Thanks, everyone for emailing to see if we're OK. We are. No danger at all at our house. We live at the city limits, and there's no indication the city is going to do any evacuations. We're lucky: we just have to keep our windows shut because of the smoke and ash. A slight inconvenience that's nothing compared to what so many are going through.
The house we built, lived in for years, got married in and moved from a few years ago, was in the area of mandatory evacuation yesterday afternoon. Reports are that the fire was in that neighborhood. It's a great community of people and fortunately, there are no reports of injuries at this time. (Although I heard on the Boulder County Sherrif radio scanner this morning that some moronic reporter dressed up as a fireman to get close. I hope they taze, then arrest, then fire him.)
Here are some pictures taken from our house yesterday when there was not a cloud in the sky. All of this is smoke from the fire:
This is the same view as the first picture, but it was taken this morning. There's smoke over the whole town.
As I took it, I heard a loud buzzing near my head, turned around and saw this hummingbird taking a rest:
We had an unexpected visitor last night who made himself quite at home, got himself something to munch on, admired the view and promptly ensured that Tim would have to clean up the yard:
You all know how I loathe camping and the out of doors. I consider myself the Boulder Anti-Christ for that reason. As I've said before, I have nothing against nature - I just prefer it through a window. I mean, between seeing fox, more fox, raccoons, a mountain lion and bears in my backyard - in the city limits - do I really need to go outside? Well, OK. There is the whole getting the mail thing. Although with all these critters around, that may well be on hold for awhile, too.
On a more serious note: Any Boulderites heard if the Four Mile Canyon Fire means wildlife is doing their own "mandatory evacuation" into town?
Some really strange stuff can happen when you're on a book tour.
Although I don't remember which talk show it was (probably not Oprah, I think I'd remember that - and be reminding you and myself of it constantly) like many of them, more than one show a day is filmed to be aired later. The show I was to be interviewed on was the last taping of the day, and I got to the green room just after the one before ended. The only person left was a woman who had been a guest on the previous show. I was too nervous and distracted to make conversation with her - I didn't even ask what her topic was. All I wanted to do was run into the adjoining bathroom to empty my pea-bladder one more time, and check my hair and makeup. She said she had to use the bathroom too, but took so long getting her stuff together, I really couldn't wait anymore (my taping time was imminent and well, you know), so I said, "I'll just be a second," and slipped in.
As soon as I locked myself in the bathroom, I heard the woman shout, "Bitch! C*nt! Whore!" Only, she wasn't usin' no asterisk, if you get my drift.
"WTF!" I thought (although I wasn't usin' no abbreviations, neither), "That woman's insane! She's going to kill me! I bet her show was on women axe murderers! Wait'll I get my hands on that damn publicist!" I know you're in awe of what a brilliant psychiatrist I am to possess such amazing deductive reasoning skills, but let me assure you, those kinds of snap assessments employing sound clinical judgement are simply all in a day's work.
I heard her curse some more and steeled myself. I had to get out of that green room so I could get on the show. Was I so intent on promoting my book that it was actually worth risking certain death (or, at the very least, a vast array of new prosthetic devices)?
What do you want from me?
I grabbed the only thing that wasn't nailed down (the metal toilet paper roll - clinical experience is one thing, but there's really no substitute for a sturdy, blunt object), opened the door, peeked out and quickly assessed the scene.
The woman was sitting calmly, albeit red-faced, in a chair. Using those same patented, finely honed assessment skills, I quickly determined she probably wasn't going to kill me after all. My superior clinical judgement was reinforced when she spoke.
"I'm so sorry. I was just here as a guest for the show on Tourette's."
And now, for your further amusement, one of the shows I did (in which I was not only asked about QUEEN OF THE ROAD - nudist RV park, armed robbery and all - but another weird book tour experience, this one involving killer crickets. Go figure):
