Month: August 2026

Screaming obscenities at the telephone does no good at all unless it provides some sort of pent up frustration relief for some people but all it does for me is remind me that I would have made a really great serial killer in another life and wish I wasn’t too old to start over.

In the mail this morning was a large envelope with about ten sheets of paper all laid out on both sides with little boxes and notations by each little box of what was required to be written in each little box. On both sides of all the sheets of paper. Yes.  Then there were 12 more pages with instructions in Urdu, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese and Chinese hieroglyphs, Spanish, Korean, Russian, Arabic and so on and so on.

On the first page, at the bottom of the first page, on the right, it says “Easy ways to give us your form and proof”, and the Easy Ways are Online, By mail, By phone, In person. So the easiest being By phone, since I ALREADY submitted the entire thing a week ago Online, I called the number listed and after listening to several minutes of what they are, what they do and the options available, I was told to Press 1, and I did, was told to wait, so I waited, and finally a young lady speaks to me and after going through an Identification process to verify my case number and the fact of my existence, I was told that I should not have Pressed 1, she can’t help me, I have to hang up and call again and NOT press 1, and wait for instructions because she can’t transfer the call.

So I did and listened to several minutes of a recorded voice, was invited to Press 1 but did NOT press 1, and waited. After awhile a young lady who sounded just like the last young lady came on who told me to Wait for a Worker to talk to me. So I waited and a voice came on that said I was being connected to a Worker, and I waited and a voice came on that said All the Workers are working and no Worker is available and I will have to call back later and then I heard a dial tone.

As a survivor of 3 fire evacuations in the past 8 years, I understand. When the evacuation order comes, you go and you go quickly, and hopefully by that time you’ve already gathered your pets into pet carriers and loaded all your most important papers and treasures into your car or whatever. So then all you have to do is load the pets, lock the house and leave.

The photos and videos coming out of the Spokane area right now look like visits to Hell. This is a massive fire driven by high winds across a city packed with coniferous trees that burn like kerosene torches.

The only way this fire will stop is when it runs out of fuel or the wind stops, and the wind won’t stop as long as the fire burns because it creates it’s own wind. There’s too many trees and too much wind.

In another week people will be returning to pick through the ashes of what used to be their homes, hoping to find some forgotten, treasured object or anything to salvage, just to feel that they haven’t suffered a total loss. Most won’t have fire insurance, because it’s very expensive and most carriers won’t insure in high fire danger areas anyway.

Spokane is an historic port city, when the Alaska gold rush started in the 1800’s, Spokane was the starting point where the treasure seekers gathered, to learn as much as they could of conditions in the far North and to finish stocking up on supplies and gear before heading north. This fire is burning down a city that matters.