The California Fires

I’ve been watching Los Angeles burn for over a week now, the images and videos painting a hellscape of destruction. Palm trees spitting sparks like Roman candles. Entire neighborhoods reduced to soot and ashes. I learn that some celebrity’s house was destroyed. Lots of celebrities have lost their homes. There are thousands of ordinary people who have lost everything. I’ve watched video of incredibly brave pilots flying helicopters and fixed wing airplanes dropping water on the fires despite the most dangerous flying conditions you can imagine. The amount of heroism on the ground of this tragedy has been astounding, from firefighters to homeowners coming together in crisis. I watch the destruction and the destroyed communities and my heart is broken for my fellow Americans in Southern California.

Just a few months ago it was the people in the North Carolina mountains, entire towns wiped off the map by floods and landslides. Months later those folks are still homeless. It will take years for their recovery. Same for California. Natural disasters have the power to wipe out in minutes what it took a lifetime to build. For the people of North Carolina, the freak hurricane was a once in a lifetime disaster. For the people of Southern California, destructive wildfires are a fact of life due to a collection of conditions from drought and the Santa Anna winds to questionable land management restrictions—or lack thereof. But in either case watching people dying and their homes being burnt to a crisp is a catastrophe.

Along with the bravery of so many there are also examples of human depravity. Seeing men walking around with blowtorches starting fires intentionally is the sort of thing that makes my blood boil.

But, just like the disaster in North Carolina, it hasn’t taken long for the conspiracy theories to sprout up on social media. We humans want to assign blame, it is unavoidable when people are angry, I suppose. The Los Angeles Mayor has come in for her share of criticism with her deer in the headlights press conference to being out of the country—in Ghana??—while her city was burning. The California Governor has come in for lots of criticism as well, as have some of the policy decisions that his government has made that many people believe have contributed to the severity of the fire. But there have also been other theories thrown into the mix claiming everything from deliberate malfeasance on the part of the governments involved all the way to blaming the fires on a United Nations plot to destroy LA to make room for a smart city! Now, there’s a new one that claims that the fires in Pacific Pallisade were set deliberately by Hollywood big shots to destroy Sean “Diddy” Combs’ home and all the evidence to be found inside and underneath his house. Sigh….

By far the worst take I’ve encountered watching this story unfold is one that thankfully I’ve only seen once or twice but even that is too much. California is being destroyed by fire because of God’s wrath and judgement. People who feel this way also seem to delight at the prospect of this so-called divine justice. Be careful what you wish for. If you think that God is behind this because of the sins of Southern California, you better hope he doesn’t start looking for sinners in Short Pump. I happen to know that Short Pump is crawling with them, including the one writing this blog. So, I’ll just let the conspiracy folks believe anything they want. I don’t know enough to cast blame, especially while the fire is still burning. What I do know is that some really good people have lost everything. My heart is with them.

Grandson Update!!

Thursdays have become big around the Dunnevant house. That’s the day when we get the latest status update on our grandson’s development. Kaitlin is subscribed to this super cool website called The Bump that gives her new info every Thursday including, but not limited to, the approximate size of the little guy. Unfortunately, the creators of this website  are under the mistaken impression that we are familiar with the sizes of obscure fruits and vegetables. For example, this morning Kaitlin informed us that the little buddy is now the size of a…mango. A couple of weeks ago it was a kiwi. Before that it was a plum. Do these people know that we’re Americans? If they want to help us visualize how big the kiddo is wouldn’t they be better served by using something more familiar? How about, “Congratulations! At the 19 week mark your baby is now the size of a pack of Twinkies. Next week he will be almost the exact size as a Poptart.” Instead, I have to Google…mango…size of, where I find a bunch of confusing data. Apparently these things vary in size depending on what continent they come from, time of year, weather conditions. I’m no closer to knowing how big my grandson is now than I was before this new information! This would not be a problem if they told me that he was as big as a package of peanut M&M’s. Nobody would be left Googling the size of a pack of M&M’s because we all know exactly how big it is. I mean they might as well tell me that my grandson is now the size of a pomegranate harvested from the plains of Uruguay after an unusually dry winter.

