As most of you know, I live in a little place called Los Angeles. Once upon a time, this semi-desert town was just a lonely garrison, complete with church, situated between two missions: San Fernando and San Gabriel. It was settled by mestizos, and slowly grew, attracting a wide mix of peoples over the decades. For some time, it was considered a lawless town, and only grew by the leaps and bounds in the wake of the California Gold Rush. Even then, San Pedro and San Diego were the two towns in the southern half of the state that mattered more: for one thing, both cities had excellent ports.

But then it changed. Where the 19th century had been all about San Francisco and the ascendancy of Northern California, the 20th century was the rise of Southern California and the expansion of a sleepy Spanish/Mexican village into a Pacific metropolis. Along the way, the Age of Oil transformed the city into the capitol of the automobile.

Nowadays, any mention of Los Angeles, and people think the following: Hollywood, beaches, warm weather, smog, cars, movie stars, freeways, cars, O.J. Simpson, Britney Spears, Baywatch… and oh, did I mention, cars? This is the Land of the Automobile, folks, and I don’t know about you, but I’m reminded of it every day I step out my door.

I used to think I was fairly anal about all the lousy drivers out there (an assessment I think a certain permanent roommate would share), until I spotted a new blog while doing some online research. After reading “Every Day Death-Defying,” my envisionment of road rage has changed a little, and I’m gratified to see there’s someone else out there who’s even more outraged about bad driving than I am. It’s an interesting (and terrifying!) look at what the roads are like here on the Westside.

I do have to wonder though: for someone who claims she’s blogging because she wants to hold up a mirror to other drivers, isn’t Drivin’ Mamma a bit distracted from her own driving/walking each time she whips out her Treo? Nevertheless, I do know I spent some time anxiously scanning her photos to make sure I didn’t do anything foolish!

Still, it does generate an interesting question: is driving an entitlement, or a privilege?

Wow… December 2nd already?? Where’d the time go?

First of all, I apologize (yet again!) for the hiatus. Most of the time, I either get busy with something else, I can’t think of something to write about, or someone else has already been far more eloquent than I on the exact same topic (which leads me to think I need to do a better job of sharing with you all!). This time, rather than the general excuses and feeble apologies, there’s been three Very Good Reasons why I haven’t been as prompt with my public musings these days.

The first, of course, is the ever-present need to find something more permanent in the way of work. As many of you already know, I’ve vented on this subject. The second is that I got wrapped up in two time-intensive (and pressing!) projects: studying for the CBEST and participating in NaNoWriMo.

CBEST first– this test is the California Basic Educational Skills Test, and is relatively simple: the state, in its eternal wisdom (?), decided that anyone wanting to teach in California, whether for a lifetime or as a day-to-day substitute, needed to demonstrate that they understood how to read, write, and do math. Obviously, reading and writing weren’t going to present much of a problem for me. Math, on the other hand, has been my academic nemesis since the days of New Math (here’s a nice, succinct explanation (sort of) on that from one of my literary heroes, Cecil Adams, over at The Straight Dope). I remember learning about such weighty concepts as “greater than” and “lesser than” in first grade (or was it second…?) through the teacher’s use of huge drawings of ducks, with their beaks representing the signs. I don’t really remember any other math from that year, and am not even sure if I grasped the concept of “greater than” and “lesser than” as witnessed by my outstanding grades (*ahem*) in math, but I sure as hell remember the ducks…

Since I decided to take the exam based on the fact that I’ve done periodic subbing, and had been told by a couple of people that “they’re screaming for subs,” I checked to see when the next test was. Ah, just a month away. So since I registered for the CBEST, math and I have renewed our grudging acquaintance.

We’re still not best friends, but thanks to a book a relative gave me, I actually kinda understand it now. If you are in high school, college, remedial math, or stuck studying for this test like I am, I am going to take the unusual step of recommending a book (I try not to shill on this site, but this time, I’m going to). It is: Pre-Algebra Demystified, by Allan G. Bluman. (This is not an endorsement of Amazon! Merely a link so you can see what the book looks like, and buy it at whichever independent bookstore, local chain, or soulless national conglomerate you wish). A great book to get if you’re as numerically challenged as I am.

