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By Mom Unplugged, June 22, 2007 8:00 am

I live in a very beautiful part of Arizona. Unfortunately, life in the middle of a magnificent Ponderosa Pine forest also means that wildfire danger is constantly on everyone’s minds, and in their memories too. This is a photo of the sign that is at the end of my road. I see it everyday, often several times a day.

Today is an anniversary. Not a wedding, or a birthday. Five years ago today someone taped a hand-printed sign on top of the one in the photo. It said “BEYOND EXTREME.” It is five years ago today that my children and I had to flee our house in the path of a raging monster.

We were lucky, and thanks to the incredible bravery of thousands of firefighters, the human-caused fire was contained before it reached our home. Others were not so lucky and lost everything.

The landscape here still bears the scars of the enormous Rodeo-Chedeski Fire, as it came to be known. My area remains pristine, but venturing further down the mountain means encountering the blackened trunks of once tall and majestic Ponderosas, standing like burned and scarred soldiers, marching across the landscape.

My son was just 12 days old. My oldest daughter was 21 months. They were both soundly asleep in their cribs when the Emergency Broadcast System sounded the alert around 9:00 PM. The crackly voice on the radio instructed everyone in my area to evacuate immediately. How often we hear those three obnoxious beeps, then: “This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System, this is only a test, blah, blah, blah.” Only this time, it wasn’t a test.

Fortunately we had had several days to plan for this possibility. The fire had begun on June 18 as an innocent-seeming distant plume of smoke. I had been gathering photo albums and family heirlooms for those few days, never really believing that we would actually have to leave. Other areas farther out were being evacuated one by one. But not us. It couldn’t happen to us. Surely in this day and age, with all our technology, people can “fix” these things. Well, they couldn’t fix this one. They called it “unstoppable.”

It was such a shock. The rumor that day was that things were going better. I went to the grocery store, along with the rest of the town, to finally buy the meat and other perishables that we hadn’t dared to buy before. Everyone was in a jolly mood. But then, the spark jumped. A tiny spark jumped a canyon and that was it. We all had to leave.

Pictures my sister took from her deck that day (June 22, 2002):

I awoke the children and put them in the car, along with my two dogs, my cat, my mother’s cat, my two cockatiels, and my elderly mother. I had already loaded the photo albums, pictures, baby boxes, and heirlooms ahead of time just in case.

I irrationally closed all the blinds. Somehow it seemed that they might offer my dear little house some extra protection, or at least prevent it from “seeing” the approaching flames. Rather like blindfolding a prisoner who is about to be executed. The final act was tying a white rag of surrender to the front door knob, to indicate that we had left.

Fortunately we had someplace to go, unlike the thousands of families who slept on Red Cross cots in the sports arena of a high school 45 miles away. We headed to Albuquerque where my husband lives. We drove all night, an unhappy little Noah’s Ark. But, because the roads at night are full of elk, deer, rabbits, and other wildlife, fast travel was not possible. A four hour drive became more like six.

Due to the prevailing winds, the smoke in Albuquerque was worse than it had been at home. I worried about my tiny son since he seemed to be wheezing from all the smoke in the air. I took him to the doctor.

I worried about my daughter who was not taking it well. She was old enough to sense the tension, but not old enough to understand what was happening. She refused to bathe the entire week we were gone, threw tantrums, and was generally miserable.

I worried about my mother, who didn’t adjust as well to the unexpected as she had in her younger days. She was very upset.

I even worried about the two goldfish that I had to leave behind, and pictured them slowly starving to death (they didn’t, there was enough algae in the tank to keep them quite happy).

I craved information. I constantly watched CNN, but that was frustratingly general. I wanted to know how far the beast was from my neighborhood, my sister’s neighborhood, my friends’ neighborhoods. The local fire department hotline was constantly busy, no luck there. The internet helped a bit, but was still not enough to alleviate the worry.

Rumor had it that the neighborhoods of my town had been “triaged.” The firefighters had already determined which houses to try and save, and which to let burn.

