I’m speechless tonight as we watch CNN’s wildfire coverage and worried about everyone, including friends and loved ones, in Los Angeles. A relative who is not yet under evacuation orders sent a screenshot earlier of a map with her location and those of the wildfires multiplying around her; other friends have left California in recent years (or considered it) following close brushes with wildfires in different parts of the state.
The scale of this disaster is unfathomable; that it’s unfolding days before a clown car full of bumbling narcissists and morons pulls up to the White House — most seeking to line their pockets or punish their critics — underscores the seriousness of the situation our electorate has gotten us into. If you’re similarly anxious about the future of federal disaster response under an administration that’s threatening to gut the government like a private equity firm, consider joining paranoid pessimists like yours truly in strengthening your own preparedness for worst-case scenarios.
From ‘bugging-out’ (an expression I dislike) to ‘bugging-in,’ or simply surviving a Netflix or DoorDash outage, you can prepare for almost anything.* What I’m currently trying to figure out, after another day of chipping away at ice and watching neighbors do the same, is how to better prepare for our next significant ice accumulation. The snow blower can usually keep up with whatever’s thrown at it, but this was a special situation that could happen again in the future. Chloride’s not great for concrete, which we have an awful lot of, and a heated driveway isn’t cost effective for our purposes, though the neighborhood’s outdoor cats would love it.
I have no cutesy ending for tonight’s post, unfortunately. Other than logging seven hours outside today (I wore temperature-appropriate attire) and again feeling frustrated by how long it takes to do simple tasks, I heard from Youngest Sister and she told me something disappointing about Tom. Here’s what she wrote during a longer conversation about family topics:
Months ago I tried discussing with Tom that your Parkinson’s seemed to worsen somewhat rapidly, and that I thought she should consider getting the fuck over whatever feelings she was having. Her response was incredibly disturbing, and when I repeated it to Mom and said I was absolutely floored and disgusted by it, she just sighed and said Tom told her the same thing and it was disgusting. That was when Tom was also threatening to cut Mom off, so she was being a total [wimp] about upsetting her.”
It didn’t surprise me — I’d previously heard Tom make vile comments about our sister’s pregnancies — and I didn’t ask for details because it’s pointless; Tom’s recent judgment speaks for itself. But once I was done chipping and shoveling for the day, my left hand’s post-exertion tremor raged for quite some time, making it difficult to feed Muriel and bring a bottle of Gatorade to my lips without spilling it all over myself. I thought of all the recent PT and speech therapy; the swallow tests and choking and coughing and difficulty breathing; the indignities of cognitive testing, and had to laugh. Despite the many tumbles I took last year, literally and figuratively, it’s Tom who fell the hardest.
* “Surviving a Netflix or DoorDash outage” probably sounds like a joke, but there are a lot more people who have immense difficulty functioning without the Internet than anyone cares to admit.