1 November 2003
Been a long, dreadful week of terror and boredom.
Started out uneventfully enough, another crossing of the border with hundreds of others -- not too bad, actually, I came over Thursday afternoon. Weekday mid-day and afternoon remains a reasonable time to cross north into the United States.
They are rebuilding the trolley station (actually the whole transit area, for local/longdistance busses, for taxis & for trolley) at the border in San Ysidro. When they're done, pedestrians will have an easier time of it... maybe not even have to dodge the cars and busses so much any more.
The train still is its usual rattling trip north from the border twenty miles into downtown San Diego. I went on through to Old Town and got off to catch the #34 bus toward La Jolla, then got off north of Bird Rock and hiked up the hill (Soledad Mountain) to the parents' house. Yep, another three week stint house-sitting.
Drove them to the airport early Friday morning. Loaded and unloaded their bags (two apiece). Waited while they wheeled their luggage in the airport terminal door, then waited a little longer in case they came back. Finally I came home, driving slowly, slowly, out Mission Bay Drive and up La Jolla Boulevard.
Saturday night the Cedar Fire started out in the mountains. Some fool hunter thought he was lost and he built a "signal" fire to catch his friends' attention. He ended up catching the attention of all the County, State, Nation, World, System, Sector, Galaxy, Cosmos bla bla bla....
'Course, it didn't help that resources were already stretched thin as melted ice and fire trucks didn't respond until after the fire had grown and embraced its demon lover the Santa Ana winds who blew and blew and huffed and puffed and burned your house down....
I smelled smoke Saturday night but thought oh no another fire. That was all. Just "another" fire. Not. This was, or would be, The Fire to kill all fires.
Sunday morning I got up and went out to get the morning newspaper, or local fishwrap, as David refriedgringo.com calls it. The San Diego Onion-Baboon, I call it. Hey they have the last laugh, for I am reading it, no? Yes. They laugh all the way to the bank to deposit the advertisement cheque. I am bought and sold and so are you.
You do know that's what newspapers are all about, don't you? The advertisements? That's what pays the bills. You didn't actually think that the "price" of the newspaper, 25cent, 50cent, a dollar whatever, that that puny little piece of our change really pays for all that? No no no. Advertising pays for it all and big profit too, if they manage it right. Oh, and I am perfectly content to work with this system, too. I bitch and moan but hey, it pays the bills, right? You wanna do me a favor? Clique on that little ad up in the corner. Show Yahoo that I am worth keeping around the house... where else can I speak to you for (ahem) "free" ....
What? You ask what? IF advertisement pays for the Mild-Mannered Reporter For All Major Metropolitan Newspapers, THEN Why don't they just give the newspaper away, then? Then. Then? THEN?! BEcAuSe if they gave it away for Free, THEN you and I would feel "Free" to just throw it away whenever we felt like it. No, no no that will not do, that will not do at ALL no. So we pay our 75cent or whatever and then DAMNIT WE Want to Get OUR Money's Worth SOoooo we force ourselves to read the whole Damn THING! And conveniently get exposed to all the ads. Well, maybe you don't read every page but I often do. But then, I am a reading foooooool. Anyway... where was I?
Oh yes. The newspaper. Had gone to be early the night before and so I woke up early. Went out to get the parents' paper from the driveway and saw the dawn painted red and brown by a vast cloud of smoke creeping over the hill and covering the lovely coast of San Diego. Uh-oh, I thought, Santa Ana winds blowing smoke from the mountains, and I remembered a fire from thirtysome years ago, the first big one I ever saw actually threaten our megalopolis.
The paper said practically nothing, as the fire news was later than their bedtime last night (Saturday night, that is/was). I went in and snapped on the TV and learned the worst. It had burned from Ramona toward Poway and was coming down toward the north side of the city. Toward Tierrasanta and Scripps Ranch.
After maybe an hour of TV addiction I walked up the hill with a pair of binoculars and gazed toward the east across Kearny Mesa and Clairemont Mesa, toward Scripps Ranch.
