This is an occasional series of remembrances as my husband and I rebuild our lives after the Eaton Fire took out our house and almost everything we own. You can read the first episode here.
As I wrote several months ago, this is not going to be very regular. There’s enough other stuff going on in my life that has nothing to do with grief or the fire. Things like selling my novels, one of the harder tasks out there. This is the stuff that goes on, no matter what happened to us or is happening.
I have a list of potential topics for this feature, and maybe it’s because my mood has been pretty shitty of late. Our dog is not doing well, and the one thing I can think of that might make him feel better is a yard so he doesn’t have to do his business with an audience, and I can’t give it to him.
We’re living in an apartment, for which I am grateful, but there are a lot of challenges with the place (and more on them later).
But being in a shit mood means that a little potentially off-color commentary might be in order. As in one of the first things that happened after my husband and I evacuated.
We got to the shelter around 4 a.m. Later that morning, and still way earlier than I am accustomed to being awake, I had to use the toilet. I keep my wallet and my business card case in my back jeans pockets, wallet in one, card case in the other. Well, somehow, as I was dropping my pants, the card case fell into the toilet – before I’d used it, thank God.
I quickly fished the case out and wiped it off. And opened it. Fortunately, the cards inside were still dry. But as I shut the case, I couldn’t help thinking, “This is so emblematic of my life right now.”
And this was three days before we found out the house was gone.
