All this time hunkering down inside out of the smoke (while the library is closed) is giving me extra time to think. Mostly I have come up with sorry thoughts. I will see if I can think of something positive to include.

1. There is a garbage mama bear with 2 cubs living behind Village Market in Three Rivers. It was too dark in the shade of the Valley Oak tree to take any photos of the sorry creatures.
2. We moved the watering bowl for deer away from the front porch in hopes of retraining them to ignore the planting bed there. Maybe it will be less sorry with less traffic.
3. I vacuumed my studio against all common sense. With ash everywhere, you may be wondering, “Why bother?” Here is why I bothered: I dropped a box of pencils on the floor under my drawing table and when I emerged from gathering them, I was covered in dust, ash and spiderwebs. “Covered” may be a slight exaggeration, but ick, it was a sorry mess down there.
4. My sorry pomegranate tree has never produced anything of substance, unless you count the flowers. I used to surround it with fencing and give it regular water; last year the fencing was needed to protect the herb garden, so I told the tree to either live or die, its choice. This year, it has produced about 5 tiny pomegranates. It looks normal but it is really small.
5. Rather than go to the community meetings about fire (because I despise wearing a face diaper), I have been trying to watch them online. “Trying”, because a sorry speaker on my laptop is blown, the sound system at the Memorial Building is rumbly and mumbly (cannot hear any of the people asking questions), and sometimes the organizers just cannot get the camera or the sound to work. Technology will save us all, eh?
6. These meetings are on Fakebook, which allows non-members like me to watch only during the meetings. With all the tech troubles, it popped to a screen showing people’s comments on the side. Ugh. People were abrupt, rude, and impulsively spouted their opinions without any thought as to whether or not it was helpful. Our county supervisor made an urgent request at a recent meeting to everyone to STOP believing what you read on social media and just go to the official places for fire information. Amen! 
7. A very long time ago, we were invited to a friend’s wedding up at the heliport at Ash Mountain. The groom asked me to bring my camera for some candid shots, and when I arrived, he told me that the scheduled photographer wasn’t coming so I was IT. What??? I did my best, and have to say that the photos looked good because there was a fire. Why? I don’t know why there was a fire. Oh, why did the smoke make the photos look good? Because the foggy gray background showed off the colors and the people. (They aren’t married any more, but that has nothing to do with my photography, I promise.) This makes me wonder why I haven’t been looking for things to photograph around my yard. Easy answer: nothing is in bloom at this sorry time of year after a sorry summer. Oh wait, I did find this one.
8. Does anyone else out there have a tab on their Favorites bar on their computer labeled “Disasters”? That is a sorry sort of label, although it is accurate. (Fires, the plague, local arrests, etc.)
9. The spokesman for the fire information is from south Georgia. Whenever he mentions the continued survival of the General Sherman tree, I wonder if he is sorry; after all, General Sherman marched into Atlanta and burned the place. He always grins when he says the General is still standing.
10. Wuksatchi Lodge will never be called that again by several of us who are enjoying Mr. Georgia’s presentations. His earlier pronunciation was “Wuh-kooshi”, but now he is calling it “Wuh-kah-shee”. (Gotta find our fun where we can!) His pronunciations brought much appreciated laughter to the meeting. 
11. After letting our one remaining tiny lawn go wild all summer in hopes that it would thicken up, either by roots or by seeds, I finally consented to Trail Guy’s request to mow. It is definitely thicker after 2 summers of experimenting with my own peculiar theories of lawn growth. (Tucker likes the grass long.)

That was a positive thought. Okay, stick a fork in me – I’m done.