Becky Clark's Blog, page 7

Where The Wild Things Are

I was busy doing Very Important Work—okay, fine, I was working the Sunday crosswords—when I heard birds squawking and the neighbor dogs barking up a storm. Nala was inside so she and I rushed to the patio door to see if Timmy fell in a well or something.

It took a minute for me to see him, but the most elegant fox crossed our yard and hopped the fence into the open space behind us.

He—or she, I’m not sure—has been visiting us sporadically these last couple of months. The other day hubs and I were watching TV and Mr Fox trotted right across the patio like he owned the place.

He moves at a pretty good clip so I’ve never been able to get a good picture of him, unlike the deer who stand there forever posing for me. (Why they think I want a picture of them eating my lilacs I’ll never know. The jerks.)

We get quite a bit of wildlife around here at Casa Clark. I absolutely love to see the fox, but I am a bit nervous to think Nala might be out back on one of her walkabouts when he decides to visit. They’re close in size, but Nala might have a few pounds and couple inches on him.

My brother told me a story about my niece when she was a toddler. She was playing with a stick in the dirt, sitting on the shore while he fished. He looked back and she was perfectly fine, then he looked back again almost immediately and there was a fox sitting by her side, like he’d been there all day. 

I could be wrong, but I don’t think Mr Fox is a threat like the coyotes who visit. The coyotes scare me. They’re wily, and Nala is … um … not. We hear them howl and it’s so mournful and spooky. I’ve heard they will watch and learn your daily habits so they know when to come snatch up your chihuahua or toddler. Creepy.

We camped a lot when I was growing up and I loved getting up before the sun with my dad. He always had a pot of coffee going, and it was such a treat to sit there with him, sipping joe out of our tin cups while the world woke up. I knew to be quiet that early and one time Dad just pointed across the way at a fat porcupine waddling past, paying us no heed. Almost before he was out of sight, Dad pointed the other direction and there was a skunk picking his way through our campsite, not four feet from where we sat. We held our breath, but he kept a steady pace until he disappeared into the woods.

As an adult, during the Summer of the Skunks (when a wildlife guy came and trapped 38 mommy and baby skunks between our yard and two neighbors—I know!), I learned that skunks aren’t afraid of anything. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Especially not our two dogs who smelled faintly of skunk the rest of their lives.

I grew up in Colorado, and after moving around a bit, having a couple of kids, we were lucky that my company moved us back. But within a couple months, I questioned if we’d done the right thing because in one week there’d been a mountain lion loping down our street, a bull snake that stretched almost the entire way across our driveway, and our dogs kept killing prairie dogs and proudly presenting them to us.

Yikes. Any one of those gives me the willies, but all three? Oy vey.

A few years ago we even had a moose family wandering our town!

I don’t know why I’m telling you all this, except that I think sometimes I need to be reminded what a fascinating and marvelous natural world we live in, especially when we’re bombarded with deadlines and headlines, and concrete and steel so much of the time.

What kind of wildlife do you have where you live? Is there something you’d like to see up close and personal in your back yard?

Fox Coyotes Porcupine Skunk Mountain lion Prairie dog Moose

Images are all courtesy of the fine photographers at pexels.com

The One Where Becky Takes a Trip to Albuquerque

I attended Left Coast Crime in Albuquerque last week. LCC is an annual mystery fan convention that travels around to locations west of the Mississippi. Authors sit on panels where they discuss all aspects of the mystery genre. I’ve been on panels, I’ve moderated panels, and I’ve been in the audience. And they’re always fun and interesting.

I drove from Denver and picked up my pal Barbara Nickless (who writes really terrific novels, although they’re suspense and not cozies) in Colorado Springs. Before I left home, I was putting addresses in my phone and was startled to get this message. Before I freaked out I remembered the hotel changed hands, so whew!

We stopped for lunch in Walsenburg, a small southern CO town, and the Spanish Peaks literally took my breath away. They are so stunning, and it was terribly windy, so I forgot to take a photo. Here’s a link to a Google search with a bunch you can eyeball. They really are photogenic. But apparently you have to actually point your camera at them. Who knew?

We got to the hotel around 4 pm and had time to freshen up and unpack before Sue, our CO friend who moved to NM a few years earlier, picked us up for a delightful dinner at a charming winery. It was such fun to be able to catch up with her!

