Anthology & Poetry & Cookies, A Mother's Knife

Poetry is Community: Anthology & Poetry & Cookies.

Michael Sedano

The call for poems circulates in December 2025. In early April 2026 the publisher, Golden Foothills Press, predicts hard copies in-hand at the April 25 “Poetry & Cookies” Altadena poetry celebration now in its 20^th year. Click here for more history.

That’s fast turn around, but it's even more pressured. The Editor-in-Chief sends in January his selections to the publisher. That's three months to produce hard copies in each published poet's hands and a supply to sell at the book launch, "Poetry & Cookies. Meeting a demanding schedule like this reflects professionalism and experience. the publication--and the laureate program--offer a role model any community can emulate.

The anthology comes out of the two-year terms of Altadena Library’s Co-Poets Laureate. The Laureate program itself grew from librarian Polly Dutton’s initiative. In early years, Dutton held a poetry and cookies reading celebrating the laureate’s service. 

In 2015, Laureate Thelma T. Reyna published the first Altadena Poetry Review: Anthology. Since that first book, Reyna's family-owned press, Golden Foothills Press, has published all but two issues in the series.

Of the 2026 number, publisher Reyna observes:

In the 11-year history of the Altadena Poetry Review: Anthology the 2026 Anthology is the largest ever. Our debut edition, in 2015, had 105 poems written by 60 mostly local poets. 

This edition, the 8th book (none were produced in the COVID era), has 180 poems written by 158 poets from across the state and nation, and down under. The book has 325 pages, vs. 178 pp. in 2015. 

One might say that the visibility and renown of our Altadena poetry community, and its literary gem, is growing. 

Kudos to all the poets in this book; to its Editor-in-Chief, Co-Poet Laureate Lester Graves Lennon ; and to Assistant Editor and Co-Poet Laureate in Altadena, Sehba Sarwar.

A year ago, thousands of people fled their homes as miles of Altadena neighborhoods burned to the ground in the Eaton Fire. Today, the region slowly rebuilds its structures while it strengthens and rebuilds its spirit. Altadena Poetry Review Anthology 2026 captures what fire cannot destroy and what poetry affirms and sustains: a community’s spirit and hopefulness.

Here's a link to Golden Foothills Press where pre-orders are soon in the offing. For now, browse the publisher's catalog for its lineup of contemporary views and arte. Attend Poetry & Cookies and buy copies of the Altadena Poetry Review: Anthology and listen as selected readers and open mic'ers share their work.

Altadena Library and Poets Laureate Lester Graves Lennon and Sehba Sarwar, along with publisher Golden Foothills Press, welcome you to this year’s 3:00-6:00 p.m. Poetry & Cookies on April 25, 2026 at Bob Lucas Memorial Library & Literacy Center, 2659 Lincoln Ave, Altadena, CA 91001.

https://altadenalibrary.libnet.info/event/16132810

 

He Finds Mom’s Knife

Mom used that long blade to test the doneness of the barbacoa, the star of every familia pachanga. Of course, the beef isn’t the only feature. When la familia shows up for a party they load the serving tables with side dishes like potato salad, beans, moles, arroz, handmade tortillas from a distant tortilleria, and the always hit of the fiesta, Stella’s chile.

I owned too much stuff when I left my Pasadena home and since it didn't fit in Altadena, I rented a storage locker, so when I lost everything I ever owned in the fire, fifty boxes of random stuff were what I had left.

I lost Mom’s handwritten recipe for the 3-day barbacoa marinade in the Eaton Fire, along with most of my fotos of familia pachangas. That stuff in a storage locker escaped the fires and that’s where Mom’s knife turned up. 

I imagine Mom selecting the knife back before I was born. 

Dad is riding a tank to Leipzig, winning WWII. Mom  lives in Berdoo, a  soldier’s 18-year old expectant wife. 

She can afford one knife and she buys this one. Maybe she found it at Cuatro Milpas on Mt. Vernon? Maybe she walked into town to Sears or Montgomery Ward? 

It’s the knife I remember from as far back as I remember watching my mother cook, using the cuchillo slicing calabacitas, tomatoes, round steak, papas, nopales. 

