<p>order seems to be messed up -- the server has been spending too much time in SA.</p>
<p>Bumperoos to Page 1. Okay, I'm at the airport waiting to get on the plane to Vegas. I am using a totally *%@!ed-up keyboard while I'm waiting to board the plane. </p>
<ol>
<li> The delete button does not work.<br></li>
<li> The page up and page down keys don't work.<br></li>
<li> The "el" letter key does not work, so I'm copying and pasting that letter.</li>
<li> A chid is screaming directly behind me... </li>
<li> Oh joy, the Southwest gate I'm at doesn't have the numbered and lettered boarding lanes set up, so it looks like we're going to be using the honor system to line up.</li>
<li> And, my feet are freezing because I fly half-naked to avoid hassles in the security lines.</li>
</ol>
<p>Moooo....time to line up!</p>
<p>sluggy--you have my sympathy. I trust you at least got there in a timely manner.</p>
<p>My H travels a lot. His latest travail was arriving at the airport and discovering there were no parking spots...none! One lot was closed for resurfacing, so he tried the long term, then the longer term.....on his 2nd time around with time running out, he discovered they were doing valet parking. (You can't exactly park your car by the side of the entrance road somewhere and hike to the plane.)</p>
<p>He sort of threw his keys at the guy and ran. :eek:</p>
<p>Arrgh, mommusic! Which airport was that? I'm for outing these places that make it just a little harder to get out of bed every day. Really, it's a slippery slope into idiocracy when public places like airports become so user-unfriendly that intelligent people have to dumb down in order to make sense of the layout. No parking at the airport is probably the last thing I would have anticipated. Though, I hear in a pinch that it is possible to fashion a personal jet pack out of two water bottles, a piece of Dentyne Ice, and a paper clip. :p</p>
<p>Anyway, I made it to the desert and arrived just in time to drive 15 miles per hour through the mile and a half school zone down the only road to my condo. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the kids in BC, NV, are pretty fast because they run home from school every day. As soon as the bell rings, the big steel doors fly open, and the kids fly out of there like Mexican cave bats. Two thirty hits and...fooom! Bat speed is faster than 15 mph. </p>
<p>So, it's not really about protecting the kids as much as it's about making drivers slow down to a mind-numbing speed that makes your head explode after the first two minutes. It's the vehicular equivalent of the Chinese water torture, and eventually, some poor schmuck cracks and tries to drive 20 mph. The ever-vigilant BC police are on the job! This offense requires lightbars and strobes in order to catch the perp and a lot of strutting once the officer arrives. </p>
<p>One good thing about the 15 mph speed limit is that it makes it possible for everyone to see the driver during the twenty minutes that it takes to drive past the school. I've noticed that the most common offenders are 20-something year old males in compact pickups and carpool moms. We 50-something parents aren't in such a hurry to get home. ;)</p>
<p>It was the Dayton airport but I don't want to give them a bad name. Normally they're very user friendly, not too large, and if you get there early enough (o'dark thirty, as my H says) you can park close in and all is well. But during the resurfacing of the lot, they evidently had to resort to valet parking, which DH didn't know about until time had just about run out. (He's very good at the OJ Simpson dash through the airport, esp. if he knows where he's going.)</p>
<p>About that personal jet pack--I hear Mentos & two bottles of Diet Coke work extremely well. Plus enough duck tape to fasten the device to the body.</p>
<p>Bumperoos to Page 1. :D :) :D </p>
<p>Today is type without an "el" key and no edit day! No delete key, either. That's because I'm tired of cutting and pasting that particu1ar 1etter of the a1phabet. So, I'm using the number 1 key, instead. And, it's a pain to high1ight and return to erase typos, but there's no way around it. </p>
<p>So, I'm 1azy today. I have to preserve my brain power for a drive out to the cemetery in Search1ight. It 1ooks 1ike the wind speed is up to, oh...60 mph, judging by the way the pa1m trees are bent over and the tumb1eweeds are b1owing past my front door. It 1ooks 1ike we're going to have a b1ow, Mother. If I were channe1ing Buddy Hackett, I'd say something about how things b1ow in Vegas, but I won't. And, I won't make any references to Hoover Dam, which is ca11ed Bou1der Dam by the residents. I'd better get in the dam car before it b1ows away. :o</p>
<p>I've rented The (1939) Wizard of Oz to show in the Alley tonight. C'mon, let's squeeze into the orange booth and watch the best movie ever made. :)</p>
<p>Slide on over; I'll join you, because I've just spent a weekend in Neverland. Never-again-land, I hope. </p>
<p>The "Tea" fire forced me to evacuate my house (luckily it was spared-- and was, at the end of the day, well to outside the burn area). But many of my dear friends' homes burned to the ground. </p>