The conference actually began on Thursday morning with Speed Dating. That’s where 144 fans sit around banquet tables and 20 pairs of authors move from table to table every four minutes giving their two-minute spiel about their book or themselves as a way to introduce them to new readers. I’ve always done speed dating as an author because I really love it, but I didn’t win the lottery this time.

But it was probably lucky because with this new hotel, everything was a tad wonky … including the elevators! Subtle foreshadowing, eh?

My room was on the 18th floor and when I went to go down to the conference activities, an older man with a cane was waiting for the elevator and said he’d been there for fifteen minutes. He’d already used the house phone to call down and tell them the elevator wasn’t working.

I waited for another five minutes or so, before calling down myself. Not because I didn’t believe him, but because I suspected he was nicer than I was. The front desk told me both engineering and security were on their way up to rescue us. By then a couple more people had come and after waiting around for a bit, decided to take the stairs.

After another ten minutes and another phone call, I decided to take the stairs to the 17th floor to see if those elevators were working, with the intention of coming back up to rescue my new bestie with the cane. I stepped into the stairwell, closed the door behind me, and read the sign on the door which basically said, “You are so screwed right now.”

I might be paraphrasing.

Because all the stairwell doors lock, I had to walk all. the. way. down. I’m hale and hardy—and even though I was carrying my big bag of giveaway swag AND my books to consign to the bookstore—I took a deep breath and set off. What other choice did I have?

When I got to the bottom, there was a set of doors with big signs that said, “Don’t even THINK of opening these doors.” Again, paraphrasing.

Not only did I *think* of opening them, I slammed them open with a vengeance—both hands, both doors—hoping an alarm would start blaring, but it didn’t. I found myself in the backstage area of the hotel. People tried to figure out where I came from and who I was as I marched through there, looking every bit like the President trying to ditch my Secret Service detail.

I did have a restrained, thoughtful conversation with the hotel manager after I toweled off. Can you imagine me doing speed dating after that?? Or if my new bestie with the cane got stuck in the stairwell?? Sheesh. What a way to start a conference!

But later I went to lunch with a new friend and walked past this building, which made me laugh. See the titles of the books?

Friday at Left Coast Crime was another fully-packed day, which began with the New Authors Breakfast. Everyone who had a book pubbed since the last LCC got up to give a short (like 1-min) description of it. It’s always fun and you come away with a terrific reading list.

I moderated the panel “How Cozy is Cozy” with Jenny Anderson, Colin Conway, Kelly Garrett/Emmeline Duncan, and Julie Hennrikus where we talked about the tropes in cozy mysteries and then explained how we broke the rules or adhered to them. Such a fun panel!

The rest of the day was filled with attending other panels, and dinner with friends. I blog with a group called Chicks on the Case, and six out of eight of us we there, so we took the opportunity to go out for a nice dinner. Going clockwise from the lower left is Ellen Byron, Jen Chow, Lisa Mathews, Cynthia Kuhn, me, and Leslie Karst. All marvelous writers and fantastic people.

Late that night, when all the programming was over, we Chicks had organized an Author-Reader Connection, inviting six people to meet with us for “Sips and Sweets.” We commandeered one of the empty panel rooms and got set up for a parTAY of booze and cookies! I really love that LCC started offering these opportunities for authors to meet readers. They’re free for participants and the authors can do whatever they want—as big or intimate an event as they want.

I love to host or co-host these, even though they are a ton of work, because I always meet new people. They become new readers, but 99% of the time they become friends as well.

Saturday was exciting because I got to meet some of my Cozy Mystery Crew peeps for the first time! I’ve known Ellen Byron for a long time, but met Raquel Reyes and Ann Goldfarb (who writes with her husband as JC Eaton) over lunch. We didn’t know when we took this photo that in a few short hours, Raquel would win a Lefty award!

I sat on the “Contradiction of Humor and Crime” panel with Susan Shea, Cynthia Kuhn, Rob Osler, and Kris Bock. During the Q&A, I had the audience pose for a picture, a move I blatantly stole from another author. After each panel, all the panelists go to the bookstore room and sign books. That’s always fun!

Again, lots of interesting panels were going on all afternoon, but I ditched out and regrouped in my room for a while. I’m an extrovert, but it seems I’m a bit out of practice the last couple of years. It doesn’t help that I get up at the crack of early and stay up waaaay past me bedtime! I just ran out of gas, plus I knew the banquet (and another late night) was coming up.