And barbacoa.

Dad gathers leña enough for a big hot fire in the pit long before first light. The coals are ready at sunrise. 

The meat sits in a tina wrapped in tinfoil, swaddled in a bedsheet, burlap sacks, and banana leaves. 

Dad lowers the tina into the hole using precarious rebar hooks then covers the pit with layers of sheet metal and sealing it all with a layer of dirt.

At four or five in the afternoon, Mom declares it’s time. 

Gente have been singing and laughing, reminiscing, snacking on preliminary food. Tacos of someone’s fabulous frijoles, kids emptying a KFC bucket, there’s a taste test of competing potato salads. This chile is really picoso! Is there more? Stella rattles off her recipe but it’s all in technique, no one makes chile like Stella.

Dad scrapes away the dirt, wisps of escaping steam carry aroma. Stand back, Dad advises, prying away the sheet metal releasing a steamy cloud of deliciousness. The tina tilts precariously, it's hot unsteadying work, leaning over that pit, hauling up a tina awash in red swirling jugo. Two men balance the tina at the ends of those rebar hooks, meat juices sloshing into sizzling ash as the tina tips. Ultimately, the tina goes up and out and onto the wheelbarrow.

Mom approaches the exposed chunk of meat. She thrusts the length of the blade into the unresisting moist tender meat--as it should. She twists the handle and extracts the blade, a sliver of beef sticking to its length. 

Mom’s fingers bring the first bite to her mouth. A sniff, a nod, a bite, a satisfied smile. Her knife carves a layer of carne into taco-size slices and chunks for the first servings. Diners will cut off their own after the top layer's eaten.

When I find the knife its stainless steel length bears scars from many an off-angled filing. It's not a sharp edge. I take Mom's knife to the sharpener guy in Altadena who restores the edge to paper-shredding precision and oils the handle. 

Of all the stuff I did not lose in the Eaton fire, mira nomás, I still have my Mom’s knife. 

Poetry As Remembrance, Place, Being

Altadena Poetry Resilience and Renewal

Michael Sedano

I am enjoying observing at a distance as the 2026 Altadena Poetry Review Anthology comes into being. It’s a detailed, painstaking process that looks deceptively simple:

• November/December call for poetry from the Poet Laureate Editor in Chief
• December, deadline passes, all material submitted.
• January-March, assemble the accepted poems into a book
• April/May, “Poetry & Cookies” Book launch (link) as selected published poets read their work 

Looks deceive. Putting together the anthology is an intense fast turnaround publication process that requires the professional eye and skill of a seasoned editor, and comes together only after two years preparation and five months in actual production of a book. That's the work of Laureate-emerita Thelma T. Reyna, publisher of Golden Foothills Press.

Altadena’s Poetry Review Anthology forms as an idea from public events, individual engagement, and the creative forces of the region over the two-year term of the region’s Co-Poets Laureates. During their term, one Laureate, the  Poet Laureate for Community Events, takes charge of organizing and scheduling performances and workshops. The other Laureate, designated as Editor in Chief, engages audiences during the various public events, springs into high gear as the call for poetry brings a flood of mail and submissions.

Sehba Sarwar and Lester Graves Lennon are wrapping their Laureateships after numerous beautiful readings and then the Eaton Fire destroyed the community. Across the empty hillsides and razed homesites, a keening sadness echoes through the greening hillsides, joined by the sound of poetry. 

That fire burns in the hearts of poets, who celebrated themselves, their community, the places left in the aftermath of the fires, in poems in a powerful reading, “From the Ashes to Renewal: Voices of Resilience In Altadena,” (link), and a fabulously accessible online journal, https://altadenapoetryreview.com/2025-anthology/ 

The Altadena Library District just closed its call (link) for nominees for the 2026-2028 Laureates. Past Altadena Laureates include:

Ralph Lane | May 2006 — April 2008
Marcia Thompson | May 2008 — April 2010
Alene Terzian | May 2010 — April 2012
Linda Dove | May 2012 — April 2014
Thelma T. Reyna | May 2014 — April 2016
Elline Lipkin | May 2016 — April 2018
Hazel Clayton Harrison & Teresa Mei Chuc | May 2018 — April 2020
Jessica Abughattas & Khadija Anderson | May 2020 — April 2022
Peter J. Harris & Carla R. Sameth | May 2022 — April 2024
Lester Graves Lennon & Sehba Sarwar | May 2024 — April 2026

Interviews for the new Laureates take place in coming weeks. The new Laureates will be announced with release of the 2026 Altadena Poetry Review Anthology at Poetry & Cookies.

