Just came here to say the same. Crazy how many times over the last few months that we’ve been collectively worried about each other. Hope everyone is relatively safe.
5 Likes
Inspired by this NYT article
I’m currently trying to find ASL classes locally. I’ve been wanting to learn sign language forever, and now’s as good a time as any. That, and handling a gun 
1 Like
I found it really fascinating that my niece and her husband taught their toddler sign language so she could communicate her needs before being able to speak.
5 Likes
A lot of daycare places offer ASL these days, along with Mandarin. Lucky kids!
1 Like
My SIL and nephew are sandwiched between the Hurst and Eaton fires. The Hurst fire should remain away from them, but the Eaton fire is still a threat if the wind shifts slightly northwest. My sister and I haven’t yet heard from our SIL; hopefully they remain safe and don’t have to bug out with the dogs and belongings.
ETA: Just heard from my SIL - they are safe and things are calm “at the moment”. (11:30 a.m. EST) So that’s good.
8 Likes
We did too and found it super helpful when he woke us up screaming at 2:00 a.m., and then frantically signed “water” so we would know what he needed.
His first grade teacher had the kids sign to ask to go to the bathroom with less disruption. My kiddo still uses the sign when we are out.
4 Likes
That is fascinating! Is it supposed to be somehow easier to learn? I have to look that up!
3 Likes
If you are (or anyone else is) interested, the Oklahoma School for the Deaf is offering free online ASL introductory courses . Enrollment until Feb 6, 8 lessons at your own pace.
I’m … signed up 
CWIDT?
1 Like
In your search for ASL instruction, please include in your criteria that the instructor(s) be deaf themselves. Not that they’re necessarily better as instructors, but there are a lot of deaf ASL instructors out there that are having a much harder time making a living. The surge in popularity of teaching ASL has caused a lot of hearing people to offer instruction, too, but the hearing impaired are a sector of many communities that is easily marginalized because their impairment is less obvious to the casual observer.
6 Likes
We also thought The Spout “sign” language but some of the signs were not real. The most used one was sit down. She knew if I signed sit down she better sit or she’d be in trouble. I still use it occasionally to tease her.
The Sprout went to Rochester Institute of Technology which houses the NTID - The National Technical Institute for the Deaf and the two schools were very integrated. She took several semester of ALS and was lucky to have many students to talk with.
4 Likes
My heart continues to break for folks affected by the fires in Southern California. Passing along this gift link from the NYT in case the information resources listed might help anyone: Safety Steps to Take as Fires Sweep Southern California.
5 Likes
Thanks for your input. I was under the assumption that the OK School for the Deaf would have deaf instructors, but I obviously don’t know for sure.
If you have a better suggestion I’d welcome it greatly.
In the summer of 1977, I moved from the Sepulveda neighborhood of LA’s San Fernando Valley to Glendale, a very different suburb compared to Sepulveda. I moved because my parents had divorced and I chose to live with my father and my soon-to-be stepmother rather than with my mother and my soon-to-be alcoholic stepfather (a long story that I shall not go into.)
I started 9th grade that fall at Woodrow Wilson Jr. High in Glendale and the very kind and amazingly talented teacher of the art & design class I had enrolled in noticed how unhappy I was and how my parents who had come to open house didn’t show much interest in me. So that teacher decided to take me under her wing and so began a friendship which continues to this day.
I’ve gone to the hospital when she had her first born, a son who now has 2 kids of his own. Her second child, a daughter spoke her first sentence to me. I’m now MUCH closer with the daughter than anyone else in the family.
For more years than I can remember, I was invited to Thanksgiving dinner at that teacher’s sister’s home and the teacher’s home incredibly beautiful home in Altadena (north of Pasadena) on Christmas for dinner (which also happens to be the teacher’s husband’s birthday.)
I woke up yesterday morning to the news of the Eaton Fire in Altadena and knowing how close Eaton Canyon is to that teacher’s home AND the home of her sister, I began to worry and jotted off an email to the teacher’s daughter who lives in Monrovia, another suburb a little bit more east of Altadena.
I worried all day about the fire and tried to find information in detail about it and the houses, but couldn’t find what I wanted and needed to know.
Last night, just before I went to bed, I received a reply from the daughter telling me that her parents’ lovely 6 bedroom home built in 1931 had sadly burnt to the ground with only the chimney left standing. Her parents had bought it well over 30 years ago and painstakingly remodeled and restored it to become a true showplace (the teacher is also an interior decorator/designer, caterer and artist.)
As of last night, the teacher’s sisters’ house was in danger of burning down AND the daughter’s home in Monrovia was in an evacuation zone. Everyone in the family is now hunkered down in the son’s home in the city of South Pasadena which is thankfully far enough away from the Eaton Fire to be considered safe.
To top it off, the teacher has been battling breast cancer for the past few years and therefore isn’t all that strong. So losing such a lovely home AND everything the family owns is very likely going to weaken her even more.
I could write much more than this, but this post is already much too long. Here are some (actually screenshots) of the home (and one of the immediate neighborhood) which is now all gone. I hope that her sister’s house and the daughter’s house remain unscathed.
Thank you for reading this and if possible, can I ask you to keep everyone in your thoughts and prayers.
10 Likes
Thank you for sharing this. I am sorry for the losses from this conflagration. Remember the best and try to forget the rest.
2 Likes
You’re welcome and I thank you very much for your kind comment.
I’m so sorry for your friends’ losses. The pics being shown from above are so so very devastating, showing entire blocks and blocks of houses razed to the ground.
My SIL is still safe outside the Eaton evacuation warning area, so I’m 
that it remains that way.
4 Likes
Thank you so much. I hope your SIL and her home remain safe and sound.
1 Like
Heartbreaking to see and read about entire neighborhoods burning down. Lovely old homes all over the city. I have a niece in Santa Monica that evacuated the first night and another niece in Glendale that is packed and ready to go if need be. Thankful that Hollywood hills fire was contained last night. Another childhood friend’s home burned down along pacific coast highway in Malibu. We live in Santa Barbara and have had many fires the last one being the Thomas Fire that burned for 3 weeks and was finally contained successfully in the hills of Montecito. Today is the anniversary of the Montecito mudslides that came three weeks later. I love my state and we will survive and revive and rebuild. Now we just need the winds to go away and some rain (but not anything torrential).
2 Likes