Authors can host banquet tables and readers sign up to sit at them. It’s a great way to get to chat with an author you’ve wanted to meet. I co-hosted with two of my Chicks on the Case cohorts, Cynthia Kuhn and Lisa Mathews. We decorate our table and shower our guests with swag, mostly related to our books or where we’re from. I always bring Colorado chocolate, and there are chicks galore!

Can you see why I was less than thrilled to wear the wreath??

After dinner they present the Lefty Awards. Here are all the nominated books this year (all fantastic). If you’re looking for a good mystery or thriller, this would be an excellent shopping list.

After the banquet, most of the work and all the stress of the awards is over, so the real party begins. It’s a chance for mingling in the bar, made more difficult this year because the bar was actually closed! But we made do, thanks to Leslie’s portable bar.

Sunday at a conference is fairly low-key. Lots of people have early flights and/or are exhausted and sleep in a bit so there aren’t as many people around. There are typically only panels in the morning. I ate some breakfast in my room then packed, which is much easier when you’re driving versus flying. When you fly, there’s always some sad Sophie’s Choice decision about which free book or swag items you have to leave behind so you can close up your suitcase.

But I made it to the “Critters and Crime” panel my friends Barb Nickless and Margaret Mizushima were on. They both write mysteries/suspense with K9s in them, and even though I’ve known them both for many years, I still learned something new about each of them. Again, if you want to read good books, pick up theirs.

Then it was time to collect payment for the books we sold in the bookstore and I was happy to see I’d sold out of all my books, except 2 copies of my writing book! That saves space in my luggage too.

Barb and I said our goodbyes to anyone we saw, then headed for Santa Fe. I never drive through Santa Fe without stopping at my favorite tamale factory and picking up a few dozen for the freezer. So yummy! And easy… just steam them for a bit. After we filled the cooler, we headed toward a fancier place and had a scrumptious lunch before hitting the road for reals. Oh, and when I looked at my Facebook memories, I saw it was the same day I talked my brother-in-law into bringing me tamales on his way home from Santa Fe eleven years ago! So funny!

I hope you enjoyed my little Left Coast Crime travelogue.

Next week I’ll be at Malice Domestic in Bethesda … wearing all the same clothes! It’s a very similar conference, except that it caters more toward cozies and traditional mysteries, and less of the thrillery side of things.

I’m afraid this might be the last year I can do both, though. They’re very labor intensive and quite hard physically. And I basically don’t get any writing done in April. My son and his fiancé live in Baltimore, which is just a stone’s throw from the conference, so while they live there, it probably tips the scale. I can easily fly into Baltimore where I can make him pick me up and take me to the conference. Then after the conference he’ll pick me up and I can hang out with them for a few days before coming home.

If you’ve never been to Left Coast Crime or Malice Domestic, you might want to look into them. Malice is always in Bethesda, but LCC moves around, typically west of the Mississippi. They post the locations a couple of years out, so find one close to you or in a place you’d like to visit and add in a little vacay for yourself. It’s so much fun and I get so starstruck meeting famous authors I’ve admired for so long.

The conference usually gives out branded tote bags filled with books and other freebies. My bag had four or five books I wanted to read, plus I picked up a couple more from the trade-in table. It always feels so decadent snagging a pile of new books!

Left Coast Crime San Diego 2020 was abruptly cancelled almost before it began just as the pandemic began. Most of us had barely arrived when we had to turn around and go home again. And LCC 2021 was virtual, hence the “Unconvention” logo bags.

It was such a joy to hobnob with my mystery peeps again in person, and you can bet I won’t take it for granted again!

Do you think a mystery conference would be something you’d enjoy? Who would be your dream author to meet and hang out with there?

Ah, Mondays

I’ll be the first to admit I’m unusual.

I love black licorice.

I’m not a fan of Italian food.

I’m a Colorado native and have never—not once—felt the urge to ski.

And I love Mondays.

I love the promise of a new week. Everything is possible on Monday morning! The week stretches out before me like a vast ocean of potential and all I have to do is wade into it.

Thursday, mind you, is an entirely different story. By Thursday I might be swimming hard against the current, exhausted and spent, searching for the rescue boat. Or worse, sputtering and choking, schools of tiny fish nibbling at my extremities.

But Mondays? Always perfect. Always welcome.

What about you? Do you fling your arms wide to embrace Mondays, or would you rather they didn’t exist?