Poets selected to be published in the upcoming Altadena Poetry Review are receiving notice now. There’s poetry in the air, new Laureates in the offing. La Bloga looks forward to Poetry & Cookies, the new anthology, and many years of Altadena poetry rising from ashes. 

Putting A Piano In Its Place

Ashes to...Keyboards and Skins

Michael Sedano

I lost the piano I’ve had since 1950, a year ago in the Eaton Fire. Ever since, I’ve been able to play Thelma Reyna’s piano, so my fingers haven’t entirely forgotten how to find the right notes. Playing is not practicing so I’m a year out of practice. I’ve felt the absence of a piano in the house, and, peor, I haven’t had a permanent residence until only recently.

Three homes in Redlands, then Temple City, back to Redlands, rejoin us in Eagle Rock, Pasadena, Altadena. All those places and times, my piano keeps me satisfied and tormented at the same time. Practice tends to soften frustration and when it works and all the fingers come together, it’s a taste of the sublime.

I mourn the absence of that possibility, that momentary discovery of perfection, a line of notes becoming music.

Losing my piano in the fire creates a wound that can never heal. The piano and the sheet music that burned are unrecoverable things rich with memories. While all the things I lost and suddenly remember are emotional papercuts, losing that piano cuts deeper. Not that a new piano won’t assuage the loss. A ver.

Today, I have a piano. Mejor, the piano is a Kimball, same as my lifelong instrument, the one with all those memories. Time for new memories. Adelante, don't look back for too long.

Brandon, with Altadena Musicians, put me in contact with Steve from Santa Monica who had a piano he was donating to survivors of the Eaton Fire. Altadena Musicians understands what losing a precious instrument does to a person’s soul, and to professionals, livelihood. Brandon’s organization coordinates donors to gente like me who were burned out.

“What did you lose?” Brandon asks when I first contact him about a free piano. My inventory includes conga drums--a beautiful set Barbara gave me for Christmas one year--and my piano.

People are generous, wonderful, and truly good, sabes?

Brandon and the Altadena Musicians are not looking for credit, nothing formal-- like I don’t know Brandon’s last name. Nor Steve’s. In fact, these good people extended incredible generosity. When I texted Steve how I could not accept the piano owing to a costly professional mover’s quote, I thought that was that.

In response, Steve tells me all is not lost. And Brandon suggests the foundation can pay the movers. I am moved and grateful at the offer. On his own initiative, Steve connects with A. Garcia Piano Movers, a 30 years in business firm with no website, who move pianos for the Santa Monica music conservatory at discounts and at times pro bono. Steve makes all the arrangements for delivery. I cut short an Arboretum walkabout and get home in time to move furniture out of the path of the three vatos lifting my new piano into my new home. Órale.

I began today miserable, having abandoned hope of owning a piano again. In a rapid fire series of text and voice messaging I learn the piano will come to me within a few hours. At the same time, thanks again to Brandon and Altadena Musicians, another generous soul has placed conga drums in their unlocked patio for me to pick up sometime today. Ajúa.

And so it went, February 2, 2026.

Stuff of Memories; Con Garro y Sin Paz

 La Bloga-Tuesday welcomes Guest Reviewer Rey Rodriguez and a book adding insight to a story of a neglected daughter-famous father, in this case Mexican Nobelist Octavio Paz’ daughter. Today’s lead article celebrates things found in the ruins of the Eaton fire.

 

 

Stuff Not Lost In the Fire: Treasures of Memory

Michael Sedano

 

Stuff that goes through fire and dug from the ashes come back like a scarred phenix, changed in its passage through the crucible into renewed versions of their essential selves, the memories they hold impervious to the firestorm.

