Cry

 My wife, who is prone to such things, described a visualization in which all the tears for those affected by the wildfires would put out the flames. It's a beautiful image, but not one that comes easy to a cynic like me. 

My younger brother and his wife were forced to evacuate their home in Pasadena early Wednesday morning. When they moved down there from the Bay Area a few months back, I knew that I would miss them but I did not anticipate having to shift that feeling directly to worrying about their survival. The good news, from my very limited standpoint, is that they are both okay with the asterisk of them having to worry that all their worldly possessions would be consumed in a blaze. 

A blaze that I confess surprised me, since I was initially focused on the fires that were burning further south in the lyrically named Pacific Palisades. My limited understanding of the geography of Los Angeles put my brother and his wife in the relative safety of the northern part of that region. It was a separate fire, the Eaton Fire that was threatening to consume their new neighborhood. Forced to confront the map that showed all those affected by the windblown conflagration, I realized that in spite of the somewhat stilted news coverage, it wasn't just a pack of celebrities whose homes were on fire. Hundreds of thousands of Californians were fleeing for their lives, with a death toll that was only beginning to suggest the devastation wrought. 

At this point, I have to pause in my search for more synonyms to convey the gravity of this disaster. I will take this opportunity to insert the words of the Fuehrer-Elect used to address the situation: "One of the best and most beautiful parts of the United States of America is burning down to the ground. It’s ashes, and Gavin Newscum should resign. He insisted that California's Governor Newsom was more concerned about "trying to protect a tiny little fish." He went on: "And for the sake of the smelt, they have no water. They had no water in the fire hydrants today in Los Angeles. It was a terrible thing. And we're going to get that done." This self-proclaimed very stable genius who has regularly shown little or no understanding for how things like solar eclipses work was trying to score political points at the expense of that "beautiful part of the United States of America." 

Thankfully for my younger brother, the guy who wanted us to inject bleach to cure COVID is not currently in charge. Instead, the guy who has been lauded by both sides of the aisle for his handling of disasters from hurricanes to hellfires is still in charge of our nation's emergency response. So keep sending those good thoughts and tears if you have them to spare for everyone who sits on the edge of losing everything. From Paris Hilton to my little brother.