Well, Shit

We have had a house fire. Our house.
Girl woke me up and I got both kids out while dailing 911.
By the time the fire department got the water on the fire, our roof was burning.

Typing from a neighbor's computer. At least four of the cats and both dogs died from smoke. THe kids are okay. I don't know how much art I've lost.
We lost almost all our books, DVDs, entertainment stuff. NOt important. I lost a pice of art I did fifteen years ago on a beautiful morning when I couldn't sleep.
I have no idea how much or what in my studio is burned or damaged.
We're trying to find some place to stay and some clothes. I am typing in my jammies.

ABout half the house burned, and the rest is smoke-damaged. Mama dog was in the bedroom, farthest from the fire and still died from the smoke. My sweet Yuki is gone, too, and Sprocket, Mimii, Mocha and Frap.

Hello from HFS Land

GAil, MAtt, Heidi, Mary, etc. and sundry: You have my permission to post my PayPal email, which is divalea@gmail.com

Right now, crass be damned, money is what we need so we can go buy clothes and shoes and replace my computer and art supplies so I can work. (Yes, I need to work.) And we will likely be in a rental for at least a month, since half the house will need to be rebuilt, and oour insurance only pays so much for that. (Bless Roxanna Rubio, who wrote our insurance payments into our house payments!)

PLEASE DON'T SEND CLOTHES, we don't have any place to put them! Donate them locally, you could very well be helping someone in our situation.
Also crass be damned, Girl's Nintendo DS was slagged. So, you know. It's a thing, but she loved that thing.

The Red Cross has come and gone and we have air matteresses and referrals and money to replace our scrips and get everyone a nice pair of pants and some shoes.

I'll be on and off all day. Feel free to email Lisa Jonte (see how I make free with your email, Lisa!) lrjonte @ arcanumvisual . com for my ground address if ou need it.

And that's it for now. I have to go see if I have some shoes and a pair of pants so I can go to Wal-Mart.

THANK YOU ALL for your good wishes. I am holding you very close to my heart.

Posting from Antarctic Press

Joe Weltjens and Lee Duhig from Antarctic Press came by and got us lunch and took us to buy shoes (all shoes in the house are gnarly).
We spent two hours with the Red Cross. King, I and Girl took turns walking through the house and helping re-create the den and kitchen for the fire team. It is weird to see your house black and open to the sky, reduced in places to a skeleton.
The back of one kitchen cabinet burned off and the cabinet looked like a cutaway model of its former self. The heat was incredible: my child-sized china cabinet my dad built for me when I was five was sooty but unburnt, but everything plastic in and on it was slagged, as were the pictures above it. A piece of framed original art in the kitchen had a piece of sooted glass broken out, revealing untouched art underneath.
A pushpuppet of Woody made it through the worst part of the fire. Weird.

I cannot possibly thank each and every person just yet. Please accept a mass THANK YOU from me and my family for spreading the news and reposting and thanks Gail for your appeal. You have all been so kind, and to answer the most-sent note in PayPal, of COURSE it helps.

Girl's DS made it through the fire, so she's good. She says she'd gladly trade it for the pets that died. I'd trade my original art. But I have my kids, and staying in the house any amount of time longer than we did would have killed us all.

A bit of good news: at least one cat, Jane, was outdoors. We left her food and water and are going back for a capture in a bit. We still don't know about Boots or Mini-Jane.

And, now, Girl would like to thank you all herself.

This is girl here, and I'd like to give a massive hug and thanks to everyone that helped us out. This is one of the worst experiences in my life, and I'd trade everything in my room so that all my pets could be back, and the fire being just alot of smoke from an attempt to make eggs.

I'm feeling a little bit better now, knowing that alot of people are looking out for us and doing their best so that we're all ok. I'm still shaken up at the fact that 4 cats, 2 dogs, and our 2 rats are gone. I'd always imagine that if that happened, I'd get everyone out, and herd the dogs and cats out to safety, and be carrying my rats on my shoulder.
Thank you all very much, I'm at a loss for words to how everyone is being so kind.
~Girl