 

My father’s strong box held his WWII memorabilia along with Dad’s high school graduation watch, treasures from his courtship of my mother, precious times of his days on this earth. The warped lid rests uncomfortably on the contorted blistered box. 

 

Barbara’s heart collection featured a colorful ceramic corazón that was born in fire and emerges from fire in two pieces, its bright contours coated with an orange oxidation sweated out of the glaze the clay’s second firing. I hesitate to wash away the sweat.

 

A Review: Con Garro y Sin Paz, presented by Todos Santos Writers Workshop at Beyond Baroque.

 

Rey Rodriguez

 

Iván Salinas continues to curate important events that transcend borders and draw on our Latino past to inform the present.

 

On December 5, 2025, I attended his latest entitled, Con Garro y Sin Paz, presented by Todos Santos Writers Workshop and held at Beyond Baroque (https://www.beyondbaroque.org/). This event was a reading, conversation, and book signing of Marcela Magdalena Deschamps’ latest book, Con Garro y Sin Paz. It is an extraordinary story inspired by the life of Helena Paz Garro, the daughter of the famous Mexican literary couple of Octavio Paz and Elena Garro. 

 

Helena Paz Garro often talked about the distance that she felt from her father following the events of 1968 in Tlatelolco, where soldiers shot down hundreds of students, when she and her mother were accused of orchestrating the student movement. Ultimately, though, Paz Garro forgave him despite his abandonment of her. Elena Garro was considered one of Mexico’s finest writers, but because she was a woman, she did not receive the acclaim she deserved. Paz and Elena Garro were married in 1937. They had one daughter, Helena, and divorced in 1959.

 

It is with this backdrop that Professor Marcela Becerra García, California State University Channel Islands, interviewed Deschamps to discuss her fascinating book, which tells the tale of a forgotten house in Cuernava where Paz Garro lives the last days of her life among feral cats and ghosts of the past. Paz Garro is a complicated character who could not have children because she was raped at the age of three and contracted syphilis. The disease and its treatment ensured that she would never bear children. The rape likely led to a life of deep mental illness, which was largely left untreated. 

 

Nevertheless, Paz Garro was surrounded by books and literature and was extremely well educated in European boarding schools. As a result, her great legacy is her poetry, which Deschamps keeps alive in her novel by including unedited versions of some of her most lyrical verses. 

 

It is important to note that Octavio Paz often did not even mention his daughter’s existence. This absence is notable and makes Deschamps' work even more important than ever to ensure that both Elena Garro and Helena Paz Garro are studied and remembered. Any discussion of Mexican literature and Paz’s legacy is incomplete without a discussion of these two important female writers. Deschamps revives their memory and honors them by writing this extraordinary book that becomes a must-read if we are to truly understand Mexican literature and the unsung role that women played in it.

About Rey Rodriguez: 

Rey M. Rodríguez is a writer, advocate, and attorney. He lives in Pasadena, California. He is working on a novel set in Mexico City and a non-fiction history of a prominent nonprofit in East LA. He has attended the Yale Writers' Workshop multiple times and Palabras de Pueblo workshop once. He also participates in Story Studio's Novel in a Year Program. He is a first-year fiction creative writing student at the Institute for American Indian Arts' MFA Program. His poetry is published in Huizache. His other interviews and book reviews can be found at La Bloga, the world's longest-established Chicana-Chicano, Latina-Latino literary blog, Chapter House's Storyteller’s Blog, Pleiades Magazine, and the Los Angeles Review.

Guest Columnist Thelma Reyna: Octavia's Bookshelf Fire Fundraiser

A Roman God, History, and Poets: The Altadena Eaton Fire Revisited

Thelma T. Reyna

 
History is a bit like the mythological Roman god Janus, a two-faced being who simultaneously looked at the past and the future. Janus was thus the god of beginnings and endings, of necessary transitions and ongoing change. So, once history (the past) is made, what will be the ramifications (the future)? 