A friend called her insurance agent who had not left right away. He said the sky over his office was black, that day looked like night, and that it was raining ash. He was on his way out of town.

As I said earlier, we were spared. 467 other families were not. This is a small community. We all know someone who lost everything.

After one tortured week away, we were finally allowed back. I was among the first to return. My neighborhood was like a war zone. The only inhabitants were jeeps full of uniformed National Guard troops who patrolled the streets to deter looters. No one was around. No dogs barked. No traffic came by. My house and yard were covered in thick grey ash that had fallen like an evil snow. It all felt vaguely like the end of the world.

We made it. We were all fine. Our house was fine. I wanted to run up and hug every single firefighter who was still uncomfortably camped out in tents on the grounds of the public school. They risked their lives to save our town. How can any of us ever thank them for that?

I hope never ever to have to go through this again. However the one wonderful thing that came out of it all, was the restoration of my faith in the ordinary human. There were lovely stories of people coming together and helping strangers. Those who lived outside of the evacuated area took strangers into their homes so they would not have to live at the shelter. People offered transportation and facilities to evacuate and house horses and livestock. Hotels that didn’t normally allow pets were full of pets.

Now every summer I have my photo albums at the ready. I have an “evacuation checklist” taped to the inside of a cupboard. I created this list when I unpacked from the Rodeo evacuation. Next time I might not have the luxury of a few days to think about it. Everything I would want to take is listed in order of priority so I can take what I have time for.

Someday I might write a post about what people chose to take with them. Obviously at the top of everyone’s list were family photos, but there were actually some really funny things that some people felt they couldn’t live without! Having to prioritize your possessions can teach you a lot about yourself.

I suppose the real lesson from an evacuation should be that things are just things. Life will go on just fine, maybe even better in some cases, without so much of the stuff we feel we need. I came to this realization during that long week away. Now after five years, that zen feeling is fading and I have to constantly remind myself of this.

Here are some photos of what it was like:

What we saw:

What happened after we left:

The aftermath (still here today):

The sign photo is mine. The two from my sister’s deck are my sister’s. All other Rodeo-Chedeski photos are courtesy of the USDA Forest Service.

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RODEO-CHEDESKI FIRE FACTS:

- Burned over 468,000 acres

- The largest fire recorded in Arizona, one of the largest wildfires in US history

- 467 homes destroyed

- 30,000 people evacuated from 12 communities

- Two separate wildfires merged to form the Rodeo-Chedeski Fire

- Causes: The “Rodeo” fire: intentionally set by an out of work firefighter wanting work (he got it), and the “Chedeski” fire: began as a distress signal fire by a stranded motorist.

- Cost to fight: approx. $22 million.

- Cost of damages: approx: $329 million.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

SOME WILDFIRE RESOURCES:

Tips for creating a defensible space around your home: Click here

How to properly extinguish a campfire (includes a video): Click here

Wildfire information, resources, and prevention tips: Firewise Communities and International Arid Lands Consortium

Satellite maps of current fires: NOAA satellite fire maps
and Forest Service satellite fire maps

Current fires-containment and acres burned: Wildland Fire and Incident Information System

Info on current fires: National Incident Information Center

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By Mom Unplugged, June 12, 2007 9:08 pm

I have been tagged by MC Milker of The Not Quite Crunchy Parent for the “Eight Random Things About Me” meme.
It is hard to be random. My first attempt sounded a bit like an employment resume. It is also hard to think of personal things that might be interesting to you all (I don’t do “personal” very well - see #6), but please bear with me as I attempt this!

Here goes:

1. I have dual US/UK citizenship and am an Aquarius.

2. I have been an exchange student twice: a summer in Oslo, Norway at age 16 and, after having graduated from high school a year early, a year in Rouen, France at age 17. I also spent my junior year of college in Hamburg, Germany, but please don’t write to me in German! My French is good, my German (except for a few choice unpublishable words) has mostly disappeared.

3. I was an Air France flight attendant for two years so I have been to a lot of unusual places. My friend says that I am the only person she has ever met who can start a sentence with “On my way to Burundi….”

