Pax Nortona – A Blog by Joel Sax
From the Land of the Lost Blunderbuss
Month: October 2007
Cat-astrophe
Posted on October 22, 2007 in Cats Santiago Fire
There’s a ~slight~ odor that reminds you of the times Daddy put meat on flames in the summer. But this is indoors. Has he decided to make a tasty chicken or fish in the kitchen instead of on the deck? Then the little black box sings. Daddy picks it up. Yabbers. Goes to the room where they stare at those white boxes for hours at a time. Stares at one of the boxes for a minute or two. Then opens the closet. Now this is getting interesting because you don’t get to see the inside of this very often. What’s he got there? Why is he grabbing those two big, cream-colored boxes, the ones that smell of cats? He takes them out to the front room and suddenly grabs your sister, crams her in one. Then he tries to grab you.
You run up the stairs, round the couch twice and then back down, under the dining room table. He started off shouting at you, but then his voice turned quiet so you knew something was up and it has to do with getting you inside the other box. Then his hands come down, grab the scruff on the back of your neck, and try to force you into the other open box. But you’re going to fix him. Without so much as a scratch or a bite, you push yourself out of his grip, shake free of his hands. Then you disappear. He goes upstairs seeking you while you dissolve into the room with the white boxes at which they like to stare.
Outside, he is closing doors. He closes the bathroom, the bedroom, and the office door. You can hear him open each again in turn, fumble around looking for you. Ah, you have him. He has no idea where you are. You crouch beneath the tiny green chair that smells of generations of cats, confident that you have eluded him. The door to the room opens. You can hear your sister squeaking plaintively. What is he doing? Is he taking you to the Evil One with the Needle? You stay put. If you don’t move…
There’s the slightest flap of the fabric, your hiding place rises up around you, and you are exposed. Dash. Down the hall. Up the stairs with him in hot pursuit. You draw your tail behind the box of CDs and VCRs beneath the television set, hoping that he will not discern your retreat. But he pushes the box back, denying you space. You dash out and go round and round the couch again, down the stairs and into the bathroom, which is the only door he has left open.
Now he has one of his jackets in hand, one that wreaks of his sweat. He tries to net you in this and you nearly evade it. But one of the throws catches you. He wraps you up inside for all of a second. Ah, but you are the most nimble of cats and you are out of it in seconds. You hear the door close behind you as he stomps after you. It’s back up the stairs and around the couch some more times. Then comes the fatal decision. First you make a feint of going down the stairs but in reality you go around the couch. He bears down on you while you take a breather on a small tongue that sticks out from the loft. You break his grip and do the same routine except this time you go down the stairs. He’s out of breath. You stop. Then he pounces and shoves you into the box, snaps the door shut. You are caught and for the rest of the afternoon you whine pathetically while he drags things out of corners and shoves clothes into suitcases. Mommy comes home and she does nothing to free you from this unexpected captivity.
They even have the nerve to leave you for a few hours. Late in the evening, they take the cages into the room where they stare at the white boxes, lay out your food and your water, and free you. Now you’re stuck here watching them in their strange infatuation. Your sister, Fiona, has forgiven these louts but you’ve crawled under the desk and you’re not going to show them the least affection. They have sinned against you for no reason. You will not come out.
Except your sister throws up and you rush out to devour the pieces before she can eat them herself.
Party Time in Concourse Park
Posted on October 22, 2007 in Santiago Fire
All they needed was a keg. Folks from all over the neighborhood brought their cameras and dogs to see 300 foot flames shoot up from the deeps of Borrego Canyon, just on the other side of Dreaded Hill. “It looks like a volcano,” one woman said. Embers smacked up from dense thickets of greasewood and buckwheat, giving the chaparral a nice scrubbing. This land lives for a good fire like this every few years: the philosophy of the OC Fire Authority was to let the flames do their part for Nature. The plan, according to cops, was to make a stand in this park and along the line of houses.
People were glued to park benches, eager witnesses of the moment when the flames would begin to pour into the brushy valley on our side of Whiting Ranch. You might have had trouble distinguishing them from the crowd at the latest Lucas blockbuster. They were there for the news of the disaster (just like we were).
The strangest thing was the wind. As the fire cleared a corridor down Borrego Canyon, a cold wind blew over Concourse Park out of the northwest. It kept switching its directions and not a single person didn’t have her car keys in hand, just in case it shifted a few degrees and brought the inferno into our laps.
In the meantime, it was hurry up and wait for news stronger than rumor.
* * * * *
The congregation gave us opportunities to meet neighbors, a chance I hadn’t had like this since the Quake of 89. Clearly visible to us in the park was the big screen television of one of the houses perched on the hillside overlooking the Serrano Creek drainage of Whiting Ranch Wilderness. One fellow pointed his binoculars at the living room. “He’s watching football,” he announced.