The Eaton Canyon fire that savaged the tightly-knit, artistic community of Altadena, CA, on January 7 made history as California’s second-most destructive fire ever. Its fury brought endings uncountable and unimaginable, and has spawned soul-searing transitions and changes that will affect our lives for generations and possibly forever. 

Luckily poets have been akin to first responders in this catastrophe. Since the beginning, in social media and reading events throughout SoCal communities—live, on-air, and virtual—, poets have brought their artistry and voices to navigating and parsing the losses and grief we have suffered. This past week, one such poetry event brought together stellar poets to address “history.” 

On Tuesday at Octavia’s Bookshelf in Pasadena, Altadena’s current Co-Poet Laureates, Sehba Sarwar and Lester Graves Lennon, presented their reading event, “After the Fire: Honoring Histories.” Billed as a fundraising event to benefit the Altadena Public Library, it included several distinguished poets.

Laureates & Award-Winners

Lester Graves Lennon

Lester Graves Lennon: current Altadena Co-Poet Laureate; author of three poetry books; Poetry Editor of Rosebud magazine. 

Sehba Sarwar

Sehba Sarwar: current Altadena Co-Poet Laureate; author of a novel and of poems published in various literary publications in Asia, Pakistan, and elsewhere. 

Teresa Mei Chuc

Teresa Mei Chuc: Altadena Poet Laureate Emerita; author of four books; member of the Pasadena Rose Poets; and Shabda Press book publisher. Her high school student, Riot, a member of Teresa’s Poetry Club, read two of his poems. 

Sesshu Foster

Sesshu Foster: author of six books; winner of the American Book Award, one of the top book prizes in the U.S.; winner of the Asian-American Literary Award for Poetry; winner of the Believer Book Award for speculative fiction.

Maryam Hosseinzadeh

Maryam Hosseinzadeh: a poet and community arts organizer in Altadena and other parts of Los Angeles county.

Cassandra Lane

Cassandra Lane: author of the award-winning book, We Are Bridges: A Memoir; winner of the 2020 Louise Meriwether First Book Prize; journalist with stories and essays appearing in newspapers and magazines, most notably as editor-in-chief of LA Parent magazine.

A Packed, Appreciative Audience

Nicky High and Nicki Winslow

Although Octavia’s Bookshelf is a cozy, compact reading venue, the diverse audience was packed and energized. The store’s owner, poet Nicky High, was present, along with Nicki Winslow, director of the Altadena Library District. The amount of library donations raised was not yet announced.

The poets varied in their emphasis on the fires but focused on themes of family roots in the area, losses in general, unity, and community spirit. Lennon, the current Co-Laureate, read a poem detailing the ubiquity of chimneys standing “proudly” amidst the ruins, vestiges of their centrality in the homes. Lennon also spoke in one poem about a memorable Christmas dinner his neighbor had hosted shortly before the fire and how, two weeks later, her house lay in ashes.  

Sarwar, also current Altadena Co-Laureate, read a poem describing a student’s stated hopes that fire victims would survive and prevail by “joining together,” and how she affirmed the student’s belief.

 Moving Forward:  Poets in Real Time, Writing “History”

The groundswell of poets sharing their observations, fears, grief, and dreams will likely continue as does the rebuilding of Altadena and Pasadena, for poets are the observers and reporters of the most consequential moments in life, the moments that most touch us, move us, and instruct us. May their artistry continue to enrich our community.

Fire burns nothing but stuff

Late-breaking News
Lisbeth Coiman reminds that this Saturday, January 18, the popular and arrestingly interesting panel of other-than-Mexican immigrant poets (link), returns to the Los Angeles area.

Coiman writes: On Saturday 1/18/25 at 2PM at the Eagle Rock branch library, @viguerespertalicia @tue_my_chuc and @parchitapoet will be in conversation with @thelma_t._reyna. Our Immigrant Hearts is a discussion series created by Thelma Reyna in which three to four poets of completely different backgrounds discuss about what brought us to this country and under what circumstances. We will be happy to see you there.

