Usually, we don’t have three days of celebration together for Nico’s birthday, but that’s one happy thing that has come from the destruction of the Altadena fire. Daughter Sarah and her family have been with us for several days, and those extra days preceded Nico’s 9th birthday. Since Sarah and Gregorio have been watching daily wind conditions and air quality reports, they haven’t known when they would return home. If all goes well overnight, then tomorrow is the day they will go back to South Pasadena and resume their lives in the new normal. I expect the schools will devote time to help their students process some of their feelings about all of this. After all, many people in the area lost their homes and businesses. A very tough time indeed.

Tonight, I hosted a Zoom writing group of Angelinos, and we talked about how the fire affected all of us. One person still hopes a nearby fire doesn’t shift and endanger his house. He and his husband are packed and ready to go if it does. Another woman walked from her apartment in Hollywood during the Sunset fire and sat in a Jack in the Box until she received the word that she could return home. She said the crew there was very kind to her over many hours and even gave her a meal when they understood her situation. Another said she could see the fires dotting the hillside from the roof of her Koreatown apartment building, and it was hard to watch the orange flames flickering against the dark of night.

One of our members wrote a sonnet about the fires. Here it is:

We will all be processing our feelings about these fires for a long time.

Happy Birthday, sweet Nico. I am so glad we could celebrate three days while you were here. What a lovely way to offset the loss related to the fires. Here’s to age 9!

Here are some of the photos from Nico’s day today:

Another art day with Sonny

Fun at the park

Nico and Ethan