Best of Boomer Blogs: A Fiery Week

This past week was insane. President Jimmy Carter, a man of enormous character and integrity, was laid to rest at 100. Say what you will of his Presidency, he spent his entire life in service with a deep compassion for humanity.

Los Angeles burned

I live/lived in Altadena, Calfornia. Our home was in the Eaton fire zone. The area was evacuated on January 8^th. I woke up from a dead sleep after my roommate got an alert on her phone at 3:30 am to leave immediately. I hurriedly jumped in my car in immense smoke after winds of 80-100 miles per hour pounded Altadena hightailing it to my daughter’s house in the San Fernando Valley.

I was conveniently scheduled to go to Long Beach for five nights to attend an anime convention as a guest voice actor the next day. My bags were prepacked including my important documents. Many other evacuees left with only the shirt on their backs.

The next day, the Palisades Fire started moving toward my daughter’s home. She has a new baby so her family took off to stay with my son in Tehachapi until the threat was over. They returned home and now we are all meeting at my brother’s beach house in San Diego’s Mission Beach for a few more days.

The air quality in Los Angeles is red flagged so we are happy to enjoy the ocean air.

I’m thankful to have my family to stay with, but thousands of people are displaced. Thankfully, our city and nearby Pasadena, the state of California, and what remains of the Biden administration have been on top of the catastrophe with funding, support, and disaster relief.

We live on a piece of property with two homes. One was a Craftsman bungalow built in the 1930s. The other is an additional dwelling unit (ADU) where I lived, built 5 years ago with cement siding. The Craftsman is toast while the ADU miraculously survived with windows blown out.

No one is allowed in the neighborhood because homes are smoldering, and the air and water are toxic. It’s frustrating because of the fear of looters who are the scum of society.

Meanwhile, right-wing wingnuts are spewing conspiracy theories that are far from true. Ignore them. They are worse than scum. Fires are not political. They affect everyone. We had plenty of water, firefighters, and funding, but helicopters could not fly in hurricane-force winds.

Many celebrities like Tom Hanks, Kim Kardashian, and Rhianna, lost multi-million-dollar homes in the Pacific Palisades.

Still, we will get through this, and our neighborhoods will be rebuilt. I am happy to live in the most beautiful state in the USA.

Best of Baby Boomer Bloggers this week

I’m the only one of our Baby Boomer bloggers in Los Angeles. The others are enjoying or dealing with other situations or topics. Enjoy their posts.

Laurie Stone

It started out as any other walk with Laurie’s terrier, Libby. A balmy, early spring day, they took their usual stroll down their driveway, along the main road, and then a quick right onto the quiet, dead-end street next door. That’s when Laurie saw it, or rather, them. The sight assaulted her eyes.  

 Carol Cassara

Thoughts become things and dreams DO come true, or at least that was so for a woman who decided to take a huge leap of faith into the unknown. Over on Carol Cassara’s blog, she tells us about her in “How to Do the Scary Thing: Like Move to the South of France.”

Rita R. Robison

Buying a new or used car is a big expense and one that requires lots of research to arrive at the best choice, says Rita R. Robison, consumer and personal finance journalist. See Robison’s article for a report on which brands make the best new cars and the most reliable used models.

Birthdays are fun occasions, a time when friends and family gather to celebrate a milestone. The New Year began with Meryl Baer’s family gathering to celebrate the 100th birthday of the family matriarch. She discusses the event in this week’s post on her blog, Musings of a Shore Life.