Margret Sloan

California continues to burn. The photos on Yahoo News are fascinating in a macbre way. The view from Sausalito eastward to the San Franciso skyline is usually crisp and clear except for a couple hours of fog in the mornings. Now it is a thick brown-gray haze of smoke from all the wildfires. It must be very difficult to even breathe for hundreds of miles around the City by the Bay. Tourism is down - huge sections of Hwy 1 are closed, people are being evacuated, and there is no view of the ocean to attract the tourists as the smoke is everywhere and the danger is very real.

The Governor’s Office of Emergency Services maintains an awesome website that has an interactive Google map of the fires. You can click on a fire icon and a text box opens with detail of that particular fire area, including current status of containment and the number of acres affected. Click here to see the current map - it is very disconcerting. As of this morning there are over 1,000 wildfires burning out of control, with weather forecasts of more storms with high winds and lightning. So things are not looking good for No Cal.

Last year the California fires making the news were the southern California wildfires. All around Los Angeles and San Diego there were dozens of major fires that took months to put out. Even the upscale and exclusive Malibu Beach area lost multi million dollar homes to the fires. People were being forced to leave their homes and camp out at the San Diego football stadium for over a week while firefighters battled to save entire neighborhoods.

This year it is northern California, with over 1,000 fires burning today and the news shows airing clips of officials crying for helping - they don’t have enough manpower or resources to even show up at all the fires burning, most of them caused by lightning strikes over the past several days.

It’s hard to imagine that areas so close to the Pacific ocean are suffering from severe drought this early in the summer season and that dry trees and brush all over the far western states is a waiting tinderbox.

There’s no way I could ever agree to make California my state of primary residence. There are just too many natural disasters waiting to take your property and your life. It’s a nice place to visit, but I’ll never live there.

Had lunch with Rhonda today and hashed out her plans for the house in California that she just inherited. Originally she was going to fix it up a little - spit and polish - and then sell it. It’s a great house on a marvelous lot outside of San Francisco in this west coast picture perfect town called Pacifica. But with the housing market in the tank she probably won’t get much for it.

Being on the coast, the house has suffered a lot of weather damage and actually needs a lot more work than just spit and polish. She met with a contractor while she was out there settling the estate and he went through the house to give her a detailed estimate for repairs.

The contractor works for American Home Craft Inc and seemed to be very knowledgeable and thorough. The most pressing repair is to actually replace all the windows, especially the ones on the western exposure. Since I just went through the same ordeal with my house, I was able to give her a few pointers about replacement windows.

We checked the references for American Home Craft Inc and they have an outstanding reputation in California. They have a nice web site, too, with good information on their services and the products they recommend. When they replace windows thay have a special window just for coastal homes, called Simonton StormBreaker Plus® windows, which are energy efficient and impact resistant. All their windows come with a lifetime glass breakage warranty, so that really boosts her comfort level with that brand.

Rhonda is going out to Pacifica again next month to get some of the work started. I have a funny feeling that she is going to like it out there so much that she decides to move there permanently, or at least for a few years until the housing market improves and she can get a good price on the property.

The temperature actually hit 90 degrees today for the first time this summer season. We are looking forward to a week of hot weather with the chance of scattered thunderstorms every night. Now that school is out, families are packing up the SUVs and minivans and heading to the beaches for their summer vacations. Most people in this area head south to the Florida panhandle beaches, like Destin and Ft. Walton.

At least the ones with deep enough pockets to pay for the extra cost of gas these days are going. Some of us have to stay home and be happy with a backyard splash pool until our budgets have a chance to catch up.

Ever since I was a teenager I’ve loved New York City. We went on several trips to New York while in school. I’ll never forget the 8th grade trip to Manhattan. We boards large commercial buses at 3:00 in the morning and slept during most of the drive up, spent the entire day doing tourist things and drove back the same night. IT was exhausting but thrilling and I jumped at every chance after that to go to New York for another visit.

Most of my friends that left the medspa company have accepted positions with a new franchise that is based in New York. Sadly, that means most of them have had to pack up and move from here to New York. So now I don’t have the chance for the occasional lunch or cocktails to stay in touch with most of my friends. It’s down to a few emails and occasional phone calls.

Alexa is the last of the old crew to take a job with the new company. We had lunch today at our favorite Sushi place to say goodbye. She is excited about the move and I’m thrilled for her! She’s going to stay with one of our friends already there, sleeping on the futon while she looks for place of her own. To help with that I put her in touch with one of the best real estate agents in Manhattan, Dottie Herman.

Dottie is a broker with Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate, the largest real estate company in New York. I had met Dottie years ago at a real estate function in Las Vegas and kept her business card just in case I would have the opportunity to move to New York. Alas, it is Alexa who is getting that opportunity and I’m happy to share the contact information with her.

I don’t know who the others used to help them find a new home, but if I was looking for Manhattan New York real estate I would call Dottie first. As soon as Alexa finds her new condo and gets settled in, I’ll be flying to New York for a visit with my old buddies.