So, now there is this enormous fire surging across a part of Southern California because someone’s gender reveal party included a smoke bomb that exploded into blue or pink smoke and then set fire to the surrounding chaparral. In the first place, if you’ve ever lived in SoCal you should know never to use anything flammable out there in the brush. It’s just a fire waiting to happen. I haven’t lived in the area in 25 years, but we called it home from 1974 to 1996 (with a couple of years in the middle up in western Idaho). The native plants catch on fire. Do not do things that might cause one of those fires. Sigh…

I also wonder when the “Gender Reveal” became a “thing?” We have five children, born between 1976 and 1984–all of my prenatal care was at the Navy Hospital in San Diego, because this was during my husband’s active duty years. (Yes, yes, it was considered somewhat of a bizarre thing that we would go on reproducing after we had the first two: boy, then girl. But actually, we intended to have six. My body just let me know that five would be plenty.)