* * * * *
When the Orange County Sheriffs appeared, the crowd in the park congealed around the car. A lone deputy stood, looking around at us, while his partner leaned against the prowler. “We’re waiting for you to tell us what’s happening,” I said to him. “I don’t know,” he replied. “We heard that there were a lot of people up here in the park and we wanted to see what they were looking at.”
We’re not evacuating until they tell us to.
Drawing Near
Posted on October 22, 2007 in Photos Santiago Fire
The line of smoke coming through Borrego Canyon
Local tourists check out the conflagration eating up Foothill Ranch. Wind is blowing from left to right.
The last picture I took before heading back home. Something is going up. And look at all that tinder.
Portola Hills is on voluntary alert — which means everyone has put on their t-shirts and shorts, grabbed a beer and the dog, and walked down to Concourse Park to watch the smoke coming in.
Just got a call that I’ve been waiting for weeks — “You know, I’d really like to talk to you but we have this fire about 3/4 miles away and we’re packing the cars….”
Too Fucking Close
Posted on October 22, 2007 in Santiago Fire
I am taking a breather. The cats are packed away in their cat carriers, thrashing violently. I’ve got the strong boxes out and have quickly packed my suitcase. Next to get the car, the camera, etc. and hope that we’re spared.
From a report by a neighbor, I gather that the fire is on a ridgeline in Foothill Ranch near the corner of Alton and Portola. The Ralph’s supermarket there is threatened. About a mile of chaparral separates me from the blaze and that mile is rough country should the fire get in there. Only one spot where the firemen can take a stand. There’s water there and a flat spot. News says that there are districts in Orange County without fire protection because they are throwing everything in the county at this blaze. Bet the national news people are down here quick to get pictures now. More than 10,000 acres burned in under 24 hours. And the winds are going this way, then that. No sign of the blaze from here, but it is sneaky country here. Lots of places for a fire to hide.
I may flee to Long Beach to sit it out with my cousin. If so, I’ll let you know what is up.
Those of you with my phone number may call.
For the latest information: click here.
UPDATE: This off the Los Angeles Times:
Firefighters battling an arson blaze that is racing toward thousands of homes in Foothill Ranch were forced this afternoon to abandon a mountain peak where they hoped to make a last-ditch stand.
Forty-foot-tall flames and smoldering embers were bearing down on the Lake Forest neighborhood and residents were evacuating after fire officials’ pleas for water-dropping helicopters went unheeded.
The Santiago Fire was deliberately set in three areas next to the 241 toll road about 6 p.m. Sunday, and it exploded quickly, fueled by dense vegetation and fierce Santa Ana winds, fire investigators said. The blaze has scorched more than 15,000 acres near Santiago Canyon and is now threatening Portola Hills.
If caught, someone ain’t going to get a fair jury in Orange County. Would Bill the Lawyer defend him?
Why We Need the War on Terrier
Posted on October 22, 2007 in War on Terrier
Any questions?
Stolen from Brian Kane.
The Storm Resumes
Posted on October 22, 2007 in Santiago Fire
A few minutes ago, shortly after I finished my first article of the day about the local holocaust, I heard my door creaking. Open and shut. Open and shut. Just now I went to close it. The eucalyptus trees, which had stood so straight, bent over. As if it had just been out to lunch, the wind was back.
I’m back to trembling.
Still in the Morning
Posted on October 22, 2007 in Santiago Fire
Daylight has allowed a better look at where the fire has burned. According to the latest report in the OC Register, it has torched 8,800 acres — eight times more than the Malibu fire and in much less time. The country lies west of here, in rolling hills covered by grasslands dried by our waterless winter.
There’s a severe weather alert out:
STRONG SANTA ANA WINDS WILL CONTINUE TODAY AND INTO TUESDAY. AREAS OF NORTHEAST WINDS 25 TO 35 MPH WITH STRONGEST GUSTS TO AROUND 85 MPH WILL OCCUR NEAR AND BELOW PASSES AND CANYONS. THE STRONGEST WINDS AND WIND GUSTS WILL BE BELOW THE CAJON PASS AND NEAR THE COASTAL FOOTHILLS OF THE SANTA ANA MOUNTAINS. WINDS WILL REMAIN STRONG AND GUSTY BUT ARE EXPECTED TO BE SLIGHTLY WEAKER FOR TUESDAY…AND THEN WEAKEN RATHER SIGNIFICANTLY ON WEDNESDAY.
Either this report is wrong (the winds have already subsided considerably) or I have had a lost-weekend-at-the-beginning-of-the-week: the tops of the trees barely move and the current wind speed is a mere 14 mph, still from the NE.
