Glad

I'm glad I'm busy and don't have time to watch the self-styled pundits discussing the fires on the news or on chat-shows. Tracey is talking about it a little bit and it's making me angry, attitudes of people like Katie Couric and George Carlin.

Look - yes, you have opinions. But it's not the time, not the place to spew them. And incidentally - it's bad form to ask a firefighter why he isn't doing "more." I KNOW a few firefighters. You won't find a more doing-all-they-can-when-there-is-a-need profession (unless, perhaps, you look at the Marines). They are not magic. They are NOT Dumbledore, people, they can't wave a magic wand (heh...given Rowling's recent comment, that has two meanings) and make the fires go away.

Once again I am amazed at the inability of some people to understand a very simple fact of life, which is:

Stuff happens.

Sometimes that stuff is bad and there's sometimes nothing to be done about it. It is no one's fault. It is how the world works. What we are called to do (at least, this is what I believe) is to get in there and work, do what we can, to try to ameliorate the effects of that bad stuff. And that DOES NOT include flappin' your gums about people "overbuilding" and crap. We can have that discussion later. Not while people are sleeping in tents and worrying about their dogs.

I have to say it kind of kills me that I'm not closer, that there's not something more concrete I can do other than praying and sending a check to Salvation Army.

That said...my two California cousins are OK, and I am thankful for that. (Actually, my cousin D. - he lives in Bakersfield, and I had forgotten that he had moved there recently, so he's out of any fire area. But still). And it seems like my IIFs are all OK, and I'm grateful for that.

And it sounds like they think the winds may die back tomorrow, and give the firefighters a chance to kick fire butt. I hope that they will.