How bizarre the juxtapositions of this world can be.

Earlier today, Mrs. Dude and I concluded a brief visit to southern California.  Our purpose was celebrating the occasion of our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.  A sadly rare accomplishment these days.  One definitely not easily obtained.  But by the grace of God — literally — here we are.

As is our wont, we finished the trip by visiting Disney's Soda Fountain and Studio Shop in Hollywood.  Normally teams of wild horses couldn't drag me into Hollywood, but for this place I gladly make an exception.  For a couple of Disneyphiles such as the wife and I, how can such a place not be made a destination?  Besides, a black and white sundae with no nuts is impossible for me to resist.

Over the years we've been visiting the place, far more often than not we have had the same waitress.  Every time I've seen her she has stirred a bit of the usually hidden parental instinct in yours truly.  If I were to have had a daughter, my prayer would have been she would have grown up to be as adorable inside and out as this charming pixie.  Who I note after a few visits started recognizing us.  Exactly what it says when a member of the staff at a restaurant some three hundred and fifty miles from your domicile knows you by sight is a topic I prefer not to contemplate.  But I digress.

Alas, during the past few visits to the soda fountain she has been nowhere to be seen, apparently having moved on to a different job.  Of course the wife and I would continue to go there.  That said, it didn't seem quite the same without our regular waitresses' effervescent presence.

It gave cause for a smile when we walked in today and there was our regular waitress who — you guessed it — recognized us.  In and around the food order was conversation about where she'd been and how we'd undoubtedly been missing her due to her working odd hours as she pursued her acting career and other interests.  For lack of a better way to put it, her being there made everything seem… well, right again.

Then we started heading home through a world gone terribly wrong.

We knew of the fires burning in the area, having been constantly checking the local news radio station all day for updates and traffic reports in order to determine the best route out of town.  We had experienced firsthand the Santa Ana winds that morning along with their calling card from the night before as everything that was outside was coated in a none-too fine layer of dust and grit.  As we left Hollywood and headed north toward home, the fires immediately turned from scratchy news reports to first-hand stunning visuals.

To the right was the smoke from the Marek fire.  To the left and closer at hand was the Senson fire, close enough to where we could clearly see the firefighting planes swooping over it as they dropped their loads of water and then flew off to the nearest reservoir to draw another one.  It's one thing to hear X number of acres have burned, or even see it on television.  To see it in person is a sobering experience, one serving as a brutal reminder how despite all its advances man remains nearly helpless in the face of nature which itself is dust and ash in the presence of the almighty God.

How bizarre the juxtapositions of this world can be.

Wonderfully, terribly bizarre.

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