TOD from yesterday:
Mark and I were evacuated at 3:00 am Friday morning, as we live in Thousand Oaks. It was horrible. We spent two hours packing and filled both our cars to the brim with valuables, including a cat and a dog. We didn't know where to go. We headed to my office in Woodland Hills to store some stuff, and started calling hotels. They were all booked, or didn't take pets. We finally found one that was booked, but some people had checked out early. We were so lucky in that regard. We had to buy a bunch of stuff at Target, like a cat box, litter, and toiletries for us. We ate sub sandwiches in the room for dinner. We slept that night, and were going to stay for the next day, but there was a screw-up at the front desk and they couldn't see our reservation was through Sunday and they kicked us out at noon. I had friends who said they had just gone home, even though the evacuation order was still in place, so we did the same. When I got to our neighborhood it was as if there never was an evacuation, people and cars all up and down the streets - hilarious. We got the phone call at 7:30 pm last night saying the evacuation order had been lifted, whew! The air quality is terrible, but I have a mask for going outside.