Thank you, all, for your concern. Yes, I am safe, my husband is safe--and our kitty, Kona, was rescued and evacuated from the place before it burned down. Yes, we were/are out of town on a planned trip to the ukulele's birth islands--we heard about the fire while in a very secluded part of Hawai'i Island and thankfully had the support of Chuck Moore and his precious wife, Bonnie Sargeant. Having been through the lava disaster earlier this summer, they were understanding and supportive, knowing just what we were feeling--and stepping in to listen, hug, search out info on the web and provide a sounding board for ideas for our future.
We lost 90% of our "things," sadly including all my ukuleles but the one I had with me. I *had* two Moore Bettah ukuleles, now I have one, the one with me. Playing it makes me smile during a difficult time. But I guess I'll need to update my UU "signature" to reflect my new reality...sigh...
We have a small cabin "in the woods" about 25 minutes north of Paradise which we will return to live in full-time; it was just 1/10 of a mile from the flames so I'm thinking there may be some smoke issues. Our business burned down (Mark and I work together in marketing) and we're not certain Paradise is where we'll rebuild. I'm too young to retire (and couldn't afford it anyway!)
Our sons describe this as a "pivot point" for us and that's so true. I'm not sure what we'll be doing to make money...but I know that whatever that is, I'll certainly continue playing ukulele and sharing the joy that this instrument brings to us all.
I hope to see all of you around at some future ukulele event. And, I'll be blogging the whole thing on my website--this was not quite the island adventure I'd imagined this time...
Do you see a Moore Bettah Ukulele surviving in the bottom photo? Nope, neither do I. Officials don't plan on letting us in to poke through the ashes for a few weeks' still, but I'm thinking I'm not going to find any ukulele things. I had a huge collection of (not-all-digitized) Hawaiian and ukulele CDs as well as more than 95 ukulele learning and technique books and DVDs (many of them signed by performer/author); I loved to loan these out to ukulele learners, but they're all gone now, too...