But I suppose I should be thankful that he’s growing like a weed…and soon will be the size of a overripe Carambola!

An Uneventful Beginning

I have been retired now for 8 days, but it doesn’t feel like retirement. Because of the snow, Pam hasn’t been back to work yet so it’s like—“Honey, how can I miss you if you never leave?” Plus, I’m going a little stir crazy being cooped up in the house all day. We did manage a morning walk through the neighborhood yesterday, and I paid some bills after having lunch at Boychik’s. But last night around 9:30 I looked at Pam and made the observation that I hadn’t taken a shower all day. Don’t worry, I won’t turn into that guy—two showers a week guy. It was a one-off oversight. This morning I returned personal hygiene to its rightful place in my daily routine!

Now I’m at the Cafe plotting and scheming my plans for 2025. I’ve gotten to chat with a couple of my favorite Hope Church peeps. I’ve gotten to brag about my pending status as a grandfather. Later today we have a Facetime appointment with Patrick and Sarah because it’s our daughter-in-law’s birthday. Her presents arrived yesterday, just in time, and apparently Patrick opened the boxes and gave each present a proper wrapping. Major props to us for raising such a thoughtful man. Not only is he lucky to have found Sarah, so are the rest of us. She is a gem and I am thankful that God brought the two of them together.

It’s not like I’ve accomplished nothing in these first 8 days. I have stepped up my Dad Joke game with beauties like this one:

What do you call a detective who solves cases accidentally?

Sheer Luck Holmes…

I texted this to some friends of mine and they responded with this:

“Is this what your retirement looks like for us?”

Yes. As a matter of fact, this is exactly what my retirement looks like. This morning I got a text from someone at the office:

“It’s boring when you are not here.”

Well, they can’t say that I didn’t warn them.

Everything You Need to Know About This Storm

Here in central Virginia we have been promised a snow storm beginning sometime tonight and lasting through Tuesday morning. As is often the case with winter storms in Virginia, these forecasts come with more codicils and disclaimers than a Hollywood prenup. We are reminded by our intrepid meteorologists that there are many very complicated factors with the storm which could go either way and depending on other equally mysterious conditions, the predicted outcomes could vary widely. So we are left with forecasts designed to give the forecaster lots of wiggle room should his/her predictions wind up being off the mark. I have taken the liberty of combining all the various forecasts in play from the local television stations, the Weather Channel, several weather apps as well as a couple fake weathermen on Facebook, into one overarching forecast that should cover all the bases:

Snow/sleet/freezing rain will start somewhere between 7:00 and 10:00 tonight and continue throughout the night until around 4:00 Monday morning when it most likely will change over to freezing rain/sleet/snow, then inexplicably change over to all rain for a brief period between 15 minutes and 3 hours, before finally switching back over to all snow around noon lasting for God knows how long before finally stopping in the wee hours of Tuesday morning. It should be mentioned that there may be a brief cessation of precipitation of any kind during a devilishly tricky DRY SLOT appearance at some impossible to predict moment. Or not.  Nevertheless, total accumulations of snow/sleet/freezing rain will be in a range between 2-85 inches.

To get ahead of this storm Pam did what all self-respecting Richmonders do when faced with the possibility of instant death brought on by a snowstorm power outage—she went to the grocery store to stock up on all the essentials. This list of must-haves includes but is not limited to: toilet paper, milk, eggs, bread, eye-liner, beans, chicken broth, pot roast, Beano, mascara, bottled water, bicarbonate of soda, Imodium, air freshener, and a bag of cheese puffs. There are very important reasons for each of these items, although I’m not totally sure I know what the eye-liner and mascara are all about. It probably has something to do with the fact that if the storm outperforms the predictions and were to dump, let’s say—12 inches on us, that would mean a walk in the neighborhood with Lucy which would mean pictures would be taken and the last thing you want in snow-frolicking pictures are tired looking eyes, am I right?

Of course the best part of this storm will be the postmortems afterwards. The one meteorologist’s forecast which turns out to be the most accurate will bestow on him/her bragging rights around town until the next storm comes through. We can all only hope that the winner doesn’t wind up being that blowhard facebook clown who was first to introduce trash-talking into the weather forecasting business a couple of decades ago from a computer terminal somewhere in his Mom’s basement. Now he’s turned his shtick into an actual business that people pay money for. Only in American, my friends. Only in America.

