Keepin' the Home Fires Burnin'

Last Wednesday morning, my cell phone rang at 5:30am. My first thought when I heard the phone was, it had better not be the Mother of All Coffee Houses calling to try and get me to come in early. I put the pillow over my head and said to myself, nope, I'm not gonna answer it. Those pricks wil just have to find someone else to come in at the crack of dawn and schlep coffee.

But then, as I tried to go back to sleep, I started thinking, what if it wasn't work calling? What if there is some sort of family emergency? So I grabbed my phone and looked at the number, and sure enough, the words "Mom's Cell" were there. Oh crap. I quickly dialed her number, and when my mom answered she said, "Sorry to call you so early, but we're on our way to your house. We've been evacuated." Evacuated? What do you mean EVACUATED? Apparently I have been watching too much Tivo lately and not enough news because I had no idea that there were several large wildfires burning in Southern California, one of them being in Calabasas practically right in my parent's backyard!

So my parents arrived at our house around 6:15am with their two cats and a box of important papers. I put on a pot of coffee and we all immediately became glued to the television trying to find out all the information we could about the fire and how close it was to their home. We kept seeing areas that were on fire right around the corner from their house, so it was definitely a little scary there for awhile.

But in the end, the fire fighters did an excellent job and none of the houses in their neighborhood were harmed. My parents stayed with us for one night and were able to get back into their house the next day to start cleaning up all the soot and ash that had blown over. But that's a small price to pay considering how bad it COULD have been, right?

Never a dull moment in this family. Nope. Never.