[Music] Hello and welcome to our podcast Talk Gruesome To Me, where we talk about movies and shows that cover true crime, paranormal and horror. I am one of your hosts, Dawn. I am currently located in Los Angeles and I think I'm pretty well versed in the horror genre, especially those 80s classics. A quick fun fact about me? I have a very extensive crystal collection. Hello, I'm Amy. I'm from Kentucky and my area of expertise for this podcast is paranormal. A few fun facts about me. I'm an empath, I collect old dolls and you know, I've never flown on an airplane. Can you believe that? Now Dawn and I are also obsessed with true crime, so here we are. Talk Gruesome To Me. We are here for another minisode and it's kind of, I guess, a life update. We, when we first started this, obviously we were so excited and we're like, okay, let's get a bunch of these under our belt and we're going to record every week on this day and time, depending obviously on physical body issues. But we wanted to have a bunch in the queue so that if one of us weren't able to record, we have a bunch ready to go. And then all hell broke loose with both of us. Yes, it sure did. It's been a wild little ride the last few weeks. We were getting ready to go on break at work and we were off for nine days. Shannon actually had a trip planned to fly to Seattle to visit with his sister. I started not feeling good. I was just having a running nose and before vacation, I was supposed to meet with Dawn. So luckily I had started having the running nose. I just wasn't feeling good and I let Dawn know. I don't think it's a good idea that we meet. Luckily I did so because right after we were off work for vacation, I ended up testing positive for COVID. And Shannon did as well. So we spent our whole Christmas break sick and we're just now recovering from it. We feel so much better but we're getting our energy back, which is important. This went on. I don't know. We couldn't record, just speaking to the COVID part of it. We couldn't record for a couple of weeks because well, obviously when you have COVID, you have running nose, stuffy nose, coughing, and I could not get off the couch. The fatigue, right? Yes. Amy was tired. I got up one day and I thought I'm going to fold a load of laundry. It was just some towels and I'm going to run the vacuum. That led to a nap. Yeah. Listen, vacuuming takes energy. It obviously takes a lot. Well, and we were supposed to meet in November. Remember? But there was a lot of snow. So we couldn't meet in November and then this happened so we couldn't meet in December. We wanted to do one of these episodes together. We were going to find like a coffee shop or somewhere where we could record one of these together, which would have been really fun. But eventually, we need to get a hotel. Yeah. Oh yeah, that would be good. But I'm glad you had those symptoms the day before because with my issues, I don't know what would happen if I caught that. So, and luckily, I know that there's a lot of mixed opinions about the vaccination. I understand that, but you kind of just have to decide what's right for you. So I'm just waiting for it to be safe for me to get again, my next Vex. I think that'll be for for me. Yeah, I don't, I think it's, if you've had COVID, you have to wait a certain period of time. Yes. So we're just, well, I'm waiting. I told Shannon he could do, you know, whatever he chooses is best for him, but I'm going to go ahead. I have five autoimmune conditions, so I've had every vaccine that they've put out. Right. That's what I mean. And I'm not here trying to push vaccine or no vaccine. I'm just saying a person has to make the decision of what's right for them. Exactly. Yeah. When you were on live last week, and you were just, I think it was your first live back post COVID. Yeah. The chat was a little wild with the vaccine talk, but like you said, decide what's best for you. Right. That's a decision for you to make on your own. I mean, I don't judge anyone else on a decision they make about it, whether you decide to take it or not. I just feel like it's something that I need to make a decision on what's best for myself. And it minimizes the symptoms. So for me, with all the health issues that I have, that's important to me. Most of that's why I get them, you know. And then, if it wasn't enough to have you feeling like shit. And then, comes the ice storm. We got a big ice storm and we went without power for 30 hours. I will say we are lucky that we did have our Mr., I think it's a Mr. Buddy heater where you hook up the propane tanks to it. We were lucky to have that, that did. We couldn't run it continuously, but we could run it and turn it off and then turn it back on, turn it off. So we didn't get too awful cold except, oh my goodness, the second morning, I woke up and I didn't really want to go through the third. But as we speak, I am just starting to prep as things are coming back in stock. Shannon's in there putting together our propane heater or no, our kerosine heater. Sorry, my dad, so totally getting off topic, that's what my dad did for a living. He owned a propane store and he sold kerosine heaters and kerosine and things like that. Genius. So what, when this was going on, two questions. One, did you still have your COVID symptoms even without power? Just