Fire burns nothing but stuff: Two Reports

Michael Sedano

Painting by Margaret Garcia

La Bloga-Tuesday welcomes the temporary return of an OG La Bloga veterano, the founder himself, Rudy Ch. García. Motivated by the horrendous California firestorms, García's essay ruminates upon background causes and humane remedies to moral and actual conflagration. 

First, a personal note. 

It all burned down, the house I moved into with my daughter and granddaughter two years ago, following the death with Alzheimer's Dementia of my wife, Barbara. We'd been married 54 years when I lost her and despite my numbed devastation, I found new hope in my daughter's dream house. 

The fire knocked me down after I'd finally gotten back on my feet. My daughter and granddaughter are Sedano Women. This means they're strong, smart, indomitable. We shall rise again. 

Me, I numbed myself during Barbara's five year journey to the end of Time, and the fire hit me with less impact than it should have. I have nothing, the fire ran away with all of my stuff. 

In the days since the house went into ashes, I've begun remembering the stuff I left behind when I made my break for it, at Amelia's insistence. 

I thought sure the fire was too darn far away to reach all the way to our home. My daughter thought otherwise and insisted I head from the hills down into Pasadena where I now reside in a motel with the clothes on my back, a camera, and my laptop computer.  

The Arte. Ironically, one of the first lost paintings that comes to mind is a Margaret Garcia fire painting, her birthday gift to me back in August. (Not the one pictured above, since mine is ashes). Then more paintings, lino cuts, sculpture, serigraphs, my prized Diego Rivera etching. 

My clothing. Cashmere sweaters that were birthday and Christmas gifts from Thelma Reyna. My bespoke suits from Korea that still fit, casí. My other cameras. My spare change. My... 

One day soon, the insurance company will want an inventory. Maybe when I go through the rubble (once the blockade gets lifted) I'll have a more complete notion of what I lost when I say I lost everything.  

But it's just stuff. 

Each item stands as a token for memories, and those are indelible. I remember how Barbara fell in love with Garcia's "Dancing In the Moonlight." I asked Margaret about it and she told me "Cheech owns it." Barbara pined for the image. Then one holiday sale at Frank Romero's Frogtown studio, I walked in the front door where Margaret sat smiling. I smiled back. She points up at the wall above her. She'd made a version of "Dancing In the Moonlight."

 

"Dancing In the Moonlight" by Margaret Garcia

Barbara loved her copy of the work. I don't have Barbara, and I don't have Margaret García's pastel anymore. But nothing can deny me those memories, García's smile, Barbara's joy unwrapping the work. 

The move from my old abode, empty but for memories, to my daughter's house on the hill that itself now is only memories, creates new memories. Important, vital, alive memories. All that stuff is gone and all those memories spring forth when I begin to count the stuff I lost. 

I treasure the memories and will miss the treasures, but so it goes. It is what it is. Only Time will deny me my memories.

Here's a Rolling Stone article by Nancy Dillon that recounts the immediate aftermath of our fire (link), and the foto of our home, before and after.

Top: foto Amelia Sedano. Bottom: Nancy Dillon Rolling Stone 

Note: Gente are kind and generous. As Rudy Ch. García recounts below, our local community is filling with aid workers and supplies to give to people who lost it all.

As word got out about our fire, I've been inundated with kindness and offers of help. Thank you, my friends, my daughter is on top of it and is making all the business and legal arrangements we need to rise from the ashes. 

However, if anyone knows a three-bedroom house with yard to rent in Pasadena, South Pasadena, or Arcadia, please let me know. 

Guest OG Columnist Rudy Ch. García 

Watching news of the devastation from California fires evoked memories of devastation from Israeli bombings of Gaza caused by Zionist greed for land that’s not theirs. Or the greed of fossil fuel investors putting profits ahead of even their own neighborhood’s interests.  

Hearing that one of the California homes lost belonged to LaBloga’s own Michael Sedano brought up the memory of Manuel Ramos and me, and Em, as he’s known, to establish La Bloga and carry on “the torch” passed to us by Teresa Marquez, over twenty years ago. 

Another reminder to the devastation was last week’s NPR news piece (link) the type of information that should be broadcast to the MAGA world, as well as news about the 100 Mexican firefighters sent to help southern California. 