Things That Get Stuck

Last Friday night while my husband and I watched a movie, I was shoveling popcorn in my piehole. And yes, I’d rather have been eating pie.

When I finally took a breather, I could feel one of the little husks stuck on the right side of my tongue, a bit underneath. I didn’t worry about it; those things always loosen up.

But it didn’t. I swished water around, I brushed my teeth, I jabbed at it with my fingernail. It was stuck tighter than a clam with lockjaw when I went to bed.

It was still there when I woke up on Saturday, although it had moved further back. While I drank my coffee, I googled “popcorn husk stuck in tonsil.” I was surprised and thankful so many people had the same problem. I was less surprised and less thankful at some of the advice.

“Tilt your chin down and swallow forcefully.” Show that tonsil who’s boss!
“Take big gulps of milk.” Gross.
“Eat more popcorn.” This seemed like a trick. Or a cruel joke.
“Break off a big piece of baguette and swallow it without chewing.” I used to scold my children for this very thing.
“Use a waterpik and blast it out of there.” I do not want this in my obituary.

With all of that advice off the table, I began a strict regimen of gargling and brandishing my tongue scraper in a threatening manner. That didn’t work. Breakfast didn’t work, even though I tried my best not to masticate properly. (Sorry, kids. Your mother is a hypocrite.) More gargling, more tongue scraping. More hilarious comments from my friends on Facebook. (My son mocked me, but I explained that husk was sealed tighter than Grandma’s canned beans.) Spoonsful of peanut butter didn’t work. Spoonsful of honey didn’t work. Crunchy crackers spread thickly with peanut butter and honey didn’t work.

NOTHING WORKED!

I decided to surrender and accept my dismal fate—becoming known throughout the land as That Lady Always Complaining of Popcorn Stuck In Her Throat.

Sunday morning. Still there, but copious amounts of my viscous drool (I’m assuming) had helped to shift it again. After breakfast, more gargling, more tongue scraping, and more complaining still failed to dislodge it, I went for the one piece of potentially valid advice Dr Internet gave me …. gargle with something carbonated. I bought a bottle of Coke and when my husband left the building, I gargled with it.

Gargling with Coke is truly as unpleasant as it sounds.

What’s worse, it didn’t work either.

I bravely faced my destiny.

My husband and I were talking about something weirdly unrelated to my ordeal (I know, right??), and I suddenly felt it shift. The popcorn husk was now centered on top of my tongue, but way in the back! O frabjous day!

I raced upstairs for my tongue scraper. It was long enough, but every time I tried to use it, my tongue reflexively went concave. Toothbrush, same.

Shining the flashlight in there, I showed my husband. I could see it and so could he … it wasn’t my imagination! Picture your flawlessly manicured pinkie fingernail pulled free and pressed firmly on top of your tongue, forming a perfect bubble. Such was my popcorn husk.

Now my husband was getting in on the fun, shouting out household items I could try. “Bamboo skewer! Knitting needle! Letter opener!”

But no. I whispered urgently to my tongue scraper, allowing it one final, glorious moment to prove itself a hero and seek redemption.

And it did.

The crisis was over. The world released its collective breath. Armies stood down, troops finally at ease. The Olympic monobobbers commenced racing. Birds warbled songs of praise and glory.

And me, you ask? What did I do?

I asked my husband to holster the knitting needles.

I humbly submit this list of things—other than popcorn—that get stuck:

You, Best Beloved, reading this
Toni Basil’s song, “Mickey”
Thumbtacks in a corkboard
The needle in a scratched record
Gum on your shoe
Car in a snowdrift

What else?

Of Free Books and Flinchy Librarians

And, lo, it rained librarians and authors and books for forty days and forty nights. Well, actually only three days, but yoiks! It sure seemed like a biblical flood of books and book-related paraphernalia.

In January 2009, I went to my first American Library Association’s MidWinter Meeting because it was held in Denver. I had my camera with me, but I was too bedazzled to take photos. Plus, I would have needed to be on the International Space Station to get it all in the frame. I don’t think my day-pass would have allowed that.

I was an ALA virgin, but proud to say I figured out fairly quickly how to blend in—GRAB FREE BOOKS!!! Humiliation at my unbridled avarice didn’t stop me from acting like the biggest glutton at the buffet. After filling a couple of tote bags, I had to undo the top button on my pants.

For those of you who don’t know, ARCs are Advance Reading Copies of soon-to-be or recently released books. They’re given away to people who will read them, then create buzz about them before they’re released into the biblioworld.

