Did someone say fire?

Woke up feeling good again today! A teeny tiny bit of balance issues, but really nothing to mention, I'm not even sure they were really there, that's how small it was.

I really had a pretty good today. In fact I'm pretty sure you would be proud of me, for although there is a fire burning in our mountains only 2 miles to the west of me, I have not panicked. I calmly noted that we were right on the border of the evacuation area. Even though helicopters and planes having been flying by all day doing air strikes I have stayed calm. It's really no big deal, I figure someone will mention it, if it's time to leave.

Just in case though, I have packed a box by the door with important papers and my art journal. The cats we will round up too. I'm 99% sure we won't need any of these precautions, but just in case, I want to be prepared. It's not a bad idea anyway if you live in the mountains to know what you want to take should you need to evacuate for a fire.

As of now the fire is heading away from us thanks to the winds we've been having, which is great for us, but obviously not for the folks over there.

This is what is weird about me. I have a potential danger for real and yet, I'm not scared. Go figure. I guess it helps that it's moving along the mountain instead of down it. I'm more like, here we go again, because we just went through this last year with the Summit fire and the Bonny Dunes one back to back.

I almost feel like I should repost my fire safety 101 posts from last year. People that live up here really need to be extra careful about starting fires. Windy days and flammable objects=bad. There are too many clumsy incidents up here, 4 in my neighborhood alone! One of those actually started by a neighbor who's a firefighter. But that's another blog post for another time.

Anyhoo, after I packed my worldly possesions which I might aren't very many. Really most of our stuff is replaceable. Even pictures, now that they are all digital. I kept looking around thinking I must have something else to add. Do I bring my I Love Lucy DVD's or is that a bit much?

Okay back on track, after I packed my box, I managed to waste the rest of the day reading art blogs, checking my flickr account, and positing on my own art blog. All of a sudden it was 6:00 and I hadn't made it downstairs to paint yet.

I meant to have an art day, but I just wasn't very inspired. Which actually bothered me at first, but it's okay now, as I'm down in the studio as I write this, working on four different collages right now. All started tonight. I'm back in the groove.

But before I came down though, I was so antsy and bored I had to get out of here. So, we decided to go grocery shopping! To make it more fun we took the motorcycle. I figured I better start getting over my fear about that too.

Well we got as far as the end of town when traffic stopped still. Like vertical parking lot. We soon found out the road was closed. Bummer, I really wanted my burrito fixins too. Oh well, we decided to travel up to Big Basin to see if we could see any fire activity. Believe it or not we can neither see nor smell smoke over here. The wind is really blowing things away from us, which is nice.

Would you belive I made it all the way to the park? We didn't have to turn around this time! And even better it was tons of fun. I only had one moment of panic on the way back and I got rid of it pretty fast.

It was really strange because after the ride I was totally relaxed. IN fact I got so relaxed that I got scared at first because I physically felt my body untense. It was like I became a wet noodle or something. I thought I was going to collapse or something at first, but then I realized I was actually relaxed. Very weird! I'm not used to not being tense. It's a strange sensation for me now. How sad is that?

Alright that's my day, I'm heading upstairs to eat and watch my DVD's before going to bed.