Oooh, I love roasted chickpeas.

Hil, do you roast them with a spice? I wonder how I can make wasabi chickpeas?

I don't like wasabi. I sometimes use garlic powder, sometimes nutritional yeast. I used to have a spray can of garlic-infused olive oil that I'd spray them with.

and you don't have a magic cloak of protection to extend over your property yourself.

Well, you can do more than that. Not to argue into staying but you can stay and water your roof which is what people do. If the fire doesn't engulf your area but is close enough to spraying embers and sparks then you can put those out.

Again, not saying that's the right idea, but it's not just magical thinking.

We had a large basement in NY. It housed the furnace and was generally cold and damp and dark compared to the rest of the house. Mom used it as a large pantry for huge amounts of canned food, potatoes and such. It wasn't a fun place, but not too creepy. Mom's home canned food may have softened the atmosphere.

No basements in this part of Florida. We just put a new floor down and painted our laundry room. I hope to make a pretty tropical curtain for the window this weekend. When DH said he wanted to paint the room I was more than ready to dump the beige and now find the turquoise quite cheery. [link]

cheese omelette:

Fire may be pretty, but breathing smoke not so much. Please be safe if you are in fire areas. Sending all kinds of vibes for conditions improving.

The basement in my last apartment house was dark and damp and creepy to the max -- I didn't even like going down into it at night. The basement here is a lot better, mostly because not only are there enough lights to see every bit of it, but the previous owners painted the walls and the ceilings white, which makes it a hell of a lot brighter.

Florida = No Basements.

Which is fine, since if we had them, they would be breeding grounds for mold, algae and probably alligators.

I do miss them, though. I loved our basement in Ohio, even though we didn't get much light and if the snow piled up more than six or eight inches, it blocked out what little light we did get.

I'm fascinated by the daylight/walkout basements that seem so prevalent in the Seattle area.

I think what people are used to may have some effect on disregarding natural hazards. I'd be in the first vehicle out with family photos clutched to my chest in a wildfire situation, but here where we get tornadoes all the time I don't freak out, and merely move to the windowless (yet still upstairs) bedroom if the lightning gets bad rather than seeking ground level shelter. I've even gone to sleep with a storm in full force and an hour or more left on the tornado warning.