tired. Yeah, that's good. Luckily, I had bought some flannel sheets to put on our bed. So we would get kind of bundled up in those and all animals of course come in at night with us and we would just go to sleep because we were still tired. So yeah, I did sleep quite a bit through that too and I don't know, I'm not wanting to thank the power for going off but I had extra time to sleep. So we're, I may not have done so, you know, I don't know, I think that did help a little bit. And what was the temperature during all this? No power. We started at 67 in the house and by the time we were finished and the power come back on, it was 53 in here. Okay. I mean, I guess that could have been worse. It was cold though outside? Yeah. Yeah, it was in the 20s outside. Upper 20s, yeah. It's pretty warm inside considering. I told Shannon we were sitting there. I was like, luckily it seems like our house is pretty well insulated. You know, I was looking around. I guess so. We do need new windows though. So, oh no. That'll be a venture eventually. Yeah. So then Amy got her power back and we're like, oh my gosh, let's record. This is amazing. And now. Dun dun dun. No, here we are. And I'm living in Los Angeles and there are some horrific fires going on. It started, over by the beach was, it's like 15, 16 miles from us. So, we were like, okay, you know, it's pretty far, but the issues are. Number one, we had terrible winds. It was like gusting over 100 miles an hour, which was blowing embers miles away. They couldn't use any air dropping because of the winds. So there was no water coming down from the sky. From, they use planes and helicopters. They weren't able to use any of those. So the fire was just kind of burning and there wasn't much they could do. Then another fire started out east of us. Probably about the same amount of miles. Then one north of us. That one was a little closer. I don't know, 10 miles. Then one northwest, which was seven miles. But still, we're like, okay, seven miles. It's kind of okay. Close. Yeah. And you look on that, there's this app watch duty and you look on it and it's just like us in the middle of a bunch of fires all around an arch. Okay, we're good. No big deal. You know what we are? Fucking stupid. We didn't prep. We didn't pack. And then two nights ago, I don't even remember what time, it was dark out. Was it dark? I mean, it was such a panic mode. I don't even remember if it was dark out. I think it was. Oh, it was dark. So it was at three something, wasn't it? Isn't that what the text message said? Three a.m. No, this was when we actually did evacuate. Oh, okay. Got you. So we got an alert that said, Hey, there's a fire in your area. Be prepared. And then all of a sudden, both of our phones are going crazy. I'm talking. We were getting three people texting us every minute, both of us. And we aren't ready. We have nothing packed. We are not ready to go. So we're like, okay, I guess we should start packing. I am disabled. So I'm kind of just standing there going, I, what am I going to do? Like, I don't, I can't help. Like, what's happening here? So then from that first text to evacuate, to get out of your house was 10 minutes. And in that time, the most important thing we needed to do was we didn't have any videos recorded yet of any of our belongings. So Evan first, before any packing, had to go around the house and try to video everything that we own. And you know, that he tried to do it in a couple of minutes. It wasn't a super thorough job, but it was better than not having any proof. So we got that done. And then we got all of our dog stuff. We took everything of our dogs and everything of our tortoise because I guess we, that's what we put over ourselves. I don't know. They can't do it themselves though. True. Yeah. And I'm like, grab my dad, grab our dogs, like all the ashes. I have a bunch of memorabilia from my dad, like from his clothes. We made pillows. Right. I have a framed picture that our friend Steve gave us. That's the stuff we grabbed. You know, I grabbed, I think three changes of clothing, meds. And I'm like, Evan, all of our birth certificates, passports, social security cards, like we got to get that stuff. So that stuff is out back. So he had to go out there and I'm literally just standing there. Cool. I can't help. Like it was, it was a nightmare. Yeah. Clearly. And I can't load the cars. Like it, it's ridiculous. So we got as much as we could packed, got our cars loaded and drove to his moms. That's, I don't know, five miles or something. But the traffic was so bad. And where we live, there's one way in and out. So I was worried because it came on so fast. I was worried that everyone was going to be leaving at the same time, which they were. And Evan didn't want to leave. I'm not even going to, I'm here to be honest. Evan, he was like, it's fine. And it's fire by the way, it was a half a mile away. And he was like, it's fine. It's not that close. I'm like, dude, we need to go. If the traffic backs up, what are we going to do? No, we got to go. And this went on for a while. And then he's like, I'm, I can't get the gas turned off. And I'm like, dude, most people don't even know to turn the gas off or they're in such a panic. They just don't do that. It's okay. And he's like, that's how people lose their houses