The Millionizer

The fire has moved away from my mom’s house and all of our friends houses. All is well but it came seriously close, like within 3 miles. I spent yesterday obsessing over the news and local websites. It was almost impossible to find information on the South County fires, which pissed me off but I found what I needed to know. And all that did was make me freak out more.

At some point in the afternoon, I decided I couldn’t watch or read anymore news. I started to study for my test even though I had already emailed my professor saying I wasn’t going. I went anyway and I’m pretty sure I rocked it hardcore. That was partly due to the fact that I purposefully stopped informing myself of anything going on in SD. If it was getting worse, I didn’t want to know. I mean there was nothing I could do and I may as well have passed my test, that was my outlook anyway.

Thanks to everyone’s good vibes (I accidentally typed “good vices” and wanted to keep it), that was awesome.  The rest of San Diego is still struggling though and my mom is still feeling the effects of it, being a nurse and all.

The Millionizer will be back in regular form and not Fire Watch 2007 anymore

My mom is at work and she is fine. But her car is packed and she doesn’t know if she’ll be allowed to go home. She’s not on alert, but close friends are. She keeps reminding me not to worry because no matter what SHE is fine. I know she’s right, but I want my mom to have a home to go home to. She is keeping me updated.

I hate these fires just for the simple fact of making me watch news channels. Fuck you CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC. I know the San Diego area well and you guys are trying to feed me bullshit. So far I’ve only been able to get reporting from the North county fires. This is because it’s closest to LA and because it’s the richest area to be affected and the destruction is that much more dramatic. McMansions engulfed in flames is movie quality whereas normal houses smoldering to the ground is far less compelling. Unfortunately, we are normal people.

X’s family is doing well. Sir Chinko’s grandparents had to be evacuated and are staying with his parents. My mom is at work and keeping posted. On another note, my mom is a nurse at a hospital downtown. There is a severe nursing shortage as many of them are being affected or unable to make it into work. Also several hospitals are being closed down, so there is a shortage of space to treat. My mom is at a hospital right next to the UCSD Burn Center, which is beyond maximum capacity, but one of the few open. Luckily, for San Diego those two hospitals are world class. My mom, along with several coworkers, is volunteering to work after her regular shift to give the nurses who have been there over 24 hours a much needed break.

My mom amazes me. She is a pro under pressure. She always has been, it has to be her nursing experience. She got up to go to work and saw flames on the mountains all around her. She didn’t panic and just got ready for work because she knows other people need her. I call her in a panic and she is reassuring me. She’s right, she has everything she needs and she’s physically fine. There are people who are far worse off and less sure about their safety. I am comforted by the fact that, if my mom has to be evacuated, she doesn’t have to go to the stadium or some other god awful evacuation center.

The Millionizer is just babbling now but she’s not going to work and doesn’t want to study for her test

[tags]San Diego fires, Socal Fires, San Diego, mom[/tags]

My mom has been telling me about the fire in Malibu for like a day now. I was like, Yeah there’s always a fire in Malibu. She kept mentioning, the fires, the fires, has TBU called his parents? Frankly, I wasn’t really paying attention. I have been studying for my test tomorrow. Then today she mentioned all the ash in the air and soot on her car. That didn’t really make sense, a fire in Malibu isn’t going to put soot on my mom’s car in San Diego. Then she mentioned something about her friend not being able to go into work because the freeways were shut down. All the time I’m thinking, what is she talking about? She did say something about some fires in East San Diego, but no one cares about East San Diego because it’s a desert and expected to have fires and that’s where all the meth of the Southwest US is made. East San Diego can fall off the planet and we’d be all the better for it. So I wasn’t thinking much of anything. Well it turns out there are some fucking insane fires going on all over San Diego right now. Some very important parts of San Diego. But being a person who probably watches TV you probably already knew that, it’s on national news. But how did I figure it out? I was procrastinating on PerezHilton.com and came across this post.

I broke down into tears as my mom words became clearer. I checked local San Diego news and it’s bad you guys. The news mentions places I actually know, like my high school and the junior college across the street and our rival high school. There are two fires near my mom. The closest is 5 miles away. I remember having fires growing up but they were never this close. I called my mom in tears, there is black smoke everywhere and her lungs hurt but overall she is fine. But very close neighborhoods are voluntarily being evacuated and the evacuation is expected to be mandatory within a couple hours. The fire is only 5% contained. She went to the store to pick up more water and every store is sold out. This makes me nervous, but my mom assures me she’s fine and has plenty at home. I hope she’s not just trying to calm me down. She is prepared to leave if she needs to and is going to stay at a friends house that is not in the way of danger.

I’m torn between obsessing about the news and attempting to study for my test. That’s where this post comes in. Writing is kinda like studying right? I have nothing else to say right now.

[tags]San Diego Fire, San Diego, mom[/tags]