Updates & Random Thoughts

Well, good old Malibu's on fire again - 35 homes destroyed since 3:30 AM. Lap of luxury, huh? I'm no longer as envious as I used to be of people who live there - options for driving in and out of the area are limited anyway, and apparently Mother Nature is trying to tell us something about the area.

Moving on...I don't mean to brush that off; I know it's serious and people are once again losing homes, but I am not aiming to be CNN here so I will stop reporting on it. You guys know how to find the news...

Anyhoo. I've been so busy with the new job that I haven't really devoted much time to writing. The job is a lot of fun so far. In my old job, I was usually prospecting to mid- to low-end public schools all over California, and later, just the southern region. All I did was drive. School quality ran the gamut depending on the area and the district. I really don't blame people for the moods they were usually in when I had to call on them, having taught in a highly bureaucratic district myself. It was tough to keep spirits up when I was pushing in a clutch every 1/16 of a second in L.A. traffic for 8-10 hours a day. I was putting between 80-200 miles on my car on an almost daily basis.

With this job, I am prospecting mainly to high end private and independent schools. What a difference in how I am treated on a day-to-day basis! For the most part, I am greeted with friendly smiles when I stop by unannounced - turns out people love free food, especially when it is healthy and tasty :). I plan a small route in a concentrated area of 10-12 schools to drop samples to and I usually end up driving only 30-45 miles daily, if that. When I call to ask for someone on the phone, I am actually transferred to the person or their correct voicemail in under 5 minutes (this is nothing short of a miracle for sales). People are eager to hear about our program and if they're not, they're either polite about it or have referrals for people who might be. It's quite a difference! So far it's going very well and I hope it stays that way. If I've learned nothing else this year, it's that you need to be very happy with what you do every day or else every single thing feels like a struggle. I really was starting to give up hope that I could be one of those people that loved what they do!

The Hills of L.A. Are Burning

It's that lovely time of year here known as fire season. The weather dries out, warms up, and the Santa Ana winds blow everything all over the place. The humidity drops really low and there is a sort of electricity in the air that makes you feel like you could spontaneously combust at any moment. The humidity at this time of year is usually below 15%, which is why people might be surprised to know that despite our non-existent winters and warm weather, L.A. residents are actually some of the first in the country to drag out the good old humidifier. Apparently bodies, computers and wildbrush need to be between 30-55% humidity or things dry out and blow up. This is nothing new to residents here; we get these winds every year and along with them come the seasonal wildfires.

The fires are usually bad every year in some way or another, but every few years it gets really bad in L.A. County and it looks like 2007 might be one of those years. Parts of the Malibu Hills began burning last night; the fire spread across about 1200 acres and today at 4 PM the fire was still described as zero percent contained. Flames were reportedly jumping the Pacific Coast Highway, which obviously had to be shut down. The Malibu Presbyterian Church and the Kashan Castle both burned to the ground (the 2nd picture is the church). Pepperdine and many other areas of Malibu were evacuated last night and many residents of Malibu are still wandering around in bathrobes trying to figure out what to do and where to go. In the northern hills of the San Fernando Valley, along I-5, there are more than 10,000 acres on fire in Agua Dulce and Canyon Country. I feel rather fortunate right now to live on along the southern hills of the valley right now...

The thing that most people don't know about wildfires is that they are actually very good for enriching soil and they also help prevent the brush overgrowth that can actually lead to stronger and less easily controlled fires. There's a delicate balance here of needing enough rain not to be at risk for fire without having so much rain that things overgrow, because then there is just that much more fodder to burn during the next fire season.

It's a weird balance to try to understand, and I'm not 100% certain that it's compatible with human life in this area. Los Angeles is after all a desert and the main reason people can live here is only thanks to the Hoover Dam and the Colorado River. People have hoped for decades that Los Angeles would burn and my husband and I have lately been joking that as long as we're out of town, we're OK with that. Thanks for being out of town tonight without me, honey :).

At any rate, I really feel for the unfortunate people who have lost their homes or who are in danger of having their homes burn...how scary to watch that happen, or worse - to come "home" and your home isn't there anymore. I'm grateful to have sat on my lazy bum in my home all day today!