Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

Fire. BIG fire. A few blocks west of here (circled a bit on my way home, outside the several blocks the police were keeping cars off of; it seems to be at approximately Lombard and Smallwood, I think). I saw the flames from I-95, noted what part of town it was, and thought, "Please don't let that be so close to my house that I can't go home." Something taller than a house; I think maybe the old paint factory again, based on location and height? Still deciding whether to go photograph it (I've got a fair bit of fire film in the freezer already). Fire trucks still arriving as of a few minutes ago, and based on how well set-up the police were when I drove by, they've already been fighting it for a while. Had entirely the wrong lens with me in the car and no good camera angles; not sure what I could get on foot. Impressive sky over my house -- smoke plume goes nearly horizontal by the time it crosses my block diagonally. Smells a lot like a house fire -- lot's of wood, and I'm not noticing unusual chemical/metal smells from this distance (maybe I'm wrong about the building, or maybe most of the nasty stuff burned off in the last fire?).

Think I'm staying in. Head feels woogley which doesn't bode well for steady-hand low-light shooting, even with the monopod, and I was pretty tired already when I left Bowie. But I reserve the right to change my mind and load up fast film in the next few minutes.

Huh. Yet another siren. Doesn't sound like a fire truck. Hope they didn't need an ambulance. :-(

Disconcerting to see that orange glow and then distinct flames licking up over one's part of town from the highway about a mile away. (Need to look at a map later and see whether my distance estimate is right.) Second thought was, "I need to get one of those 'Hey firefighters, a cat lives here' stickers for my window."

[Added at 03:50] I decided not to photograph it. I could push myself, but I've already one more than my body can really stand for the day and am running on borrowed spoons. Instead I went downstairs for a snack, then looked at the smoke from my window and from the sidewlk before coming upstairs to write this. The wind has shifted, so the sky south of my house is now clear but it looks as though the smoke is trying to blow through the houses north of me. (This is probably a trick of perspective -- it's probably mostly over the houses -- but it's definitely lower than it was earlier. I guess the wind also sped up.) What's really interesting is how the wind change smeared the far end of the plume across the Inner Harbor and downtown. There's this smoke stripe that looks a lot like fog, horizontally across what I can see of the downtown skyline from my house, running south to north.

I haven't heard more sirens for a little while, but the fire is still pumping out quite a bit of smoke. The flames were never visible from my house (there are other buildings, including a church, cutting off that sight line) so I don't know whether huge flames are still showing outside the structure. I wonder whether this'll make the television news. It mightcould be big enough to, but this is the wrong part of town to get news coverage unless there's a shooting or a police officer dies in a car crash, so the 'big enough" threshold is set pretty high (and it's the weekend, so the local news teams have less time to fill.)

At least it's not as stinky as the tiny fire around the corner from me a couple of nights ago. They were disconnecting hoses from hydrants and leaving the scene of that one by the time I finished the email message that I'd been wrapping up when I heard the sirens, but I swear it smelled as though someone had burned a cheap cigar -- one of the really foul-smelling ones -- the size of a Chevrolet Impala ("Impalasauurus"). Ugh.

From the Quotation of the day mailing list, 2005-01-21:

"It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong." -- Voltaire [François Marie Arouet] (1694-1778)

(submitted to the mailing list by Jeannette Cezanne)

( Strange dream. Even by my standards. )

I woke up while I was still looking for the missing pieces, and never did get a good look at the owner of that hand to find out whether it was a were-kitty, or just a very furry and emaciated child, or something else entirely. But the fur was really, really soft. I remember the sense of touch from the dream vividly (though oddly, I don't remember perceiving any other tactile sensations during the dream -- it was all sight and sound and the memory (not the direct perception) of smells. I can still remember how the bones felt under that soft fur and warm skin, and how I was afraid to grip it harder for fear of injuring it.

So ... is Drive Like An Idiot Day a state, national, or international holiday? It wasn't on my calendar, so I was not mentally prepared for it yesterday (if I'd realized what day it was, I'd have arranged to stay home).

Really, even with all the craziness and plain ol' poor judgment on the roads 'round hereabouts, yesterday was especially impressive in both magnitude and frequency of idiocy. I haven't decided whether to catalogue it, 'cause hey, a driver-grousing-about-other-drivers rant, not the easiest thing to make fresh and entertaining; but it was surprisingly awful out there.

Fortunately the holiday had ended by the time I drove home in the wee hours of this morning. I'd mark it on my calendar as a day not to drive next year, but I don't know whether to mark 12 February or the second Saturday in February. (Actually, I'm thinking it's probably more of an "at random intervals" thing ... but how do I get on the announcement list without having to promise to participate?)