4. As a child I broke both my big toes and received absolutely no sympathy from my doctor-father. My sister thinks she has cuter big toes than I do, but I disagree.

5. My car has a license plate frame that says: “A Woman’s Place is in the Cockpit” (I am a pilot).

6. I am “not the cheerleader-type,” as my mother used to say. Nor am I a jock. I guess I am an introverted nerd.

7. My secret favorite movie is “Dirty Dancing” because I wish I could dance with Patrick Swayze (who I actually once saw on a ski slope at Santa Fe, NM!).

8. I hate white walls in my house. All my walls are a color.

MC Milker tagged me because my blog is “a relatively new blog” that she has “started to read and enjoy” (thank you!). For this very same reason, I tag Cheryl of A Day in the Life of Our Homeschool Journey.

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By Mom Unplugged, May 15, 2007 11:24 pm

I have been tagged again by Jen of Never A Dull Moment. Thank you Jen! Actually, poor Jen tagged me about a month ago, but this post has been so painful to write that I have been doing it in small stages.

I am supposed to tell you all what seven songs get stuck in my head and repeat themselves mercilessly until I am on the very brink of insanity (at least closer than I usually am).

So… here it is. In order for you to truly feel my pain, I kindly provide links to all the songs if I could find them (or sometimes just excerpts). Click the names to hear them…if you dare!

1. Push It (by that oh so unforgettably talented group Salt ‘N Peppa) - This song represents for me 80′s college dorm-life-nightmare-hell. My senior year of college there were two charming young ladies down the hall who played this song over, and over, and over, and…well, you finish the sequence here! Once heard, never forgotten. No matter how much you hate it, you will never get it out of your brain!!! It has continued to haunt me in bizarre places my entire life. The weirdest was in India while careening pell-mell through Delhi in a rickety, tumble-down taxi, fearing for my life. What comes on the, unfortunately-for-me, functioning radio? Push It. All I could think was “Oh no, this is the last song I will ever hear before I die!”

2. Another One Bites The Dust (Queen) - This one brings back good memories of the high school marching band bus on the way home after beating a “big shot band” in a competition (we were very much the underdogs except for one astonishing and inexplicable year of extreme excellence). For this reason, I actually like the song, but something about that refrain “boom boom boom…another one bites the dust!” sticks with me like a MacDonald’s Big Mac.

3. This is my husband’s pick: Proud Mary (Creedence Clearwater) - While visiting a friend’s house the teen band next door was banging out Proud Mary, not very well. My husband made some comment about how it was a cool song and would be good once they “got” it. The friend, looking wild-eyed and aghast, said “No, you don’t understand, this is their [the teen band's] first and only song, they have been practicing it non-stop for two weeks!!!! I sympathize.

4. My sister has a story too. Picture a cross-country trip one hot summer in the 1970′s in an un-airconditioned car equipped with only an AM-radio: The Candy Man (Sammy Davis Jr.) and A Horse With No Name by America (Remember?? “I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name…”). Enough said.

5. I am stealing this one from Jen who already picked it, but no annoying song list could be complete without It’s A Small World. There is no way that I could possibly match Jen’s hilarious description of the song and the ride of the same name at Disney, so I will be lazy and tell you to go read her words (her #2)! By the way, If you are really into self torture, please click my link (be brave Jen - do it, you know you want to!!). It is an up-tempo, somewhat “polka-esque” version, featuring an electronic organ with a few other instruments thrown in at “witty” moments.

6. How about 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall? Apparently the modern, more politically correct version is 99 Bottles of Pop on the Wall. Whether about beer or pop, this song could certainly make any bus driver commit suicide. Fond high school band memories again. I mean the annoying song sung COMPLETELY 10 times in a row…not the dead bus driver.

