Daughters

Sunday August 30, 2009

Daughters

My daughters live far away from me and I miss them. I am fortunate to able to talk with them frequently, but still I wish we were all closer and could be together more. However, I am very lucky to have a group of "girls" (young women from mid 20's to mid 30's) who I am friends with. I have decided that given my advanced age of 53 years I should be able to mother them whenever I am lonely, bored, or just want to. There was never a group vote that I would be allowed to assume this role. I just started getting into their business and so far they haven't kicked me out. Of course this might be somewhat influenced by the vast superiority of my wine to theirs.

Yesterday we celebrated four of the girls birthdays at my house. I had decided that we would pretend the girls were checking into a luxury hotel for the day. A real luxury hotel would have been nice; but, unfortunately, there was neither the money nor the means for a posh visit somewhere. Instead I dug out mementos from every great hotel I have visited and scattered them around my house. I tried to make the pool area look like the Beverly Hills Peninsula. I cleaned the area, put out wine and water, arranged and draped lounge chairs, and even placed small yellow flower arrangements on the tables.

Shortly before the party was to start I was considering the pool area. I was pleased with the results of my efforts (even though it honestly didn't look much like the Peninsula pool). Unexpectedly a huge black cloud floated directly over my neighborhood and I felt a few drops of rain. "Oh No!," was screaming inside my head as a ran around snatching up towels, flowers, and wine, "I wanted it to rain on the California daughter not here!"

My youngest daughter lives in Los Angeles and, because of the raging wildfires there, I have been concerned for her and many other Californians safety. I had been hoping and praying for rain to give this battered section of the country a much deserved break. If only it was that easy to change the course of a destructive weather system. No such luck!

The low humidity and record high temperatures of Southern California have supported the outbreak of multiple dangerous wildfires. One fire, which is being called the Station Fire, has already destroyed at least 7,000 acres, is threatening 2,000 homes, and is within miles of critically important communication towers. If these communication towers are lost things will become much worse in the fight to control the wildfires. TV and radio signals would lose the capacity to broadcast and update the public about current fire dangers. Also lost would be the ability to dispatch signals for emergency personnel and fire fighters in the field.

There were at last count 8 major blazes in California. Evacuation orders for La Canada Flintridge, Altadena, Glendale, and some areas of Big Tujunga Canyon have been issued. Still there is great reluctance among the public to make concrete plans for an evacuation. I am pleading with you to please wake up and realize that yes it could happen to you. I urge you to choose 10 things you would try to evacuate from your house before going to bed tonight. If you make this decision now you will know what to grab should you have to evacuate quickly.

Additional evacuation information available at www.wineandchocolateplan.com

P.S. The rain cloud at my home in Florida went away and we had a lovely time.