probably. And I'm like, we got to go. We got to go. Staying is how people lose their life, Evan. Right. Good point. Exactly. I'm like, if nothing else, don't do it to the dog. Me fine. I've lived a good life. Let's get the dog out of here. Come on. She's got some Lily. Got a little more time. And the tortoise definitely has. Oh my gosh. Who knows? That tortoise probably has 20 years left. Lily is 16. And she has cancer. So I'm like, let's get this dog out of here. She's like pushing through. Come on. The litter burn up. Yeah. I know. Right. So we went to his moms. Then it seemed to be getting better because the winds were better and they were able to drop water. That is the only thing that saved us. Had that fire happened the night before we would not have a house for sure. So we went home late that night, that same night. We've been here since. However, twice a day, maybe three times a day, we hear sirens or a couple of times we've gotten the first text to be ready to evacuate. And the one that you were talking about was two nights ago at 4am. I texted Amy the screenshot. Like, is this a joke? Where are you? This is why. Understood as soon as I saw it. Yesterday, Amy and I are recording. And I'm like, oh, sirens. And she could hear them. And I'm like, I got to go try to figure out what is going on. But honestly, I looked on citizen. And I think it was a robbery, not a fire. But that's the other thing that's happening now everywhere you can see on citizen. Looting, break ins, all that kind of thing. So now we have that to contend with, which is great. Well, didn't they catch the individual that they believed set the fires? I read a last night. They did catch someone that a bunch of citizens. This is the Kenneth fire, which is the one that's northwest of us. A bunch of citizens, I guess, held someone for the police, but they let that person go. So I don't think that was the person. But I do believe the fire that was by us was arson. And I don't think they caught anyone. That's a shame. And I hope, I hope those people, if they get caught, should go away forever. I mean, think about it. Okay, you're mad at humanity or whatever. And you want to start the fire. What about all the animals and stuff that are running through the town and don't even know what's going on? Yeah. You're affecting more than just whatever you're trying to fit. Yeah, I made somewhat of a scathing video and posted it on my TikTok yesterday or two days ago because I keep seeing posts and videos of people saying anything from, I'm going to say the least of it first. Anything from saying, oh, well, these people are rich. They can build another home. All the way to Hollywood deserves this. And I don't know what's wrong with people thinking that or saying that out loud. But those people need therapy. There is something wrong with you. I've also read people standing behind God. This was God's will for Hollywood. If you believe that, you should find another church because whatever they're teaching you is not Christian. I don't understand. Yeah, I don't understand. No, and it sucks. I don't know. I mean, we've had fires before. This one is likely the worst. But every time, like, there's something I cannot think about it. I cannot think about the things people are losing the wildlife. I can't. It will send me to such a dark place. But the sky here is so bad and it's just ash and smoke. All I can think of is those are people's memories. Those are houses that they worked hard for and built. Those are their deceased fathers ashes. Those are paintings of their dead family members. Those are like I said before on the TikTok video. Maybe their mom is sick and made them some art before she passed. That's what's falling down on our houses and our cars right now. And it's just it's so fucked up that anyone would say anything negative about this. I don't care if you have a $10 million house. It's still your memories. That's not the important part. Yeah. You can be rich beyond anything you can imagine. But it's not going to replace possibly an elderly person that's in that house and it's not easy to get them out. Somebody who is morbidly obese and it's not easy to get them out. And let's not forget that everybody that lives in Los Angeles is not filthy rich. Right. That's one person. Yeah. Not everybody's filthy rich. So no, not everybody can rebuild and just start their life back to the way it was. Money can't replace everything either. No. And what people also don't know this happened to us as well. Last year, almost all of the insurance companies either quadrupled our home insurance or just completely stopped covering fire insurance. Right. So I guarantee you a ton of people that lost their homes didn't have fire insurance and they are going to have no way to replace their homes. So even if you're wealthy, okay. Now you have no home with no house insurance. Like what are we doing here? Like how? Just saying anything negative, I just don't get it. Why we're the fire hydrants, empty? I don't know. It's probably, I think it's a combination of two things. One, we just, it never rains. Like we just don't have anywhere to get water from outside of the ocean because I don't remember the last time it rained. It's been months. Also, I have read. Don’t, this is so odd. I don't even know how this happens. I read