The world of integers, polynomials, and whole numbers wasn’t the only thing that consumed my November: a much more fun, but somewhat exhausting, task ate up my time: NaNoWriMo.

NaNoWriMo, for the uninitiated, is National Novel Writing Month, an annual exercise in torture for writers, wannabes, aspiring wordsmiths, and people who are finally having the courage to walk the walk about writing a book. In this town, half the people are writers, the other half are actors, and that’s their dream; the reality is their day job, whether it’s being a valet at Chili’s (yes, Chili’s in this town has valet service. Everything has valet service. Until the new post office opened some 15-odd years ago, even the Beverly Hills Post Office had valet service), a waiter at El Coyote, a barista at Starbucks, or some other similarly pedestrian service job in this metropolis of ours. My dream was to churn out a somewhat respectable, half-decent blog, and I can’t even do *that*. But I’ve had these secret longings to be the next Larry McMurtry, or even Dan Brown (yeah, his books are trash, but he’s raking in the bucks!), for a while. Now was the moment to step up.

NaNoWriMo (I need to get the participant badge up when I can) requires its participants to start their stories, snatched from the netherworld of their imaginations, on November 1st, post a word count, and aim for the goal of 50,000 words (minimum) by November 30th. 50,000 words is roughly the equivalent of 175 pages; a short novel. Quite a few people went above and beyond that number of words, while many, many others didn’t. Alas, this year I did not achieve the purple bar of victory; I didn’t even achieve my personal goal (almost got there, late on the 30th…). But I did discover a few things: 1) I *can* write something more than two pages that isn’t academic in nature; 2) I actually enjoy it; and 3) writing is hard work, harder than I thought. Banging out my opinions here is hard work too, but it’s a lot easier– after all, I just say what’s on my mind (although researching topics, especially for my political posts, is time-consuming; I’d say an average post here takes about two hours, from start to finish). Creating whole characters out of nothing, fleshing them out, giving them voices, and making it halfway readable and entertaining takes a lot of energy. There’s the matter of the plot, too. It didn’t help that I decided to do historical fiction, and realizing on November 2nd that there’s a reason writers do research in advance; way in advance.

Still, I plodded along, alternating between math and the American West in the antebellum era. That was in addition to pounding the pavement, meetings, aborted meetings, and the usual minutiae of life: cooking, cleaning, washing, shopping, etc. Who says being a househusband doesn’t have its moments?

Now, to the third Very Good Reason I’ve been silent… On top of my usual responsibilities and having the stupidity to try to cram studying for an exam and writing a novel in one month, the blog decided to act up. There was a bug somewhere in the system that wouldn’t allow me manage the site, and caused some problems when writing posts. I secured assistance, and seemingly solved the problem once. Unfortunately, the site misbehaved some more, which caused us to have to go back and re-examine where things went wrong. I’m happy to say it looks like the Sandbox is still standing, and I’m able to post without worries once more.

So all of these things combined to hinder sharing my thoughts with you, and entertaining those of you who came here out of sheer boredom. My apologies.

On the bright side, I tweaked the blog a bit. The font for the blog title heading is different; let me know what you think: keep or change? Like it or hate it? I also had the content portion of the page widened, so it’s all a bit bigger now. I’m still deciding whether to be my usual conservative, traditional self, or overhaul the site’s look even more. We’ll see.

In the meantime, now you know what I’ve been up to. I took the CBEST yesterday, and NaNo ended Friday. So now I’ve got huge chunks of my time back. But there’s only 21 more shopping days til Christmas Eve, so we’ll see just how often I appear… *grin*

Hope you all are doing well; I’ve returned from November, and the Sandbox is open for playtime again.