<p>It was terrifying: out for a drink, getting a call on my cell from my 17 year old ("Mom, there's a fire, come home!") He found out on FACEBOOK! Then racing home and seeing giant orange flames, shooting into the sky, straight ahead of me. </p>
<p>Ten minutes spent chucking photos, paintings, checkbooks and passports into the car. Grabbing the bunny from his hutch. (Hilarious aside: I threw my unreturned Netflix into the box. Can you say "girl scout"? I also confess that I considered grabbing the 30 year old scotch-- but I didn't do it, though a true Alley instinct!) Jumped into the car and zoomed away with smoke in my eyes and nostrils and ashes fluttering onto my windshield. Terror, confusion... also gratitude that the road wasn't clogged and my kids were with me.</p>
<p>The news stories about this fire depict SB as a "celebrity enclave." My neighbors whose homes burned to the ground are not celebrities. They are teachers, potters, carpenters, electricians, civil servants. Some of them were born in these houses; many inherited them. As the flames were upon them, most left with only car keys and handbags-- not even enough time to grab a photo album. It is now a moonscape where they lived. They are numb, shattered.</p>
<p>So yep, I'll take a few hours on the yellow brick road. Be grateful for the little things alley peeps. Be grateful for soft beds, secure homes, familiar objects.</p>
<p>Lots of sympathy to those in LA dealing with the same nightmare!</p>
<p>The moment of assessing what to take when you think you might have 10 minutes is very instructive. You take only the irreplaceable. Monetary value has nothing to do with it. You leave the cashmere and take the snapshots. You leave the antiques and take the letters.</p>
<p>SBmom- glad you are safe and back in your home. I was thinking about you. I also was dismayed about how the media labeled the fire area as filled with ritzy homes.</p>
<p>Thank you mom60. Such a joke, that's the way other side of town. Topanga Canyon vs. Malibu.</p>
<p>SB, it's one thing to watch it on TV, another to run from fire. Been there during the Oakland Hills fire. It's hard to describe how every living thing flees from a fire and how our thoughts converge on the escape. Your bunny thanks you, and the folks at Netflix should comp you the rental. What was the movie, btw? </p>
<p>The 30-year old scotch, my dear, is for dealing with the aftermath and long walks on the moon with friends. Drop by the Alley anytime for slugghuggs and reassuring winks from Sarah Palin, who has become an Alley regular since the election. The marmots look darn cute in their little orange jumpsuits. ;)</p>
<p>SB I thought of you. Thanks for checking into the Alley. No worries on your 30 year Scotch, we keep some for you here:). With a cute Martha Stewart type luggage tag on it saying "SBmom only - unless of course your life requires it".</p>
<p>My mom is on the other side of 101, so she is OK. Still, looking at the fire on Google maps, I cannot believe how far down the hill it has come.</p>
<p>A colleague of mine from San Diego says that once the fires are out, and the rebuilding begins, the thing that lingers for a long time is the smell. In other words, everything tastes smoked for a long time. Still, if that's all you have to deal with, and others have lost their house and all their belongings, I imagine the taste of gratitude is stronger.</p>
<p>Best wishes, and beer nuts on the house.</p>
<p>Thanks guys.</p>
<p>The taste of gratitude is very, very strong.</p>
<p>SB</p>
<p>SBmom, I know firsthand how a fire can traumatize you. I was in one myself 25 years ago and my parents suffered from one 3 years ago, Bombardier (sp?)golf cart battery. So wonderfull for you that you got photos, my parents got out with the clothes on their backs and mothers purse. Thousands of photos that my mom was dividing up for the 5 children, gone. It's okay now, my parents are safe.</p>
<p>I am familiar with the dreaded Santa Ana winds. I grew up in OC, then my parents moved to Westlake Village years later. More than 30 years later I still have the memories of my dad hosing down the roof as mom packed the station wagon.</p>
<p>Glad that everbody is safe!</p>
<p>So sorry you are going though all that, SBmom. Glad you, the passports and photos ae now all safe. Did you return the netflix?? :)</p>
<p>Wow, SBMom. So sorry for your friends' losses.</p>
<p>What I have read is the early housebuilders in SoCal realized it was akin to a desert much of the year, and built fireproof terra cotta tile roofs. Newcomers (or newer builders) didn't have that knowledge. For what it's worth*......in any case, FIRE BAD.</p>
<p>mommusic, this inferno burned even stucco/ tile roof homes to ash.</p>
<p>It sounds awful. We have no experience with the hot winds that blow out your way.</p>
<p>SBMom,</p>
<p>Hugs!!!</p>
<p>SBMom - Sounds terrible. We were following it online when it went through Montecito, anxious about Music Academy. So glad your home was spared. I agree that the best part is that your kids were with you. Stuff nightmares are made of - having to locate and gather everyone.</p>