7. My last selection may not be well-known in the US: Live is Life (Opus). I first had the good fortune to “experience” this song living abroad in France when it was broadcast full blast right outside my apartment window…over, and over, and over again for several days at some sort of loud market that was visiting. If you have never heard it, please click the link to hear the excerpt so that you may truly appreciate my misery. Some other unforgettables from my years in France are: Da Da Da (Trio) and I Eat Cannibals (Toto Coelo - Total Coelo in the US). Sorry - but the link to I Eat Cannibals is via Amazon and will require slightly more work on your part. Well worth it though since it is truly, mind numbingly awful!

Wow, what an emotional journey. No wonder it took me a month to write, I may never be the same again!

I tag Wishy of Wishy The Writer (as in Wishy, proud member of the local CSA while I, Mom Unplugged, am a proud member of the local Flaccid Celery Club (FCC)). I tag only Wishy, since she is the sole blogger that I know well enough to put through this kind of torment (any other volunteers out there?). Sorry Wishy, just consider it revenge for your CSA!

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By Mom Unplugged, April 13, 2007 2:54 am

This blog thing has become obsessive. My husband calls it my “soft addiction.” I guess there are worse things to be addicted to: drugs, alcohol, gambling, sex in public places, catnip…

This addiction all started thanks to a friend of mine whom I shall call my “enabler,” or “E” for short. You know who you are! You…YES YOU!!!

E said to me one day…

“You always pick such cool and unusual gifts for my daughter, have you ever thought about writing a shopping blog?”

“A blog?” I said, “What’s that?” (I have told you all many times that I live under a rock).

E pulled out her laptop and introduced me to the mysterious world of the “Blogosphere.”

“See, she said, I have one too!”

I thought I knew my friend pretty well, but if she had told me she liked to run around her yard naked at midnight under the full moon, I couldn’t have been more surprised.

“You do????” I said.

And so…the seed of my addiction was planted in the fertile but very bored soil of my brain. I thought about it, and Googled it, and thought about it some more. Why not try it I thought. Just once. After all, E does it. But I will only try a little, and only just this one time.

Well…that was January and now it is April…and I CAN’T STOP!!

Something on NPR the other day really made me think even more about why I am spending so much time doing this. There was a piece by a college student about the narcissism of today’s young people. One of the claims she made was that the popularity of blogging is an indicator, or perhaps a result, of this increase in narcissism. Wait a minute, I thought, I have a blog! Am I a narcissist too?

I have thought long and hard about this. But I don’t believe that blogging, my kind of blogging anyway, is about narcissism. I do not write because I think that I am such a fascinating and wonderful person that I owe it to the world to share my every thought, emotion, and daily event. For me it is a social past time.

I do have actual, “real-life” friends. In fact, in my current small town, I have met more wonderful people than I have ever met since I left grad school. So why should I feel the need for “virtual” friends and acquaintances?

The simple answer is that, although it is entirely my choice and I am grateful to be able to afford to do so, it is lonely being at home alone with a baby and/or a 4 and 6 year-old (depending on school schedules and illnesses). I can only change so many diapers, wipe so many noses, and referee so many battles before I feel my neurons fizzling and popping one by one in a slow and painful decline…one “mom” at a time.

The complicated answer is that technology has brought us social isolation. Cell phones, faxes, email, and the internet enable us to work and carry on with the business of life without the need for face to face, human contact. Perhaps blogging is a way for us to reach out and connect with others of similar interests and backgrounds, just as we might have “gathered in the town square” 200 years ago.

The other aspect that fascinates me about modern technology is that although it does promote physical isolation, it also makes the world a much smaller place. I am in awe of my Clustermap and my “stats.” When an internet cafe patron in China or a cat-lover in Europe can read this small town Arizona mother’s words within seconds of their “publication,” that is totally amazing! I am connecting with people I never would have known 200, 100, or even 10 years ago.

This desire to reach out and connect with others is inherent in human-nature. To me, that is what blogging is all about. If blogging is by definition narcissistic, then so are all friendships and relationships. And that, I refuse to believe.

So, thank you E for being the “pusher” of my addiction and dragging me out from under my rock. Even though I am not exactly “unplugged” anymore now that I blog, I am connected, and that is what really matters in life!

Thanks to morguefile.com and photographer penywise for this great picture!