#socal problems

I have a small group of friends that I’m close with, just pretty much two people are part of my group of close friends. Close enough that my self and my best friend ended up likening the third friend and with constant contact due to us working at the same job and same department makes it hard for myself to distance emotionally from them both due to myself coming to the realization that I had romantic feelings for both of them as well.

The other female, my best friend tends to have the habit of disregarding the fact that due to me not having kids my bills compared to hers are insignificant and therefor me and the only boy in our friend group are rich. I’ve offered to help her point out where she might be able to save money but after a few arguments about it I’ve almost completely dropped it the whole conversation about it.

It’s a whole other reason why I don’t talk a few other types of topics of conversations with her.

Another problem I seem to be facing is watching an emotional affair happen between her and him in our friend group and I’ve pointed it out before and that had blown up in my face as well. I will mention that she was temporally single at one point in time with us all being friends. I had no idea that it was date due to her having asked me to go with(I probably would have known better but I’m rather dense when it comes to most of this stuff), but at the end of the date/hang out I had seen her get kissed by him. I can’t fully tell if I was working in my feelings or not due to me being much more aware of her own situationship that she was going through.

But this guy I can’t talk to about anything about our other friend when I need someone to talk to, to see if I could get another point of view so that I can work at a different angle only for him to install turn around and twist my words to her making it sound like I’m saying bad things about her and her current relationship with her boyfriend who’s the father of her kids.

I’ll be honest I’m not perfect and I’ve definitely put my foot in my own mouth before talking to her and him and I’ve tried to mend those gaps and mistakes I’ve made.

I just always end up feeling left behind emotionally in our friend group due to me having been closer to her more so than him but now the whole dynamic has switched over to her being more emotionally open to him than me. Where they’re talking late in the night I feel like I have to compete to get her attention and when I do half the time it’s followed up with her accusing me of doing it because she’s talking to him or getting closer to him then I am.

Multiple fires burning up in the mountains. Haze and smoking drifting down. It's not awful, but definitely visible.

None of them are a danger to me right now. One is way on the other side of Lake Isabella and the other up in the hills near Tehachapi.

First feeder bands from Hurricane Hilary are rolling in, even though the eye is still well away, somewhere over Baja. Nevertheless, it's raining in the Sierra Nevada to the west already.

I finished up my last minute things. Did a final check in the yard for any potential missiles and cleared them away.

I can't believe I'm staring down a cat 4 hurricane headed for SoCal. I thought I left this behind when I left Florida!

It blows my mind that some people still refuse to admit that climate change is real. Lahaina burned to the ground, my friends in Kelowna are all evacuating from more catastrophic wildfires, there's a hurricane coming for California. This is NOT normal.

I'm far enough inland that it should be downgraded to a tropical storm by the time it gets here. But I'm also now living deep within the desert and large volumes of rain can be very dangerous out here. The ground can't absorb the water fast enough and it quickly turns into flash flooding.

Having grown up in Florida, I'm already pretty much prepared for general storm related trouble. I already have plenty of non-perishable food supplies. At lunch, I got gas and propane, picked up refills of medications, and once it cools down outside I'm going to bring in anything loose that might blow around.

Also signed up to volunteer with the local 4WD recovery group, on standby to provide assistance to people trapped or stranded by floodwaters. It's been a while since I pulled anybody out of the sand, but my Jeep has a winch, a decent supply of recovery gear, and a GMRS radio. I can at least act as support if need be.

But I'm not worried for myself. I'm well prepared and well stocked. My house is in a place where the water runoff should continue running east, pooling east of town in a dry lake basin. So hopefully I shouldn't have any water in the house. Living as long as I did in Florida, I'm pretty comfortable in how to prepare for these.