Something I found fascinating at the ALA … aside from the $10 chicken strips and the sharp elbows of prim librarians … was seeing the booths of the companies trying to sell librarians stuff for their libraries. It’s a huge trade show as well as a meeting for librarians, so there were folks there selling shelving, very cool chairs, and tons of software for libraries. I am a big fan of libraries, having visited many in my lifetime, but have I ever considered how they acquire things like that? Why no, no I had not. Until then.

Recently I found myself at a high school library. My, how things had changed! They had cozy ultra-modern looking chairs for snuggling into, but also some nifty chairs around tables. You know how kids are always tipping their chairs back, often falling over backward in them? These seemed to be a happy marriage of allowing for some tipping, but with thingamabobs to stop the chair from going all the way over. I suspect with this purchase, the school librarian became infinitely less flinchy.

Now that my library mindosity had expanded, I vow to visit the comfy chairs at every library. Every. Single. Library. But only after I quiz the staff about their spine label printers, their staff and desk scheduling tools, which database they use for primary source materials from 18th and 19th century publications, and how many people have gone head over tea kettle in their chairs.

Besides the materials you check out, what’s your favorite thing about the library?

Oh, The Questions I Get

Writing books has allowed me to meet so many fabulous readers. I love getting the chance to speak to them about my books.

When I wrote for kids, back in the Mesozoic Period, I used to laugh at their funny and guileless questions.

Are you rich?Did your mom help you?Do you really know all those words?

When I transitioned to writing for adults, I continued to get funny and guileless questions.

How do you write and take care of your kids and get your laundry folded?Can you help me get an agent?Do you really know all those words?

I get some standard questions, almost every time I’m in front of an audience.

Where do you get your ideas?Talk about the research you do.Explain your writing process.

I love answering these. First, because I don’t have to think too hard about the answer, and second, because I ask these same questions of authors.

But recently I was asked a question I’d never been asked before.

And it stumped me.

“Why do you write?”

Hmm. Why do I write.

I stumbled through an acceptable answer that seemed to satisfy him, but I’ve been mulling it over ever since.

Why do I write?

And now I have an answer. A real one.

I write to figure out what I think about something. I write so I can meet readers and other writers. I write to learn about a topic and about myself. I write novels because it seems impossible. I write the next one to see how I’m going to make it happen this time. I write to entertain people, and myself. I write to practice self-discipline. I write to explore human emotion and motivation. I write to make money. I write to prove to the world I was here. I write to learn humility. I write because it seems natural to me to express myself in words. I write because I enjoy a challenge. I write because it keeps me from having to get a real job. I write crime fiction because otherwise, my lifetime of finely curated esoteric trivia about serial killers, poisons, and forensics would spill out at some inopportune place and time and cause deep humiliation for my husband.

Wait. Is that MY footprint??

In a world gone mad, I try to pick my battles.

I know I can’t control all the terrible things hurtling at me like so many—pew pew pew—laser guns, but I can control my response. Unfortunately, many days my response is to find a hidey-hole under my bed and live out the rest of my days there.

But that’s not as proactive as I’d like.

One of the major problems that worries me is the irreparable harm we’re doing to our planet. I can’t fix that, but I can try to take care of my little corner of it.

So I’m on the quest for leaving a smaller footprint than I have in the past.

The amount of plastic I throw away has begun to alarm me. It’s easy to overlook the occasional plastic container I toss out, but there was this harmonic convergence one weekend when I emptied a big liquid laundry detergent bottle, shampoo, conditioner, liquid body wash, AND dish soap!

It was a spectacularly horrifying pile of trash.

That’s when my quest began.

I now use a shampoo bar. This fits in the palm of my hand. Only two swirls on top of my head gives me plenty of suds. It’s kind of magic, I think.

Bar soap at the sinks. One is cranberry and makes the whole downstairs smell fruity and delightful. The other one looks and smells exactly like pumpkin bread. I cut it in half for each of our his-and-her sinks upstairs. As soon as I use up the rest of my liquid body wash, I think I’ll go for bar soap in the shower too.

Laundry strips. You can see, I think, that the sheet is perforated. For a regular load, you tear it at the perforation and toss the rectangle into the washer. If you have a particularly large or terrible load, just toss in the entire square. Our clothes come out clean without that heavy perfume scent.