So, as I finish this up it’s 6:15 Sunday evening. So far no snow/sleet/freezing rain to report. But we’ve got plenty of toilet tissue at the ready and we got a pot roast planned for dinner tomorrow night. 

Look For the Helpers

So far so good on this retirement thing. What day is it, again? Friday, yes…Friday. I know this because I’m at Hope Cafe, having finished my job of opening the place up. I’m not sure that this first week of my retirement counts since it contained a holiday and I normally would have taken this week off anyway. But there was one sobering event to report.

There’s a website that I have visited multiple times a day, every single day for the past 17 years. It is a site run by my former broker-dealer and on this site could be found every detail of my entire career, every client, every account, and all of the crucial data points required to work them. It also listed every detail of my compensation—what was pending etc…On Tuesday the 31st, I planned to login one last time to check a particular pending case before my access was cut off at midnight. Unfortunately, some eager beaver at the back office had already cut me off. The screen was filled with the sinister phrase—Representative Terminated. And just like that it was over. A website where I had lived for almost two decades was forever closed to me. I have to say that even though it was expected, it staggered me a little, kind of like a weak but effective left jab. The good news is that I recovered quickly. Pam suggested that we go out somewhere for breakfast. We had a lovely morning together and by the time we returned home I had forgotten about the whole thing. Its a small example of the kinds of things that simply aren’t my problem anymore. 

As each day has passed I am becoming more and more aware of just how much pressure I have lived with my entire career. The absence of it feels strange, there is a lightness to it. Being no longer responsible for all that money and all those people feels a bit disorienting. That sense of responsibility has defined in many ways who I am for most of my life. Now, something else will have to take its place. A friend recently referred to me as a “retired gentleman”. My first thought was, “Hold on, one thing at a time!” But I’m going to grow into this new thing. I can already feel the freedom, sense the opportunities. Once I successfully detox from the pressure withdrawal, I’m set up for flourishing. All the necessary ingredients are there for me. I will need to find new challenges, new opportunities to pursue. In this regard, having a grandson on the way works quite nicely. Incidentally, as of yesterday, he is now the size of a sweet potato.

So, job number one in this retirement business seems to me to be…finding ways to be useful. The goal is to become a helpful presence in the world. In whatever situation I find myself in, I want to be part of the solution instead of part of the problem. Just like Mister Rodger’s said, “when things are hard, look for the helpers.”

I want to be a helper.

“What do you plan to do when you retire?”

“What do you plan to do when you retire?” This question has been asked of me at least a hundred times over the past year. I have struggled with the answer, not because I don’t have any plans, rather, because I don’t know quite where to start. “Whatever the hell I want” doesn’t sound like a mature, thoughtful response, although it does sum up my feelings nicely. The truth is closer to something like—“a million things.” What follows are just a few of the things on my to-do list.

- Paint the mailbox post. For this job, my wife gave me the perfect Christmas present:

- Vacuum the house. This may seem a somewhat pedestrian job in the grand scheme of things, but for the last seven days we have had three golden retrievers loose in this house, so the job of vacuuming up after them is crucial stuff at the moment. Around here I’m the vacuuming expert.

- Spend a long weekend with my boys in Cooperstown, NY at the baseball hall of fame.

- Perfect my uncanny ability to irritate the heck out of Sherri Matthews with Dad Jokes at the worst possible moment.

- Expand my volunteer schedule at Hope Church.

- Lose ten pounds.

- Sharpen my cooking skills.

- Start playing golf again.

- Clean out the garage.

- Clean out the attic.

- Spend a week in the Caymans.

- Replace the lamp post light in the front yard.

- Write a sixth novel.

- Spend more time promoting the one that’s actually been published.

- Continue educating myself concerning the proper grand parenting protocols of the 21st century.

- Buy a new phone and a new iPad—my two are ancient.

- Plan more weekend getaways.

- Find ways to encourage others.

- Follow more of my spontaneous impulses—after I run them by Pam first.

