Smell fangs

Tulip kitty slept in the crook of my knees last night. Yeah, she pretty much hogged the bed. When the alarm clock rang this morning I hit the snooze button. Kitty stretched and came up to say good morning. She walked right up and started sniffing my eyelids. When I opened my eyes, she was right in my face, giving me the "smell fangs". (For those of you who don't know what smell fangs are, that's the goofy, open-mouthed face that cats make when they smell something weird. I don't have a picture of it, but I'll work on it.) Just to mess with her, I started fluttering my eyelids. She heard it and started sniffing them again. This went on for a few minutes, which made me laugh. Flutter, sniff, smell fangs, repeat.

It really is a toss-up as to who's weirder, me or the cat.

Evacuation photos

Here are a few pictures from kitty's evacuation adventure...

Hiding out in the kitty carrier at the office:


Trying to rest with Raynay:

Just arrived back home, getting ready to catch up on sleep:

Kitty is back at home

After 2 nights on my office floor, we received the thumbs-up to return home this morning. It took me about 2 seconds to pack up all our crap and get on the road. When we got to our neighborhood the landscapers were here mowing the lawn. Our neighbor was outside washing his car. If it wasn't for a very murky looking pool, you could hardly tell that anything had happened. What a relief. It seems like many of our neighbors in the complex have not returned yet. For once it's quiet around here.

Tulip kitty seems happy to be home. She has been wandering around the house checking everything out. At the moment she is pacing back and forth in front of the sliding door. She wants to go out on the deck, but it's too dirty and the air quality is too bad for that. Eve just tried to pet her and Tulip took a swat at her. It's good to see she's back to her normal self. :)

I'm going to take a shower, then curl up in bed for a while. Hopefully kitty will join me. It's so good to be home. Thank you all for your positive thoughts.

Evacuation update 2

We (and as far as we know our home) are still holding up so far. We are still staying in my office. I think we are the only ones in my building, but others are on campus. Tulip kitty and Eve are both asleep. I haven't really slept, but need to while things are calm. My eyeballs feel like they have been sandpapered. The air quality is horrible.

It's really hot, but obviously we can't open the windows. Just sitting here slow-roasting and watching a live news feed. The cafe employees didn't come in today, so no hot food other than instant noodles. My office-mate stopped by this morning with coffee and breakfast, so we'll be fine. One of us might venture out later if we get hungry. We'll see how it goes.

Things seem to be improving just a little bit in this area. It's keeping me hopeful and very thankful. At least we aren't trying to outrun the fire.

Evacuation update

We are still at my office in La Jolla. Things continue to be safe here. We haven't been back to our house yet. However, I heard a guy on the radio about half an hour ago that was traveling through our neighborhood. He reported no fire damage, just a lot of ash and downed trees. Hopefully we'll continue to be lucky.

There was some talk yesterday about our company not letting us stay here at our offices because we are not "set up to be an evacuation center". Thanks for your compassion. Hopefully they've thought better of that idea, since we're still here. Some other co-workers showed up overnight. I was going to take a walk around campus to see who is here, but I'm just too tired. Other than very brief cat-naps I've been awake and checking the news sites all night. I can't wait for this to be over.

I thought I should add that Tulip kitty is resting in her bed. She'd love to go home too, but she's handling things well. She's sleeping at the moment.