And in our quest to eat less meat, I found some plant-based substitute for tacos, which I crave more than seems rational. It has a long shelf life so you can stock up when there’s a sale, making it cost-effective too. It’s easy to cook, just add it and a bit of your favorite oil to boiling water for ten minutes or so. I add more taco seasoning of my own, to make it even more taco-licious.

I really like all of these products and get nothing in return for saying so, but if you want to reduce your footprint too, I’d encourage you to find some products you can advocate for.

Craft fairs and consignment markets have tons of artisans creating soaps and shampoo bars. Go find some local ones. Plus, you’ll want to stick your nose in the soaps … they’re mostly delicious and I’m sure you’ll find some aromas you love. Added bonus … no chemicals!

My next quest is for dish and dishwasher detergent. Got any other ideas for me?

What do you do to save the planet?

Ms Clark, at the Kitchen Table, with a Blog

They staged the musical “Clue” in my little town recently. If you’re not familiar, it’s a play based on the board game. It has snappy numbers like “Corridors and Halls,” “She Hasn’t Got a Clue,” and “A Conservatory is a Conservative Place for a Contract Killing.”

Okay, I just made up that last one.

I didn’t see it this time, but my kids were in the pit orchestra when they performed it at their high school. The musical is silly fun, and a bit complicated (and light on plot) because it’s interactive. The audience selects the weapon, room, and suspect cards, so there are over 200 possible endings the cast needs to know and be able to react to. It is, as you can imagine, not to everyone’s taste.

The board game, on the other hand, has been popular for more than 70 years. Jake Rossen made a listicle for Mental Floss about it, which had some facts I already knew, and a few I didn’t.

For instance, I knew the game had been developed in Britain during WWII to help overcome boredom while waiting out air raids, and that it was originally called Cluedo, which was also the name of the long-running British television series based on it.

But I didn’t know that Colonel Mustard was originally called Colonel Yellow, as all the characters were named after colors. But they wisely concluded that Colonel Yellow was not a good name for a military man.

And speaking of the military, Britain’s Mi9 slipped contraband maps and escape tools into board games sent to POW camps. So fitting, eh?

In the original patent, the weapons were an ax, cudgel, bomb, rope, dagger, revolver, hypodermic needle, poison, and fireplace poker.

In 2008, they updated the game. There was now a spa and home theater, Colonel Mustard became a football hero, and Professor Plum a dotcom billionaire. And you could now kill them with a trophy, a baseball bat, and an ax. I find it interesting that in their update, they went back to an original weapon. (Everything is so retro these days, if I wait long enough, maybe I’ll be hip too.)

In 2016, they permanently killed, er, retired, Mrs White and replaced her with scientist Dr Orchid.

Anthony Pratt, the creator, never made much money from his creation. In the 1960s his patent ran out so he didn’t receive royalties any longer. He hadn’t realized the game had become so popular in the United States. But even when he found out, he simply shrugged and pointed out how much fun people had with it over the years. A lesser man would have picked up one of those cudgels, handed Miss Scarlet a baseball bat, and taken the secret passage to the conservatory to seek vengeance.

Clue was a popular game in our household. As a kid I had an intricate and specific way to keep track of clues, heavy on secret symbols to thwart any roaming eyes. And as an adult, I made the pictured swag notepads from clue sheets to hand out at conferences one year. They were very popular, making me realize just how iconic that game is.

What about you? Did you play? Did you win? Which character did you always want to be?

In Case of Fire

On December 30, 2021 Colorado had unprecedented wind speeds of 100+ mph. We’ve also had a year of higher-than-average temperatures and lower-than-average precipitation.

This all conspired to create the perfect conditions for something we’ve never seen here before—winter wildfires.

A downed power line started a fire that swept through the towns of Superior and Louisville, sped along by those winds. It was reported that fire traveled the length of two football fields in ten seconds.

Wildfire isn’t uncommon here, but usually it occurs on forest service land, not in the middle of urban subdivisions.

The Marshall fire area is far from where I live, but it’s an area I’ve visited a couple of times in the last six months or so. You might have seen when I wrote about watching a Model Yacht Regatta at Harper Lake during the summer, or the Curling Championships in November.

I saw both locations on the news last night as crews staked out their live shots.

Colorado has seen several devastating fires destroying many homes over the last decade. The ones closest and most memorable to me were Waldo Canyon in June 2012, Black Forest in June 2013, and now this Marshall fire.