- Become more generous.

- Write letters.

- Try to do something I’ve never done before at least once a month.

- Visit Italy and the Greek Islands.

- Never allow anyone to talk me in to going to the Holy Land.

- Be available for my kids anytime they need me.

- Eventually move to a house with a first floor master bedroom.

- Attend a baseball game at every Major League ballpark in the United States. (I’ve been to eleven so far).

- Be supportive of anyone still working in difficult and important jobs.

- No matter what happens with my health in the future, never stop eating this…

Our Three Christmas Celebrations

It’s been a while since last we visited together at The Tempest, ten days to be exact. Like the rest of you, I’ve been busy. I’ve had a house full since Saturday, all of my kids and three Golden Retrievers. Our celebration of Christmas took three full days which ended last night with all of us collapsing on the floor in a pool of exhaustion. Here’s a recap of all the action…

Christmas Eve served as our family Christmas. The six of us spent the morning unwrapping presents aided in no small way by Kaitlin and Jon’s beast of a dog—Jackson, who delighted in ripping to shreds all of the discarded wrapping paper. Meanwhile, Patrick and Sarah’s pup—Frisco, spent most of the morning trying to wedge himself between his people on a loveseat designed for only two humans. Lucy, as the eldest and only female, was having none of the nonsense and quickly retreated upstairs to the serenity of her own company. We all took a break around 11:00 for breakfast, a special Dunnevant family tradition consisting of bacon, scrambled eggs and orange-glazed cinnamon rolls. Off to the side is a fruit cup, the one unenthusiastic concession to proper nutrition. After the feast we reassembled in the family room to find out what Santa left us in our stockings. It turns out that all six of us wound up on the “nice list” which was probably a clerical error by the old guy’s back office, but no harm, no foul. We spent the afternoon enjoying each other’s company, then headed over to my sister Paula’s house for her Christmas Eve dinner—steaks, smashed potatoes and homemade rolls— and a new tradition, sticky toffee pudding! Then we headed over to Hope Church for the last of their 9 Christmas Eve services. It was delightful and a wonderful ending to a nearly perfect day.

Christmas Day started with cooking and ended with turkey sandwiches. In between was the Dunnevant family Christmas celebration at my sister Linda’s house. There was a sit down meal for 25 at tables in two different rooms. The food was amazing, the fellowship inspired. Then…it was time for that time-honored staple of American life during the holidays—the family photograph. The job of getting 25 members of any family properly posed for a portrait is fraught with peril, but getting the Dunnevant tribe organized for a picture requires a combination of patience and forebearance seldom seen during Christmas. Predictably, this photograph took over twenty minutes to stage, and was filled with anxious moments. The thankless job of taking this keepsake fell to Matthew Hawkins, husband of my niece Jenny and father of two, who’s attention to detail is impeccable..

Matthew: Ok, Becky..could you scootch over to your left three and a half inches? And Jon, could you lean forward until that shadow that’s covering the last third of your nose goes away? Oh, and Mimi—your makeup could use a bit of freshening…and Aunt Paula, is there anything you can do with your hair??

After the great picture gauntlet, we spent the afternoon opening presents and laughing at and with each other. Then there was the great gender-reveal gingerbread cake cutting which resulted in robust cheering and mayhem as Kaitlin and Jon announced that they will be having a _____. What? You think I’m going to reveal that before they do? I only look stupid.

Finally, yesterday was day three of the birth of Christ extravaganza, when the White clan descended on our hastily-cleaned house for a soup supper and a white elephant (no pun intended) exchange. Pam made chili and this amazing Tuscan spinach and sausage soup which was devoured as if the White family was a group of trail hands who hadn’t eaten in two days! It was delicious and the dessert table was divine with no fruit in sight. It was only 15 of us so it was not as unruly or as cramped. It was a wonderful evening that nobody seemed anxious to bring to a close. The gender reveal was greeted with enthusiastic hollering and an outpouring of love. A beautiful night.

So, there you have it. Three days and three days of celebrations. A ton of work was done by a lot of people to pull it off. But when the last guest drove away last night Pam said to me, “And that’s why I do this…what a joy it was to be together.”