Up there on the hill I watched for almost two hours as the tornadoes of fire swept down from the wild brushlands beyond Santee. Ashes rained down around me and others gathered at that one particular cul de sac vista point. I let one or two borrow my binoculars. The swirling towers of fire rushed back and forth. A muttering noise of portable radio earphones whispered around us. Oh my God... oh shit... oh no.... We spoke in awe and fear. Do you think it could get all the way across Clairemont? I don't know, I don't know. We muttered over and over again.
Finally, my lungs burning with the smoky air, my heart broken by what I knew must be the fires of Scripps Ranch, I walked over the hill and back to the parents' house on the ocean-facing side of the hill. I shut all the doors and windows and prepared for a day and a night of smoke. Three days later I could finally come out... and sort of breathe again.
I have only now begun to recover from my subsequent STIR CRAZINESS locked in the house on account of not just unhealthy air, but downright hazardous air quality
as ashes rained down upon the parents house, upon the neighborhood, upon the city and county and we all watched TV on and on and on and on
AAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Well. Then day before yesterday I finally washed the ashes off the parents' cars. And, not fifteen minutes later, it rained. Briefly. It rained again last night. There are reports that snow will fall today in Big Bear northeast of Los Angeles.
The fires were still burning yesterday and last night. But much more slowly. Of course, they have already done horrific damage. In five or six days, the fires have killed as many people as drunk drivers kill every two or three hours on the nation's highways, or as many as President Bush killed in three or four days of war in Iraq. What? Oh, all right, "he" didn't actually kill them, no, you're right and I am wrong. "He" only sent them over there. To be killed. "Mission Accomplished" eh?
"Oh, they're not that ingenious...."
I think what "he" meant to say was "ingenuous" heh heh now I'm talking about myself *sigh*
Oh yeah I am a fatuous arrogant asshole but harmless nonetheless and
Not a traitor like whoever it was in "his" administration who leaked the CIA agent's name....
Now "there" is a "real" problem, Mister President. "That" and the war will make sure you are voted out of office, just like your father. Twelve months to election and counting. God love me but I do love America. We can throw the bummm out on his bummm... mmmm politics, the sweet smell of politics. Next year he will lose his place on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Well, he will still have a nice pension and health insurance and can build his library and worry about his daughters
And maybe hell he'll even go back to dreaming about playing baseball
"A face for radio" hyuk hyuk hyuk Lord Have Mercy how did this man... oh yeah, he was a governor, wasn't he. Governors and Senators, that's who gets elected. Even just to get nominated. Almost always. Bush#2=governor. Gore=senator. Clinton=governor. Dole=senator. Bush#1=vicepresident(first VP actually elected prezident on first try at bat since like John Adams or something outrageous). Dukakis=governor. Reagan=governor(&MoViEsTaR!). Carter=governor. Ford was never elected but was ex-congressman. Nixon... failed first time but was exsenator and V.P. Johnson=senator&VP. Kennedy=senator. Eisenhower=ah, the decent old man of my long lost childhood, the great general. They don't make 'em like Ike any more....
I don't think Bush#2 (the sequel) will ever be half the man Jimmy Carter is. But then, I am DEFINITELY biased, oh yes. (DUH! just a LiTtLe OBVIOUS!!!!)
What, God? Oh. Yes. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us... hey, Gringo Poetastro, maybe you better pay attention to what you learned in Sunday school....
Yes. It could be worse, of course. We could actually have someone intelligent in the White House who would reallyyyyyy get us into trouble. Like a certain ex first lady hmmmm.... Although, the truth be told, if Barbara Bush were running I would be tempted to vote for her. But no, I meant Hillary Dillary Dock... yes. Or better yet, no.
Heh heh. Enough bitching. For now... only this picture below to remind you where my heart really is, going after ancient America, I mean, I do love election year in the empire of the north, but in the center of my being I am still only dreaming on the bus to see the Maya ruins, mmm-hmm, oh yeah... :
Bye-bye...........
Next Diary in Tijuana BRIEFLY briefly 3 November
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Copyright 2003 Daniel Charles Thomas
