Driving Through the Smoke

So far, everyone here is OK. We're staying alert, and Fire Marshall Margaret is on the job! Count on it!

Still, it's very unnerving to have this much land up in flames and smoke. We live in an area that is known for it's almost daily strong winds---the wind usually comes up in the afternoon and stays around for a couple hours. But the Santa Ana condition that is tearing down the mountain passes and canyons is a ferocious, erratic and hot wind. It can calm down to nothing in the wink of an eye, then stir itself up to 80 m.p.h. swirls in the next blink. My windshield cracked from the force of small road debris being hurled at 75 m.p.h down the canyon I was travelling up at 70 m.p.h.

Santa Clarita is about 32 miles and across some 3200-foot mountains from the Antelope Valley where we live. The area that burned today near Stevenson Ranch and Magic Mountain is only about 20 miles from us.

Mutts & Moms But No Moms with Kids Under 14: I'm So Mad About Iggy I Could Cry!

OK, I'll admit it right off the bat: I love dogs (and cats), I think Ellen DeGeneres is fabulous, and as Karyn and my sisters and some of my friends from 35 years ago can tell you, I am a MAJOR crybaby. I cry. I shed tears at the slightest thing, or, sometimes, it seems, for no reason at all. (Of course, there is, actually, always a reason.) ::shrug::

I saw the clip from Ellen's show today, Tuesday, 16 October. Then I did some more research on this Mutts & Moms group. Then I saw another clip with Ellen explaining how it all happened, and I got so mad I couldn't even cry, so I decided to write a letter to Mutts & Moms.

I don't know if the email address I have is correct. I certainly don't agree with anyone who makes death threats to anyone at Mutts & Moms, or does anything unlawful, or hurts their business, but I do think it's OK to express some absolute outrage. And OK, I did call them stupid. That wasn't nice. I'm sorry. Pretty much. So, here's my letter:

Hello, Mutts & Moms,

I wonder if you've considered the utter irony of a nonprofit organization called Mutts & Moms not allowing adoption by moms who have children under 14. Ellen DeGeneres acknowledged her mistake and apologized for it, on national TV, no less. And yet, Mutts & Moms, in a curiously astounding blast of poor judgment, really, really bad public relations and publicity, and a hard-line "following of policies" has (1) removed a well-taken care of puppy from a good home, (2) caused the children and parents in that family a great deal of grief, and (3) Mutts & Moms (its owner) has been unrelentingly unkind, inflexible and, may I say it, so stunningly righteous that you're going to show one of the most popular and beloved American icons, Ellen, that no good deed goes unpunished and no amount of her celebrity status is going to cause you to reverse your decision NO MATTER WHAT DOG IT SAVES!

So, yes, your policies are most curious, but your discriminatory double-standard is going to ensure that this State takes a much closer look at nonprofit organizations that claim humane treatment of animals while acting like blithering idiots to the very humans who were supporting your original cause. So she broke a part of the contract----can you not make an amendment, or make an exception, or better yet, review your policies about not letting families with children under 14 adopt a pet for which there previously HAD BEEN NO LOVING HOME! Is any of this getting through to you....anything at all? Or leave Ellen and her partner, Portia DeRossi, out of this completely (as they suggested), and re-give Iggy to Ruby and her family because they love that dog!

I'm afraid it's starting to sound as though you can't leave Ellen and her partner out of it, that your objections regarding Iggy are more personal, more related to other objections, but, really, I hope not. Let me say it differently: Given that you surely must know that thousands of dogs are dumped on roads, left in deserts, mistreated with neglect and indifference, unloved and abandoned to sickness, disease and usually death, then one has to ask: Based on what possible standard of ethics, humane treatment of animals and compassion, nevermind logic, could you possibly justify your actions?

I really want to know.

Checking in...

to say that I have been sooooo busy the past month, I've not blogged. My favorite real estate agent, excuse me, Realtor, has sent me five emails wailing and whining about nothing new to read on the blog. So now she's more addicted to me than Perez Hilton. (Did I win or lose?) Of course she could sign in under whatever name she wants (I'm thinking something like LocationLocationLocation). OK, well, maybe not.

I want to blog, really I do, but I'm writing an historical romance. Well, that's not exactly it, either. I mean I am writing a novel, but that's not really getting in the way of blogging. I just don't have the time to get into anything in depth...I mean if you want in depth, go to Robin's blog . Lately she's trying to drive me mad with a HUGE compilation of the stuff you need to know about what to do with a book when you finish writing it. Reading Robin, for me, is not unlike constantly chasing this great, big, orange carrot. I want Robin to be my agent...oh wait, I have to finish the book first. But really, if you're writing a book or know someone who is (besides me, I mean), send them to Robin's site for her 10-part series...maybe it's 12 parts. It's good. Right now Robin is serving as my all-volunteer editor. I got the newest version of MS Word, and I send her 75 pages and she sends them back all marked up in red and blue and green notations that say things like "I demand a rewrite," and "What, really, does this mean?" I cannot believe she makes me rewrite the passage until it sounds like the gorgeous thing I meant it to be. I'll tell ya, these volunteers are brutal. And commas....I am a comma addict, and Robin is allergic to them. I think they are elegant, she thinks they are preposterous dots with unseemly little tails. ::sigh:: I'm so lucky...and I love my life (and all the commas I can fit in it!)

Anyway, if things keep going as they are, I might even get a finished book out of this!