairs (urrggghhhh!) to Dada (bleurrrgghh). This is the first and only time I've thrown up this pregnancy. I only threw up once last time too so hopefully I'm done.

Anna

Currently at home from school with a nasty cold which I can feel heading my way considering how many times she's sneezed up my nose in the last 24 hours. Something about her feeling poorly makes her want to squash her little mucous-ridden face next to mine and share my breath for an entire night.

So that's all folks. No flambe'd K household. Baby still plumping and growing. Toddler sneezing and watching Go Diego Go.

Why don't more people read this blog?!

9 comments:

Unknown said...

Glad the fire is under *control* and not endangering you. That is scary stuff!

I love it when I'm sneezed all over and then think "in 3 days, I'll be sick as heck... yippee!" Last week Wynnie had a sore throat, ear ache and a pink eye (no idea if it was actually PINK eye). This week is looking pretty good so far. I'm thankful for the little things.

Yay for the baby bump!

jenny said...

i love hearing your thoughts about the wildfires out there. we had a major wildfire up in our region last year and since i work in emergency management, i like to hear people's thoughts about it all. anyways...

gotta love when you start gettin' a baby bump! :) i hope the sickness doesn't stick around though.

Gill - That British Woman said...

I wanted to say hi from a fellow Brit, living in Canada.

Gill in Canada

Jenny said...

I found your blog a while ago thought the expat brits in CA blogroll.

My favourite wildfire link is http://geomac.usgs.gov/# (but only useful if electricity and internet are working). I'm not sure I'd be the same way excited about wildfires if they were on my doorstep (but I am a geography geek).

Anonymous said...

There are many of us reading without comment each and every installment, but I shall comment here to let you know about the "silent ones" hanging on all syllables.
We love your work.
Keep it up.

Carrie Nicole said...

I lived in Oceanside a few years back during another really horrible fire season in SoCal.... it's not fun, but boy those firefighters are absolutely dee-lish!!

KG said...

Heh - I read your blog . . . puke, snot, and all!

Anonymous said...

The lack of information on the fire WAS ridiculous. One of my friends who was evacuated called the "hotline" and got a message that the office was closed. Not very comforting as we packed up the house watching the flames from her backyard. SB has a lot going for it - emergency response information and morning radio shows are not among them. Chilly

Sugarplum's Mom said...

awww I'm sorry she wasn't feeling well. Late June we drove from northern California to Anaheim and San Diego - we did not get out of the smoke until we were going over the grapevine. Bakersfield was particularly bad. Glad you were not in any danger.