We're Home and Safe

This is a crazy place to live right now. Everyone's off work pretty much for the week. My college as well as my husband's are closed all week, although H is physically located at a company near his college that was partially open for business today, so he went in for a few hours, mostly I think to have computer access without being disturbed by our cabin-fever-ridden 2 year old. I have revised my syllabi and e-mailed all my students our new schedule after missing this week of classes, so my work is done.

Instead, we're all glued to the internet. It has proven to be a much better source of information about the fires than the TV. I'm particularly fascinated by the maps. The San Diego County Emergency homepage has been publishing maps every few hours showing burned areas, evacuated areas, etc. with giant red dots over the areas of active burning. The whole thing is overlaid with the Thomas Guide coordinates so you can really follow what's going on. If you look at one of them (go to http://www.sdcountyemergency.com/ and click on one of the blue links for Countywide Fire Map Perimeter) you can get an idea of how close the fire came to our house. Without posting my home address on the internet for all to see, I'll just say that the fire came within half a green-outlined rectangle-height of us. Yeah.

I can't bring myself to watch the TV footage of people returning to their burned-out home wreckage.

Other than that, it's kind of like it was right after 9/11. No one can really bring themselves to pick up the thread of everyday life again, but this persistent state of limbo is feeling stale. We can't go outside, because the air quality is horrible. This is particularly bad for children, who are understandably uninterested in sitting around inside all day while Mom and Dad sit at their laptops with the TV turned to the news in the background. I've been pretty creative with entertaining D, but she's definitely picking up on the tension in the air and is completely and totally attached to her blankie (her lovey/transitional object). She is very clingy and not wild about the disruptions to her routine. I have no idea what to do with her tomorrow. We're supposed to be staying off the roads to keep them clear for evacuations and emergency crews, but I'm hoping that eases up a bit tomorrow so I can take her somewhere. All I can think of is the mall, but (1) many of them are outdoor malls in this part of the country, (2) the nearest one is pretty close to an area still under mandatory evacuation, (3) I bet every other parent in the county has had the same idea, and (4) if I walk any distance I start to contract heavily. I'm going to continue to brainstorm.

In other news, my brother and his wife are at an injection class this evening for their first IVF cycle. I want this to work for them so very very much. Those of you readers that are IVF or stim cycle veterans-- what would be the best thing the stereotypical pregnant sister-in-law could do for them? Send flowers? Some sort of thoughtful gift box? Keep my mouth shut? My brother's wife started birth control pills this week and progresses to Lupron injections at the end of the month. I was considering sending flowers near their retrieval time but now I'm wondering if that's the best plan. Any assvice welcome.