One of my favorite things about making reporting trips to Los Angeles is that I always get to visit my uncle and his family at their condo in Pacific Palisades. Last week was different. They are new evacuees, bouncing between a friend's apartment and a relative's house in the suburbs, traveling across the city with a shared suitcase and Pixel, their beloved pet cockatiel. I met them at a restaurant in Thousand Oaks, and my cousin tucked Pixel's cage into our booth and then showed me the latest photo of their condo building. It was scarred but somehow still standing amid the ruins of their community. Gone was the grocery store where my uncle bought chicken fingers at the hot bar, the barbershop where Joe had cut his hair for three decades, the public high school where my cousin would no longer be finishing his senior year. "We got so unbelievably lucky," my cousin said. Luck is a matter of perspective in the aftermath of a disaster, and my uncle and his family recognized little kindnesses everywhere. There were pop-up tents that gave them free socks and police officers who helped retrieve their medications. The waitress came for our order. We fumbled with the menus. "We're exhausted," my aunt explained, and the waitress smiled. "I'll come right back," she said. Pixel was making a racket in his cage. He hadn't done much dining out in his former life at the condo. Other diners began to stare. The waitress circled back, and after several more minutes of deliberation, my uncle ordered the cod. "Baked, broiled, poached, fried or grilled?" the waitress asked. My uncle reached back for his menu, and for the first time he seemed a bit fragile. "So many decisions," he said. Where to sleep, what to do, where to live. "I'm sorry about us," my aunt said. "Oh honey, take your time," the waitress said. "Let me go get you some more bread."
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California Today: Living Through the Fires, and Covering Them
January 20, 2025
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