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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 12th, 2023

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  • I live in Los Angeles and just happen to have a grocery store within easy walking distance. Like 0.5 km. But I don’t, because the old nice little convenience store got turned into stupid Whole Foods. Or Mold Foods, as we started calling it after trying some of their groceries. Now I drive a mile to where I can get fresher produce and dairy, and paper towels that don’t disintegrate with the first touch of liquid. Or we get our groceries delivered.





  • Please don’t disable the alerts just because they’re irritating. They have saved so many lives, even though they fuck up sometimes.

    Just, instead of panicking, do a quick internet check if you don’t have other evidence of the danger. You might find that you’re not in the danger zone yet but might be soon if the wind changes or whatever. Then you can monitor the situation.

    You can also consider them a message from the Universe to check up on your emergency stuff: How much drinking water and food do you have and is it expired? Do you have a bug-out bag and do the pants in it still fit? What would you use to carry all your regular meds? (Don’t store just a few pills, scoop up all the bottles of what you’re normally using, because it might be awhile before you get refills) Do you have a litterbox and food for your cat, as well as a carrier? What about any important documents, know where they are? And where would you go?




  • Speaking from near the Palisades in Los Angeles:

    After we all knew the hurricane-force Santa Anas posed a big danger of fire, because of both news stories and phone alerts, the whole city accidentally got a major “evacuate now” warning, with the big WOOPy noise from our cellphones, that was only supposed to go to residents in a particular area. I had my quadriplegic husband dressed and out of bed and our old go-bags and medical equipment thrown in the car in the 20 minutes it took for the retraction to come out. I also had a bit of a panic attack.

    Some people decided to turn off their alarm settings because of that error. But I took it as a warning that we were not ready enough.

    I went into the bags and made sure, for instance, that the pants fit me, as I’d gained weight in a year. I stashed the fridge meds in a cold carrier, handy in the fridge. And put the right cat food for the new cat in the cat-kit/litterbox. And created a go-box for the box turtle.

    Then I stowed as much as possible in the actual car, including the Important Paperwork file.

    All along, we were monitoring as the fires started to pop up and spread.

    At 9 pm, we got another WOOP alert. Our address had become part (the far edge) of the Yellow Zone. Not the Red Zone. But as you said, who’s going to catch a warning at 2am? (Well, me! But it’s a lot harder to react at that hour) In fact, I’m sure that’s why CalFire expanded the zones so wide at 9 pm, because they wanted to be sure they wouldn’t have to issue a new one overnight.

    So we bailed immediately but calmly. Spent 5 days at a hotel near LAX.

    Fortunately we had no damage, but had to dip into our emergency drinking water for a few more days until they lifted the Boil Water notice.

    Super glad we had and heeded those early warnings about how dangerous those hot dry winds were going to be, and the 9 pm evacuation zone warning.

    The relatively low death count in the Palisades fire came from the accurate weather forecast.









  • Call it what it is: the Onerous Bloated Billionaire Boondoggle.

    Then insert “no” and “not” strategically throughout in order to bring to an end the tax cuts for the grotesquely wealthy (you can leave the ones for ordinary people) and continue funding essential services.

    And insert the requirement that any military or police or patrol force receiving government funds must be fully identifiable while conducting arrest/capture operations.



  • Play a compilation of song covers at exactly 135 BPM so I can do my treadmill without losing my center or my step.

    Work the laundry machines, and set a separate timer because the app notifications are unreliable.

    Text to check that my kids are alive and assure them that I and their dad are also not dead today.

    Order grocery delivery.

    Listen to birds and learn their names (Merlin)

    Be part of the earthquake alert system (MyShake)

    Wordle/ Quordle/ Waffle