An attempt to update you all on what's happened with Joe and me... I was writing up a giant blog post (full sentences and everything) and then the fire came.Â
Joe was awesome and carried everything heavy for us
Drove up with two vehicles; my sister's van (carrying most of our stuff) got a flat tire and added three hours onto our drive up
Hung out for the first time at the Coffee House- AMAZING, YUM.
Having to convince people I know my stuff is annoying
I come from a store with a 97% QASA (cleanliness/safety) score... this one's gonna take some work to get there
Worried about work relations with a certain shift manager, I leave only to see a massive plume of smoke over my new town
Went to do laundry and took photos of the smoke in the meantime
Started refreshing websites about fire obsessively
We go to dinner at one of Joe's friends' place and I'm a total bore because all I can do is stare out the window and be distracted by the smoke cloud
"Voluntary" evacuation is called for, so Joe and I pack and wait for a mandatory evacuation order.
I stayed up late last night worrying about the fire and had to take Tylenol PM in order to get to sleep. Â I constantly hoped I'd get a call from work saying I could take part in the voluntary evac. Â No dice.
Got up this morning and went to work.
We gave out free brewed coffee to anyone who asked, and all first responders got any drink they wanted for free.
The whole thing was driven home for me when I gave away a free coffee to a woman and she was so touched and worried that she broke down and started crying.
Mandatory evac call came at 1:45. Â We had several (an excessive amount of) people at work so we closed quickly and threw out all expiring items.
Joe and I were gone by 2:15, already packed from the night before. Â He gathered up the cat as we closed down the store. Â It was not difficult getting out of Los Alamos. Â Everyone knew what to do and was responding calmly.
We drove to Alamogordo- a five hour drive in work clothes and with a stressed out cat. Â Now I am watching "The Nanny" reruns.