Air Quality

Having lived in the Los Angeles area in the 80's, I'm familiar with smog.  Never really bothered me much.

What we are experiencing here now as a result of the Camp Fire and the fires in Southern California is unlike anything we've seen ever.  By mid afternoon yesterday, the air quality in Tracy was the worst by far than anywhere else in a 200 mile radius.  Burned my eyes and created a super sore throat and congestion.  It was a hard day - our district kept kids in school (like our neighboring district did) primarily because we had kids inside.  Even took their lunches to their classrooms - but folks weren't necessary happy about that decision.  By the time the particulate matter was shockingly high, we were within a couple hours of school being out - so why try to arrange for early pickups, etc..  We are a commuter town and on a Friday afternoon, the last thing any parent commuting from the Bay Area to Tracy wants to hear is 'you need to come pick up your child ASAP'.  Especially on a holiday week eve.

Long day - felt bad for my boss and my friend (his assistant) who spent the day fielding hostile phone calls and terse emails.

The tragedy in Paradise, CA is something we will remember for the rest of our lives - much like we still remember the Oakland fire.  Still 1,000 people unaccounted for and while we all certainly hope many are relocated and don't realize they are being counted as missing, it's very likely the death toll will continue to climb.

My new assistant's cousin lives in Paradise - and by some miracle, her house is the only house still standing on an entire street of one neighborhood.

The guy in the Oval Office's latest ridiculous comments are 'the debris in the forests on the ground needs to be raked up often'.  Yeah.  He really said that.  J. watched Air Force One land at Beal Airbase and we chuckled as we said 'wonder if he's bringing rakes'?

I am technically off work until Monday, 11/26 - but I do plan to work two days at some point - and I will.  Just not sure when.  We're staying inside as much as we possibly can and today being the first day off for me, I'm being a little lazy.

I was sitting at my desk and saw what I thought looked like a tail scooting across the potting bench outside the window.  I told J. 'I think I saw a mouse' and just then, I see the smallest tiny head with huge ears.  Teeny, tiny baby mouse skittering about.  Really cute.

We're calling our pest control company to set closed traps - because we have pets so sticky traps are out and poison is out, too - and I told J. 'pay whatever we have to pay'.  We've been hearing odd sounds in the study and the last time we had an infestation was also approaching Thanksgiving.  I want them out - cute when they are super little and not so cute any other time.

H. is coming over tomorrow and we're happy to have his help.  We're making space in the garage to start stacking some boxes that we've packed up - mostly books, DVDs, etc. .

We heard that the builder received the floor plan back from the draftsman but sent it back again for further update.  They hope to have it for us next week.  Fingers crossed.

I let the Board of Trustees know on Tuesday evening that I will be retiring at the end of this school year.  The next morning, I told my team and then went building to building telling the district office staff.  Shortly after that, I sent out a mass email - and spent the next three hours answering emails.  The Board members were shocked and sad and a couple of them said 'no, please don't tell us this'.  I said I had to.  Someone suggested I could commute in a helicopter.  I smiled and said 'that's a great idea but not likely'.  They are very kind. 

HR posted the position the same day and we already have one applicant.  Looks OK on paper so we'll see. 

Things will move very quickly now - holidays are upon us and before we know it, it will be January.  I'll be counting down only six months at that point -

It's going to be a wild, crazy year ahead.