Archives for July 2008

Always been my favorite beauty salon name. I’ve seen about three of them in my life, and it kills me (HA!) every time.

I took a break today. It was well-deserved, my only break in the last 12 days of 12-hour shifts. All my work was caught up for a moment. My coworkers were working, but not on things I could help with. So I took a break. And I gotta say, I wish ALL breaks were like this one:

I hopped in my car and sped up the road. I’d heard there was a used bookstore on Main in Fortuna (Rainy Day Books), and I found it, in a small alley behind a candy shop. It was SO worth seeking out. It was the kind of bookstore I would open if I ever opened one. Pretty well-organized (VERY well-organized for a used bookstore), and an excellent selection. On one table I counted four of my favorite books sitting together, randomly. A very good sign. The owner was so sweet, maybe my age, pretty eyes. There was a windchime outside. I bought books. Life was so good.

I’d also heard there was a yarn shop in town. I looked up the address: no, that couldn’t be it — I drove that way every day to the dispatch center. I’d have seen it, right?

From the road, all I’d seen from the side was the Salon part. I never would have thought to strain my eyes to read the first part of the sign. Dude. Dude! Do you love it? That yellow sign is a big ad for Red Heart, and they had a Lion Brand neon sign to go with the salon neon that you can’t see in that picture. I walked in, expecting the worst. And at first, I thought it would live up to my expectations. Miles of Red Heart. Miles of acrylic in the worst degree. Check. Yes. There it all was.

But then, another room. Another room full of the GOOD stuff. I didn’t have time, and I didn’t want to spend money, so I only got a skein of Trekking XXL, but I was so pleased and happy to be there. And at the back of the enormous shop, sure enough, there was another room full of women getting their hair done. How great would that be? While the color sets, you browse the shelves? Knit under the dryer? I think it’s incredibly weird and very, very smart.

Then I was back to work, less than an hour gone. Messages were stacked to the ceiling, but it was worth it. Books and yarn. What more do I need? (Well, I need home. I need Lala. Sisters. Walks with dogs. But I go home on Tuesday after what will have been a 16-day deployment, including travel time, and MAN will I be happy to be there. And then I turn around and work 8 more 12-hour days in row. At the end of this, I will have worked 24 days in a row without a day off. And then a three-day weekend. Which will be the pajama-weekend to end ALL pajama weekends. Thus sayeth me.)

Edited to add: Right after I posted this, I walked into the bathroom to run a bath. I stood next to the hotel tub, turned on the tap, watched the water, then lifted the shower button the tap. And then I stood there, getting soaked by the showerhead, while the shower sprayed all over the room (of course the curtain was pulled back) while I tried to figure out what I’d done wrong and how I could fix it. I think I’m a little tired.

Dude. I’m having such a good time.

I’m working in an expanded dispatch center which is running resources for four federal complexes, plus a bunch of state fires. A complex is a name for a group of fires. Each complex is made of 20-30 individual fires. So my team is working on around 125 forest fires, all started by dry lightning that occurred three weeks ago. Seriously, wow.

Every single thing they have to work with on those fires came through this center. Their personnel: the firefighters, the management, the helicopter crew members, the radio operators, the prison crews, the hired hand-crews. Their equipment: the engines, the hoses, the airplanes, the chainsaws. The supply: the computers, the port-a-potties, the food, the paperclips. Also: travel to and from, hotel stays, ground support for getting people from all over the country and the world TO each fire where they need to go. It’s kind of like party-planning for a really awful, enormous party which requires really big toys.

It’s mind-boggling. And this is only for a small fraction of the fires burning here — there are other tens of other expanded dispatch centers in every national forest district, in different counties and areas of California.

(Don’t tell the people I’m talking to all day on the phone, but I’m on the coast. It’s cool here. They’re battling with pulling the bugs out of their fax machines that are run on generator-power, sweating in the 114 degree heat, and we’re out here comfortable in the all-day fog. And while what we’re doing is important and vital, what they’re doing is scary and necessary and amazing, so props to them. Mad props.)

Could you blog that we have a free show on Friday? It’s Friday at the
Oakland Museum, and we go on at 7 on the side stage.
You can tell them that they need to stand in for you! Especially if
they’re hot. And into letting little dogs out in the middle of the
night.

Our set is from 7p-7:30p on the SIDE STAGE.  Come early, stay late!

Best of the Bay Show
Friday, July 11th, 7pm – midnight
Oakland Museum of California
1000 Oak Street. Oakland
www.EastBayExpress.com/Promotions

Tiny flowers in the grass. At most, a quarter of an inch across.

Two thoughts, one bigger than the other:

1. The reason I am so tired every night: Although I always work 12 hours shifts, I am not usually THINKING so hard for twelve hours straight without a break. (Also, I’m going on my seventh day now). I know how to do my job at home, so I just do it. Here, I’m constantly having to ask questions. How do I find a cultural specialist from the Yurok tribe to go to the fire that’s close to the Hoopa when he’s not listed in the national system and he doesn’t have a house phone? How do you track an engine that’s now being staffed with all new personnel, some of whom still show attached to another engine miles away? Dunno. I’m learning. It’s great. I love being outside of my comfort zone. In most things. Not when it comes to pillows, though. Hells no. I need a flat pillow. Period.

