Newlyweds. Goofballs. Movie stars. We are Carbonated Jeans.

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Goodness, gracious, great balls of fi-yaaa!

I think God wants us to move away from Santa Barbara.

The evidence: this place is on fire. And not in a good way. I mean it is literally burning up, for the second time since I moved here, and the THIRD time in the last year. In case you weren't a regular reader of my old blog, here's a quick recap:

In November 2008, the Tea Fire burned down a whole bunch of houses and other stuff. About 14 homes in my immediate neighborhood were completely destroyed. Ours, thank God, was rescued by the firefighters and only a small part of one wall burned before they were able to put it out. It took months for the repairs on the houses still standing to be finished, and sometimes I can STILL smell smoke on my clothes. A week or two ago, they started rebuilding the destroyed homes.

And then yesterday afternoon, another fire broke out. It's several miles from here, and as yet, our neighborhood is not in any immediate danger. But the winds, much like in November, are raging and unpredictable.

The reason I woke up at 5:10 this morning was not to spend extra time coiffing my hair. If I had my way, I'd still be sleeping right now (it's 5:40 - my alarm is set for 5:45). The thing is, the wind woke me up.

This may not seem very significant, but it is. I am a really heavy sleeper. I've slept through thunderstorms and earthquakes. I've slept through wild parties our neighbors threw at all hours of the night, playing loud and distorted mariachi music and laughing hysterically. When I'm asleep, I'm basically dead to the world. So for me to be woken up by the wind?

Kind of freaky.

It was...SO...stinking...LOUD. I could hear trash cans flying around on the ground. The whistling of the wind between trees and houses and whatever else, sounded more like screaming than whistling.

So I sat up, turned on my computer, and searched for any news updates saying the fire was spreading and we were all going to die. So far, it appears things are still relatively okay. I'm kind of afraid to look out my window, and even slightly more afraid that my car isn't going to be parked in front of the house anymore (can wind blow a Honda stationwagon away when it has the parking brake on?).

They're saying that the wind advisory will be in effect until 9 this morning. Hopefully, once the wind dies down, they can get a handle on the fire before it does any property damage. I'm just thanking God that, as far as I can tell or read, it is still burning in a hillside/brush area, and has remained at least half a mile away from residential areas.

All this to say, as much as I love Santa Barbara, I am really okay with the idea of moving somewhere else, whenever God makes that opportunity available to us. And, as much as I love the house I'm in now, I will be really glad to move into Joe's place after we get married, because both of these fires (today's Jesusita Fire and November's Tea Fire) were a heck of a lot farther away from his place than mine.

(I'll be happy to move in with Joe for other reasons, too, of course...)

Alas, I suppose I might as well get up and ready for work. The question is: do I play it safe and pack up all the important stuff as if I might never see my house again?

And the answer is...

Nah. I'm reckless like that.

PS: Take this poll and tell us where we should live! You can put in an "other" response, but keep it short, because PollDaddy cuts off long answers.

1 comment:

  1. I was torn between Santa Barbara and Rancho. For purely selfish reasons I would have chosen S.B. so we can visit you by the beach when it's too hot here. But then I took into account that Joe would really love to work with the guys in Rancho and that's not too far away so we can spend time with you. Maybe we could build a mountain cabin for summer getaways...have to do some research on fire histories out there...

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