the human body is a random and too often stupid thing.

Truer words...

Man, fires scare me. Not in an unseemly way, just I am used to knowing that earthquakes and fires are the dangers. Other dangers aren't as real to me but those, I know deep in my gut.

I'm assuming the poor air quality has something to do with my sinus distress. But if that's the worst I'm suffering I'm very well off.

I'm not good with fires nearby either, not here. In Jamaica they could burn close enough on the mountainside for us to hear them without any feeling they'd spread to where we were, but even when dry we're talking tropical, not tinder like SoCal. Working in Simi was worrisome at times.

Flash. Up and down. Go round and round. Just what you want for your little girl or boy, right?

People are fucked up, is what.

Last time I visited my mom, there were fires all around the town - not up in the mountains, but in the valley areas that are too high to be marshy. Apparently, that happened again this year. It's deeply affecting on a lizard-brain level to be smelling fire and smoke all around you.

Our basement wasn't finished, but it wasn't creepy, either. It was huge, and partitioned by wall framing, and I used it as a playground as a kid.

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

It's all the hills.

We don't have a basement here (sadface), but there's enough of a gentle slope to our yard that one could, in theory, add a Typical Seattle Basement here.

Growing up in the northeast, we always had basements. The houses were older, and so were the basements, but kids who had big ones always used them, for rolling skating in the winter and stuff, if they weren't finished.

Our basement here is as old as the house and just as creepy. Low ceilings, uneven floors, nooks and crannies and exposed pipes. I never, ever go down there.

I was desperate for doughnuts this morning, so I found a local doughnut place and got some.

Now I'm full. Very full.

I spent most of my childhood (other than the first three years) in a ranch house in the suburbs. When we first moved in, it was brand new and had an unfinished basement. Over the first eight years or so, Dad finished half of it and subdivided it so there was a family room with paneled walls and carpet, a playroom for us kids which my brother turned into his bedroom after he got into high school and the rest of us got too old for a playroom. The other half of the basement was split into my dad's workshop and Mom's laundry room/sewing area.

It was never creepy down there, although my sister did like to hide in the dark and scare me when I was coming downstairs.

In non-basement memory news, Comcast just left after installing cable into my bedroom. Since my bedroom tv is old and not HD, I only needed a little box that will sit on top of the 12" tv with no problem, but I do need to still use the tv's remote to turn it on, and then the Comcast remote to navigate the channels.

I have a blueberry-peach pie in the oven. I can't wait until it's out. Mmmm....

The air quality at JPL on Friday was ridic. It was raining ash up at my building.

I hope they close tomorrow. With the heat and the ash and the air quality, having five thousand people wandering around the lab = bad idea.