2. You people make me a better person. Everything is linked, I know that. Everything is connected. The fact that you send me love and the best comments anyone ever had leaves me with exponentially more love to send out. I have learned more about compassion in the last month than in my whole 36 years. I’ve learned that love isn’t just words said out loud, it’s action. The washing of dishes. The emptying of a bedpan. A smile. Any motion that’s driven by compassion is love. So from me to you, I send love in these typed words.

2.1    I am sooo tired that I’m more touchy-feely than normal, and that could be explained by the fact that I’m in Humboldt, I think (no, not THAT. Come on). I believe they’re pretty granola up here. But I mean it.

     Hello.

Still up north on the fires. Last night, my birthday, I went on a long drive. I didn’t really what else to do. I’d had to change hotels, and the new one wasn’t half as inspiriing as the old one — the old one had a view, and this new one had…. well…. it didn’t. Nor did it have the internets (no ANTM! Oh, no!), so I dropped my stuff and went out driving.

Oh, my. I went to Ferndale. It was gorgeous, much prettier than it looks above — huge field with nothing in sight but an odd farmhouse or occasional Victorian. And cows. And sheep! Hooray! That low fog that was actively rolling in as I drove. It smelled so good, fresh mown grass, and hay, and sheep, and ocean.

I didn’t stop, really, except to say hello to my friends the cows. I just drove. And it was amazing. I kept driving. I found a windy road that led out of town, and I followed my nose. About an hour later, just when I was thinking "oh, crap, I’ll have to turn around and go back the way I came if I can remember what I did," I ran across the highway. Of course, I was all turned around and ended up going the wrong way on the highway and had to turn around, but around that kind of beauty, who cares?

That was a good birthday present. And everyone guarantees that when I get home, I get more birthdays treats! Sushi. I want sushi. Anyone have a sushi recommendation in Eureka? Mmm?

Last year or the year before my mother called on my birthday and got my cell phone. She sang me a message, which I’ve been saving every 21 days as it gets close to expiration in my voice mail.

I’ve been terrified of hearing it. So I listened to it tonight, in my hotel room, a day early. Just to get it over with. I was already crying, what more could it hurt?

Her voice. Her New Zealand accent. She sang, and said she hoped she talked to me later, and told me to have a lovely day.

Her voice was so damn quick on the machine. So bright. So her.

Now that I’ve started typing, I can’t stop crying.

I’ve been doing so WELL. Being up here working the fires has been great. I’m so far from anything I know, anything I love. I’m so busy and working so hard, learning so much, for long hours. It’s driven most other thoughts out of my mind.

My room looks over the Eel River, and the fog is rolling in for the night. I don’t know what to do. I love fireworks, never miss them, but do I want to go chase them tonight? In a strange town? I did hear where there’ll be a show, but do I want to be around that many happy little families? I don’t think I do.

So. Now I’ve been sitting here for long minutes, staring at this post, watching the fog roll in and the parking lot below fill up with firefighters from all over the nation. I keep writing sentences and erasing them. For some reason, whenever I’m sad about Mom and writing about it here, I think about that ugly email I got the night Mom first got sick (don’t go looking for it — all reference has been deleted). Sometimes now, when writing about Mom, my words feel stifled. I don’t want that person to ever read my blog and gloat, reveling that all isn’t perfect in my world. But sitting here, watching the sky, I just decided I’m going to stop thinking like that. All is perfect and just as it is supposed to be in my world, even with the loss of one of my favorite people. Underneath the grief, I am happy, as usual, and it makes me sad that there are people out there in the world, who deliberately try to cause other people pain. She even took her email a little further that same awful week, in something I won’t write about here — she was trying yet again to cause pain, but of course she failed in a big way. I’m glad she failed, because she was just being mean-spirited and small. But it makes me sad that she’s that sad. It has to be sadness, right? That makes people want to be mean for the fun of it, that disguises itself as mad or hot-tempered or aggrievedly self-righteous or just mean? It’s just sadness. It kind of sounds weird, I know, but it makes my heart hurt even more that some people are THIS SAD all the time. That the way I feel tonight is what maybe she feels all the time. I wish that weren’t so. For anyone, ever.

Whew. Now that I’ve thought that out, dealt with the strange feeling that’s been holding back my words sometimes, I feel better. The sky outside my window is GORGEOUS now, all pink fog rising above the steely river, the redwoods slanting into the hills. I’m not going to watch fireworks, and I’m fine with that. This year’s holidays will be hard, and this is no small exception. So I’ve run a bath, and I’m going to read my book, and then I’m going to get into my HUGE high-thread-count nice-hotel sheets and watch more ANTM online, because contrary to what Lala says, America’s Next Top Model is a better grief tool than old kung-fu movies. Any day. Happy fourth. Tomorrow, happy birthday to me (with all this overtime I’m making up here, I’m getting myself a big ole MOM tattoo. See if I won’t). And my birthday wish is peace and joy to all who need it. That’s a good wish. Yes.