Friends of ours in Irvine, who might have gone to bed next to their suitcases, woke to a better situation than last night. The sky to the west of here is a uniform, thick smoggy gray. As long as winds don’t rematerialize and kick the fire across the 133 toll road into Peters Canyon, the threat to houses is minimal. Firefighters are undoubtably working the line, letting the monster burn itself out.
Maybe later I’ll sneak as close as I can to the firelines and get some pictures of the devastation. For now, all safe — as long as the winds don’t kick up and no one lights a match or lets a spark fly from his ATV up Trabuco Canyon.
Wine Dark Clouds
Posted on October 21, 2007 in Santiago Fire
“Not only is it a strong event, it’s one of the strongest events you’ll get any Santa Ana season,” said Ken Clark, a Rancho Cucamonga-based senior meteorologist for Accuweather.com. “And the strongest winds have not occurred yet.”
Wine-dark clouds roil across the sky about five to six miles west of us. The conflagration hasn’t yet made any of the news services — it’s new. About an hour ago, I told my friend L that all we needed was a careless biker from Cook’s Corner with a cigarette to create problems in this wind — which forecasters now say will flagellate us until Tuesday when the high is going to be 95 degrees (35 for the Celsius crowd). Checking the house — where are the cat carriers, the meds, etc. Thinking about packing bags just in case the winds make a dramatic, ninety degree turn. Scared.
UPDATE: The fire is where I said it was, burping out of the throat of Silverado Canyon where it intersects with Santiago Canyon — way too close for comfort.
UPDATE: The fire is about a mile and a half south of where it was previously thought, at the Tomato Springs just north of the City of Irvine and the old El Toro Marine Corp Air Station. Looks okay for us, but bad for Irvine. Took the following picture from Concourse Park: there’s five miles or so of foothills between us and the blaze which silhouettes Dreaded Hill. Kids were excited and hoping for it to burn closer. Adults, needless to say, didn’t have the same wish.
Sniffing the wind from time to time for traces of smoke. Weather report says that tomorrow is going to be the worst day for winds: in the mid-nineties on Tuesday.
I will keep Twittering.
The Bully of the Foothills
Posted on October 21, 2007 in Weather
The bully of the foothills pounded at my window bright and early. All day it has filled the hole left by rising air in the valley, rushing over the condos towards the sea. Lynn reports that its not quite so bad on the flats where Interstate-5 runs. Just now I heard the first sign of life outside our home: a slamming car door. On days like this, people grab their ankles and rock while they wait for the foehn to still.
Dream
Posted on October 21, 2007 in Dreams
We have three monkeys (that look like three-toed sloths) and they are out in the backyard of my childhood home.
Gargoyles Over the Abyss
Posted on October 21, 2007 in Psych Wards Stigma
Gareth and I both suffer from bipolar disorder. And the two of us are concerned about the present state of the mental health system from the point of view of people who do not like coercion other than the natural coercion of suffering. Gareth feels that “unwanted, involuntary psychiatric hospitalization really is experienced as being just the same as jail.” I’m a little more open to its use, but in cases when the safety of the person is threatened or the safety of those around them is threatened.
But I think you have to make a pretty good case for it, namely that there is a knife or a gun in the person’s hands or that the person has physically attacked other people. In other words, the person has to be doing more than waving her or his hands wildly or expressing profanity.
I think there is something to this:
I’m talking to people who choose or have chosen to be homeless or psychotic or both, who say they know exactly what they are choosing and it is the situation they prefer (less stressful, familiar, feels better than other ways they have tried).
We should all be able to relate to knowingly taking risks in life. The more freedom, the more risk you can take on. We drive on the freeway. Some people choose to be fire fighters or fighter pilots or sports players or police officers. Some people do really choose to be homeless knowing they could be raped or murdered. Some people also choose to move to neighborhoods full of homeless people and be “urban pioneers.”
Frankly, I think an Atlanta police officer is one of the very last people who should be telling me I should not be free to do things that could get me killed!
It’s no accident that our Vietnam veterans are often among those most comfortable on the streets or at the margins.
Of course the question Gareth needs to answer is “if these people are mentally ill, how can we trust their choices?”
Setting this as a standard, we can’t. But neither can we trust the choice of any of these to seek therapy on their own or to begin taking medication. The country of trust becomes very small when we follow these definitions and the country of distrust a continent. You hear it from both sides. There are those who want to lock every single mentally ill person up and those who want to keep their loved ones out of the hospital lest they become dependent on the State or a bad reflection on their families. The tyrannies facing us come from all quarters and, sometimes, from people who have attached themselves to the patients’ rights movement for reasons that confound recovery.
