Today marks four years since I bought my house and moved to Vallejo during COVID, before the vaccine, and during the fires that made the skies bleak and orange, as you can see in this picture taken at the time!
So much has happened since then, but I have no regrets about moving to this city and community that has been so kind to me. I still love the house I chose, even though it’s in pieces and has months left to be rebuilt since the January fire. I’m looking forward to finally having the housewarming I never got to have, hopefully sometime in 2025.
Shortly after closing on the house in September 2020.
The temporary home I’m in is where I’m storing the things that I want for my real home under renovation. While this house has a little charm, such as a nice view when we wake up in the mornings with trees and hillsides, I still long for my corner lot and my unique backyard layout. I miss the spots in that backyard I could go to any time of day to bask in the sunlight with strategically placed seating and lots of nap areas, not to mention the hot tub I miss so much. I’m still deciding what furniture I’m going to bring or donate or “stage” for donation in the garage, not to mention repurchasing some of the same items I loved to make me feel like I never lost them. A Turkish lamp, three Tiffany-style lamps, and even the Barbra Streisand barbie-doll I was gifted are examples of things I try to convince myself were the same ones in pictures from before the fire. There’s something to be said about mass production when it comes to nostalgia. This brown glider chair is another example. It looks so much like the one I previously had, and gliders are so much safer when you have dogs with tails, but especially BLIND dogs with tails. Not only did I get this brown glider for inside, but the blue outdoor couch I just put together is also a glider itself, so tail and blind dog safe!
Shea and I brought a few things back from the ruins of my garden which we tended to a bit yesterday. I had a sudden inspiration to try to resurrect a few more items. I think I can bring this plant back to life, and some of these other items can simply be washed, including this vase from Spain that my family had since the mid-1970’s. I’ll always be able to point to these items (among the less than 1% of things that I used to have) and say that they were among the few things that I had in the “before time.”
Clippings from this plant, which is more of an indoor plant that I had in a covered patio area, have been propagated by me several times, so it will be a big win if I can resurrect it from the dead when it’s been subject to the fire and exposed to the outside for over eight months. Some of the clippings were in my home office that perished.
The contractor suggested I periodically stop by and work on my garden which was great advice. Rather than feeling sorry for myself for not getting home sooner, it’s nice to stop by the house and make some concrete changes that will help my garden to be ready for me incrementally. Shea helped me water the plants while I cleaned up a lot of the materials and did some serious pruning to be able to see some of the garden features and release the windmill from the newly grown bamboo and other overgrown plants. Snoopy and Bonnie were happy to chill out while we worked back there. I found it very therapeutic.
About 7 am there was a fire in a boat at Glen Cove Marina as we were getting ready to go out with the whaleboats. People were asleep inside, but fortunately, the battery that caught fire did not hurt anyone as far as we could tell in the end. The couple in the boat only bought it a few months ago. I don’t know what damage was done, but I’m glad we were up and rowing nearby to smell and see the smoke. The fire truck arrived after we called 9-1-1. Solano Rowing Club saves the day!
Today marks eight years since my best friend and mom died. I was a big-time momma’s boy. For so many years (thanks to technology), I was in touch with her all day long. We always kept some chat window open and messaged each other about various things no matter where we were in the world. What’s unbelievable is that her house was destroyed by a fire a few months before she died of fucking ovarian cancer. She, my brother and nephew came to live with me immediately after their fire, and then she got the Stage IV diagnosis just a few weeks later. She did not even live long enough for her house to be renovated and died when she was only 73. That’s part of the reason when I had an opportunity to work for City of Hope (which just bought Cancer Treatment Centers of America), I jumped at the chance. As if losing five of my dogs wasn’t enough, it was excruciating that the most sentimental pieces of her furniture that had been professionally cleaned in 2016, were incinerated in MY house fire in January. I can only imagine what she would think of the craziness that has ensued, including one of her sister’s family-destroying exploitation of her estate, effectively disinheriting my siblings and me. The entire family in Italy (which is very large as my mother was the first of nine siblings) has been affected by the internal family feud, which is STILL in litigation. Thankfully my siblings and I have been able to prosper despite the lack of an inheritance of our parents’ sweat equity, but my Nonna (who survived my mother) never spoke to that traitor daughter of hers — or her progeny — ever again. I know Mom would have been proud of my purchasing a home and improving my health (she was always concerned about my weight, sometimes bluntly), but devastated at the deaths and loss of family memories just a few years later. Years after she died she is still an inspiration that encourages me to make her proud.
These father and son dogs (who I named Peanut and Zorro) are with my friend Jeannette. They are technically survivors of the fire as well since they were fosters that she took in just days before the fire, and they were the ones I was helping her with when I was out of the house that morning.