Today, like yesterday, was a day to stay largely indoors, protecting my lungs as much as possible from any smoke that’s lingering in the skies above. While we live in an area that hasn’t been seriously threatened by any fire, we’re not immune from the shifting winds. On Saturday night, heading towards a party, we had to turn back because the road was blocked by a felled tree. This was just north of us in one of the canyons. While there haven’t been serious fires in recent memory on the scale of those plaguing San Diego County, places such as Coldwater, Laurel Canyon, and Beverly Glen are never immune from the threat of fire. Just west of us, in Brentwood, a 1961 fire laid waste to Stone and Benedict Canyons. Who’s to say it won’t happen again…?

The Santa Anas arrived late last week with a vengeance; they are our version of the Chinooks that plague western Canada and the Northern reaches of the Rockies and Great Plains. Santa Anas means those who live in or very close to canyons are always in danger of suffering damages from the fires spawned during Santa Ana season. Of course, the winds themselves do not cause fires on their own, but a downed phone line with its arcing wires certainly can spark flames, which are then spread by the winds far from their origin. Since the weekend, the region’s been suffering from the fires, either from the imminent threat of death and destruction, or from the contributing wretched air quality. Just as the Gulf and Atlantic coasts have hurricane season, we have fire season.

As usual, the folks in Malibu are suffering yet again; that area is known to most of the rest of the world as a celebrity enclave, studded with beaches. But the coastline there is relatively narrow, and right past PCH (Pacific Coast Highway for you non-locals) are the Santa Monica Mountains and the numerous canyons– canyons, I might add, that are perfect conduits for Santa Ana winds and the firestorms they help spread.

I really don’t understand why people build on hills and in canyons around here. Other than the multi-million dollar views, there’s so much risk: fires, which lay waste to the hills, which then become that much more prone to mudslides. Throw in earthquakes (which are a bane for all of us), which partially or wholly aided in shaping the hills and mountains as we know them, and you have the perfect scenario for calamity in the way of property damage, injuries, and deaths. Places like Malibu and the central portions of San Diego County are situated in mountains, canyons, and back country covered with brush and chapparal: perfect conditions for conflagrations like those happening now.

I’ve been in here most of the day, with the windows shut and the curtains down, to keep out the unhealthful air and try to keep the place cool. It’s not only smoky, it’s been unseasonably warm today (at 7 p.m., it was 82 degrees just up the hill from us…), yesterday, and expected to be warm, warm, warm until the weekend. At first glance, it didn’t seem too bad, but I recall the 2003 fires, when I woke up one morning and found ash completely covering our car. The ash had traveled from the fires in San Bernardino County, and this year, there are fires there again… The Santa Anas blow southwestward, so we’re in the path of these sometimes hurricane-level winds.

Luckily, those that we know are so far safe and have suffered no harm, but of course, that could always change. We were very worried in 2003 for our friend (and a commenter here at the Sandbox), Todos la vie; she lives in an area that was threatened mightily then. This time, her home area seems to be safe, but she’s still getting a close-up view of the fires in the Santa Clarita Valley and Piru areas, I’m sure. Quite a few news accounts today and yesterday talk of people who stayed in their homes until the last moment, sure they would have time to load up, grab pets, valuables, etc. One new homeowner stubbornly insists on staying behind:

Under a mandatory evacuation order, police could have theoretically removed Ashtari and the other holdouts by force, Odom said.

“We just don’t have the manpower,” he said. “We don’t have the bodies to drag them out kicking and screaming.”

Firefighters say authorities cannot remove residents from a home but can bar them from returning if they do leave.

Odom said he and his colleagues would man the checkpoint until they were forced to leave to protect themselves.

“If that happens, I’ll go pound on the door to give them one last warning,” Odom said. “Then I’m gone.”

Ashtari said he was ready.

“If a captain wants to go down with his ship,” he said, “they let him.”

That’s all well and good, but I half expect this guy to turn up on the casualty lists within the next few days. As Neil over at Deaf Firefighter’s Blog points out, a room can explode in flames in a matter of minutes. In this post, he links to a video that shows what happens when flashover occurs (he also notes, ironically for So Cal, that October is Fire Safety Month).