I live in a suburban area. We have our share of open space and large wooded lots, but I’ve always felt safe from wildfires. The homes in Waldo Canyon were nestled up against the foothills below Pikes Peak. Black Forest is a semi-rural area. Completely different terrain.

But Superior and Louisville are suburban areas. They have their share of open space and large wooded lots, but the residents, I suspect, have always felt safe from wildfires.

I have friends who lost homes in the Black Forest and Waldo Canyon fires, and I’m holding my breath to hear about people I know in the path of yesterday’s Marshall fire. I worry about people being traumatized anew, reliving their nightmares from those times, dealing with the PTSD it must create.

But why do I have that same anxious sense of PTSD? I’ve never been in a fire. I’ve never lost anything to a fire, except perhaps a poorly skewered marshmallow. So why?

I think I’m having a reaction to all those times where I’ve felt completely powerless—or at least worried about being completely powerless—something I expect we all have in common with those who have suffered a shocking and catastrophic loss like this.

It’s not a feeling I like.

What I do like is having a plan.

So instead of feeling powerless and reactive, I wanted to do something that feels powerful and proactive. I can’t prevent historic winds or downed power lines.  

But I can make a list. And a plan.

I have a new folder in my file cabinet labeled “In Case of Fire.” In that file are copies of our passports, driver’s licenses, vaccination cards, passwords, phone numbers, insurance information, attorney’s information, and such.

Also in that file is a plan. A written list of things to pack. The list is in order, most important to least important, and I’ll work my way through it for however much time I’m allowed before I must evacuate.

I’ve had many friends who have talked about being forced to evacuate ahead of a fire. Sometimes you only have time to grab your people and pets, sometimes you have longer. Regardless, your mind goes blank. The entire idea of evacuation is surreal. One friend picked up a perfectly ripe tomato newly harvested from their garden to take, but forgot their daily medication. Another friend reported just standing in the living room, making slow circles, overwhelmed by the situation until time ran out.

When the smoke clears over the next few days, I will see what I can do to help my fellow Coloradoans rebuild their lives, just like I did after the Waldo Canyon and Black Forest fires. It won’t be much in the face of such overwhelming heartbreak and destruction, but it will be a plan.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery said, “A goal without a plan is just a wish.”

Eleanor Roosevelt said, “It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.”

The only thing that will make me feel better is to do both.

In case of fire, I’ll wish like hell, while pulling out my plan.

Here’s my list. I’ll be adding to it and tweaking it, but feel free to copy and paste and use it as the basis for your list. I’ll pick a date—probably December 30—and every year pull out that file and review my list. I will also walk through my house every year making a video of the contents of each room and uploading it somewhere safe, just in case I ever need to make an insurance claim.

In Case of Fire—do these things in order

Open garage door in case of a power outage to make it easier to get outUse laundry baskets or suitcases to gather these items—“in case of fire” folderpursewalletphone/chargerkeysmedicationpassportssafe deposit box keycomputers/cords/external hard drives/computer caseiPad/chargerbills to pay/checkbookdog bowls/food/treats/medications/leash/dog bedglasses/contacts/solution/toothpaste/toothbrushesKindle/charger[I listed the projects I’m working on and their location][I went through my file cabinet and alphabetically listed the files to pull out, from each drawer]Wills/estate binderclothes/shoes/socks/coat/sweats/jammies/favorite scarves/Dad’s tie/sweaters/boots[I walked from room to room, listing keepsakes I couldn’t replace and wanted to keep, putting them in order of most to least important]

What have I forgotten?

Advice From My Christmas Decorations

image from pexels.comJust because someone is shinier than you doesn’t make them better.Hang around those who are different—you never know who you’ll meet.If you fall, you might break.Sometimes it’s good to be a shiny single strand, other times it’s good to be all clumped together. Both have their time and place.Hide yourself away every so often so you remain captivating and appreciated.Even though sometimes you’re left on a shelf, know that your time will come again.Lights that blink too fast can give a mighty headache. Slow down!If you’re all tangled up you’re of no use to anyone.It’s bad enough there was no room at the inn. Don’t make it worse by excluding from the creche as well. Who said there couldn’t be parrots, or giraffes, or even a bachelor uncle or two?There are worse things you can do than hang out on your front porch wearing a red bow.If you have to be up on your roof in the snow and ice, at least make sure you’re lit.

What do your decorations say to you?