There’s another point on view, the “non-medical model” that insists that “nearly” all mental illness* is the product of past trauma. Some patient-rights advocates, drunk on the juice of [[Thomas Szasz]], feel that the State should abandon the successful chemical imbalance model altogether. (I think there is evidence to suggest that they’ve never seriously implemented it.) These feel that the issue is trauma. Much of their zealotry is based, probably, on bad experiences with hospitals that take away all your rights the moment they confiscate your shoelaces, that shoot you up with [[Thorazine]], and warehouse you.
You see, many state hospitals have not caught up with the early Twenty-First century, seeing their job as merely keeping patients off the streets.
I’ve been fortunate in that my hospital experience was not like that, but then I went to the best “behavioral health unit” my insurance would pay for, where they combined reasonable doses of medication with talk-therapy. The psychiatrist I visit appreciates that I need both medical and psychological support for my recovery. I’m told that this is rare, but from the experience that I glean from others the problem seems to be the patient choosing one over the other or just not listening to what the psychiatrist or counselor is telling them.
It sucks to suffer. And I relate to those who flail about distrusting the establishment because the world already feels like a cage. Who wants to become a tame animal, collar around his neck after all? I’ve lived on the edge of the abyss, peering down like a gargoyle afraid of his shadow and of the shadow of the planet. More than once I have traced shallow cuts across my skin in suicidal play and once I came close to doing the real thing. I have been haunted by hallucinations of knives that I could not talk into leaving. Years of talk therapy alone and years of medication alone never gave me the stability I needed to live like a man. It’s been the combination that has helped me through the times and raised me to a place of self-satisfaction and reliance.
I have not been shoved into an institution (I chose it myself) but others have, often by panicky families and public officials, people who operated on the basis of the stigma. Bipolar disorder exists, but it is not an excuse for denying any person her or his civil rights. As for the sane, there must be crimes committed before a person can involuntarily lose freedom. Sometimes, I dare say, this must be done. And when it must be done, it should but with choice preserved even in jails. As it is elsewhere in our democratic society, it is through choice that we shed our stone wings and fly steadily.
*A contemporary two-step used by stealth Szaszians. The implication here is that the meds are always for some person other than the person who doesn’t want to be on meds.
The Costs of Dropping the Ball
Posted on October 20, 2007 in Anxiety
Oh the bad old days, the bad old days, when the emphasis was on the ability to jump rope or put a basketball through a hoop rather than on your intellect. Has anyone ever told you that they didn’t happen or, more likely, that they shouldn’t have affected you? A new study out of Canada has something to say on the matter:
In a study published in The Journal of Sport Behavior, researchers at the University of Alberta in Edmonton examined the relationships among perceived athletic competence, peer acceptance and loneliness in elementary school children. Their findings will likely confirm the experience of anyone who was picked last for the team in gym class: children seen as athletic by their classmates are also better liked and less likely to feel lonely, while unathletic children experience the opposite.
“For both boys and girls, we found that popular children reported less loneliness and received higher athletic ability ratings from their peers than rejected children,” says lead researcher Janice Causgrove Dunn, from the Faculty of Physical & Recreation at the University of Alberta. “Conversely, the kids who reported higher levels of loneliness tended to receive lower athletic ability ratings and lower social acceptance ratings from their peers.”
Past studies have found that loneliness in childhood and adolescence is associated with many psychosocial and emotional problems, and prolonged loneliness has the potential to seriously undermine an individual’s psychological, emotional and physical well-being. Lonely children are often less physically active and less fit, and more likely to experience tension and anxiety than their non-lonely counterparts. In adolescence and early adulthood, loneliness has been linked to behaviors including cigarette smoking, marijuana use and alcoholism, as well as an increased risk of school drop out and depression.
“Given the proven negative impact of loneliness on a child’s well being, this kind of research is an important endeavor,” says Causgrove Dunn. “It’s important to identify and understand the factors that might increase a child’s likelihood of being accepted by the peer group, because this, in turn, decreases the likelihood of that child experiencing the destructive psychosocial and emotional problems that often come with rejection.”
And what do we expect the reaction from parents and teachers to be? Kids are mean. In other words, no action whatsoever.
Normalness includes a streak of cruelty, we often hear. Give it time before [[Steve Pinker]] or another of his kind comes up with a genetic study showing that this comes out of a natural pack psychosis, the implication being that those who do it cannot help themselves.
I not only caught it from the kids at school (I had asthma in smoggy Southern California), but my darling older brother poured it on, using his new-found vocabulary to call me a “lummox”. When I complained, I was told that I was supposed to “learn to take it”. But the people who put me through this didn’t go through this like I did. If you suffer from any kind of mental illness, I am sure you know the feeling: whatever your experience you receive the whimpy excuse that “you’re not the only one with problems”. Yes, we all know that having a stubbed toe is equivalent to losing a limb. In this case, they are actually watching the bullies sawing the leg off as they tell you to buck up and be brave.
[tags]bullying, bullies, anxiety, rejection, sports[/tags]