Another memory: A house burned to the ground, along with a nearby tree. A distraught mother. Forty years ago. Mi amá. Caused by arson, not by Global Warming. The arsonist never caught, though it might’ve been a rival curandera using matches more than magic. 

Twenty years later my sister’s home would burn, possibly from bad wiring, also caused by greed that creates poverty among us, and poor construction based in meager incomes.

But there’s a higher level than that, a higher understanding that Californio individuals and families are experiencing. Witness the outpouring of food, clothing and other donations from other L.A. residents and groups. Higher like the NPR immigrants who went to desperately aid homeowners with incomes much higher than theirs. Not because they were brown like them, most of whom weren’t. Not because they were neighbors in neighborhoods unaffordable to people like them.  But because of something higher that I call EnComun, a term you can’t google. 

EnComun includes elements of survival of the species, protection of one’s own kind, even spiritual connection to a plight the immigrants know firsthand from their own lands, where cartel greed and corruption greed and corporate greed in power ruins their entire country.

Putting out wildfires ravaging even cities only battles the effects of Global Warming. But the immigrants likely know that too. Nevertheless they braved smoke and heat and some danger by going into those areas. 

No doubt other nationalities, US citizens, doused what they could as well. Just as western states and Canada have mobilized extensive agency support to reciprocate last year’s assistance under Biden.  We doubt many southern California multi-millionaires went to grab buckets to fill them with their own swimming pool water and help neighbors. But we also doubt any would raise their hand if asked how many invested fortunes in fossil fuels. 

But we need not worry about people who can afford more than one mansion, employing immigrants to tend their gardens and keep their pools clean EnComun. 

When enough of us realize we need to grab buckets and garden hoses to stop the mega-millionaires, politicians, bureaucrats and other empowered enablers from interfering in preserving the land, water, air and all the organic life, then EnComun could proliferate.

Instead of just sending Michael Sedano and other victims our thoughts, prayers, commiseration and sympathy, send them pledges that the greed that burned their homes will be uncoupled from positions of power by us all. 

When EnComun spreads, even injured wildlife, native trees, bush and grasses, insect life, and the earth, water and air can be connected to our everyday life. The day I flew into SanAnto to see mi amá’s charred rubble of a casa, a jumble of emotions filled me. Vengeance against the arsonist. Anger at the poverty we grew up in and she would continue living under. Eventually she would lose all the small houses on her rural property to unscrupulous and inept actions by extended family. No EnComun there at all.  

Working through my jumble at mi amá’s, we searched the ashes and soot for fotos or anything that could be salvaged. There was casi nada. Then we hired a bulldozer to rid the site of the debris.  

That night we were as EnComun as we’d ever been, unaware that decades later the results of Global Warming would reach literally the entire planet. But that night, armed with a bottle of Presidente and a case of beer, we all drank, chatted, joked and eventually laughed. Even mi amá got peda, something I’d never seen. Nor ever after.  

I hope some of the burned-out Californio residents might find ways to connect with the immigrants and others, EnComun or just in common. Both “sides” deserve to find solace and stronger connections in the extended times that are coming for us all. And likely more scalding for many more of us until greed’s stranglehold on power is smothered out 

Gracias, R.Ch.Garcia rchgarcia.com

Grateful for Black Clouds on Black Friday

Melinda Palacio 

Fire broke out on Camino Cielo in Santa Barbara last Tuesday.  I wondered if my house would survive. We were lucky, no homes burned during the Cave Fire. Global warming means frequent fires are the new normal. 

My view from the car. I still have files, books and close packed in suitcases for a quick getaway. 

 The mandatory evacuation zone was blocks from my house.

The national forest fire brought crews in from as far away as Yuma. Seeing the trucks leave Santa Barbara was a welcome sight. Thank you firefighters near and far. I trust some got home in time for Thanksgiving. 

Three Pies done and a feast for 16 friends coming up. 

 I’m grateful for this writing life that now includes music. Gracias La Bloga subscribers. 

Black rain clouds also brought a double rainbow and good luck. Thank you.