I have sympathy for people in general during this time, especially those in the Santa Clarita area; they recently had to deal with the tunnel fire on I-5, and now they have to cope with this. I have less sympathy for the Malibuites, who continue to live in their multi-million dollar palaces and beach bungalows, despite the fact that fires rage through that portion of the county every few years on average. I have even less sympathy for those in San Diego County; after the devastating Cedar Fire in October 2003, voters rejected in early 2004 ballot measures which would have increased fire protection in the unincorporated areas. Even before these bills were submitted, there was quite a bit of finger-pointing in the wake of the 2003 fires:

“…of the largest counties in the state, San Diego is the only one without a countywide fire department. Instead, residents are served by a patchwork of 44 city departments and rural fire districts – many of which rely on part-time volunteers who must be summoned from other jobs by pagers.”

Historically, voters down there have rejected time and again taxes and other measures that would improve the quality of fire protection:

“…consider that voters in East County’s unincorporated communities have historically resisted taxing themselves to fund their rural fire departments. In fact, between 1979 and 2004, rural voters had rejected 32 of 50 measures asking them to approve new fire funds.”

So while I’m sympathetic to the loss of life that occurs each time there are fires, I am not wholly in sync with fools who insist on living in fire-prone areas, then refuse to protect themselves. “No taxes” may be a favorite rallying cry for those who are selfish and insist on keeping their pocketbooks closed, but you get what you pay for. You want roads, sewage lines, public services, and fire and police protection? Better be prepared to pay up.

In the meantime, the rest of us sit patiently, trying to avoid the gridlocked freeways, staying inside avoiding the toxic air, and waiting out the fire this time.

UPDATE: the fires are still going strong in San Diego County, the Santa Clarita Valley, and the Lake Arrowhead area, as of 11 p.m. PDT on the 23rd. My hope is that there are no additional deaths, and that injuries are limited. It’s at times like these I marvel at the hard work and professionalism of firefighters. These men and women put their lives on the line ensuring the safety of life and environment.

Here’s an article that will be out in tomorrow morning’s Los Angeles Times talking about how the smoke affects those of us who aren’t anywhere near the actual danger zones.

Because of Southern California’s quirky topography and wind patterns, neighborhoods with no danger of wildfires are often the ones most affected by wind-driven smoke.

The article focuses on Long Beach, an area that almost never has serious fires beyond house fires and other structural burns, yet receives tons of smoke and suffers lousy air quality. Mr. Sandman and his wife are in a much better location, but even here, the sky’s not quite the same. Let’s hope they can get the fires contained soon, although “authorities” are saying it’s going to be a few days more…

In the midst of yesterday’s discussion of employment woes, I commented on the diversity of observances in October. Not all of these commemorations revolve around the workplace, though. This month is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. While it seems every disease of the week now has a special day, week, month, or year devoted to it, it never hurts to become aware of our bodies, our health, and social issues that affect people we know, care about, and love.

I have pretty good genes, and very few of my relatives have serious health issues. We all have to die of something eventually, so diseases, including cancer, aren’t unknown in my family circle, but in general, we’re all fine. This isn’t true for everyone, though. It certainly isn’t true that all of us are fortunate enough to have good doctors, or even have health insurance.

At a time when health care is rapidly becoming one of the top concerns in next year’s elections, it seems like there’s not much the average person can do these days. But that’s not true. Today is National Mammography Day, and in honor of the occasion, I’d like to direct you to the Breast Cancer Site. This website gives all of us the opportunity to help advance awareness about and prevention of breast cancer, in just a matter of seconds.

You see, not everyone has health insurance. Not everyone can see a doctor at a moment’s notice. Not everyone can get the tests they need, and far too many people wait until it’s too late. This is true for lots of women who are underemployed, underpaid, lack health insurance, or are uneducated about their health needs. Just by going to the site in the link, and clicking on the pink button, you can help fund free mammograms for women all over the nation. Considering how many clicks you’ve made so far today, surfing on the web, doing research for work, or just clicking through in order to read my lovely prose, one more click won’t hurt. It might actually save a life.

So go ahead, click on that big pink button. A mammogram a day keeps the doctor away for an awful lot of women.