and I've read this from multiple neutral sources that there is a couple. I don’t, I can't recall their name. They own our water supply. How does any private citizen own natural? I don't know. It's weird. But it is. Yeah. These two awful people own a large amount of our water supply. I have to look into it more. Again, I always check neutral sources. Right. Right. But why do you need all this water? I don't know. It's so weird. That is weird. What are they? Why? Why do you own water? Do you own air? I don't get it. I own 50% of the air here in my home or in my town. It's not my hometown. But this little town. It's so weird. I don't know. But anyways. Also, the other thing I keep seeing is, oh, well, what about Asheville? What about Florida? Why are we comparing natural disasters? A lot of times these wealthy people, especially celebrities, they silently donate to help when natural disasters happen. They fundraise. They do all kinds of stuff. Right. So it's not a competition. We can be empathetic to everybody. I don't understand because not everybody runs with a camera when they help someone like you said. Right. Look at me. Not everybody does that. And also, it's weird because there are rich people in Florida, in North Carolina, where natural disasters happen. It's not just in LA. Right. There are rich people everywhere. I don't know. Yeah. Just my observations over the last few days of this total apocalyptic hell. Shannon was here or watching. He wasn't here. Was watching something about making a new California like they're wanting to start over. I don't know. Our news channels, literally every channel here is just fire coverage 27. Right. Well, and so the last couple days it's been okay. But now we're having another wind storm coming in and we're supposed to get winds up to 80 miles an hour again. When? It starts this weekend through I think Wednesday, which is a long time so long to go through this. Like I hear helicopters right now. Why? I don't know. I don't know. Oh. Oh, Amy froze. I lost Amy. All right. We are back. And if you're watching the video on YouTube, it's darker because Amy, just to kind of go along with everything and all the issues we were talking about with getting the recordings and all that, Amy, her computer died and we both freaked out. We're like, oh my gosh, her computer's done. What are we going to do? Like everything's so challenging right now. But it was yeah, it's new. It was just as simple. It didn't charge. No. Now I know that the little tiny port on my extension cord does not work. So I've got to use the port to actually plug the cord into. But yeah, here we are. Here we are. And we are persisting. We are doing this podcast through all of this. And come here. We're here. Right. It's all working out. There wasn't really much else to say about what's going on over here in Los Angeles. Our items are still packed by the door ready to go because the winds are going to pick up again. Yeah, I think that's about all I had to say. Anyways, it was kind of a good point where you dropped off at least. We're having a good time over here. We're learning podcasting. And now we get to stitch a part one and part two together. Another learning curve. We're just doing the best we can over here. Exactly. But what we got? Oh, boy. So yeah, that's it. We just wanted to give everyone a quick update. We're going to try to sneak this bonus mini-sode in somewhere here soon so that it's relevant to the time frame that we put it up in. So surprise. Yes. And also by the time you hear this one, you are, what is today? Yes, by the time you hear this one, you are already going to hear one of our full episodes. So I am so excited to hear what you think. If you are enjoying them and are liking what we're giving you, always download the episode and hit the follow button because that's what's going to help us the most. That's going to show whatever platform that you choose to use that you like us. And it'll be like, okay, well, if so many people are liking them, maybe everybody else will. So that's just an easy way to support us and it doesn't cost you a thing. And most of them have ratings, five star ratings, and you can write a little review. So if anyone's inclined to do that, that would be very appreciated. Yes. If you love us, definitely stop and leave a review. If you do not love us, always remember that the little things that your mother and grandmother father who ever talked to you. If you don't have something nice to say, just don't say anything at all. And that would really help us too. Perfect. So basically only good ratings, please. Thank you. Yeah. Our ratings are going to be like, they get a little off track, but that's okay. No. The thing with that is, if you do have something with us that does bother you, reach out to us. Agree. Yeah. Reach out to us because that's the only way that we can really know and grow. And if you have anything that you want covered in a minisode, let us know. Yeah. Stories. Yeah. If you have a creepy story, a paranormal story, and you want us to read it, someone put one in your comments that we, I want to collect a few more and we can read them on a minute. Did I miss it? I don't know. But that's okay. If I did, if you if you find it go back and tag us again, because this is the like people sometimes will think that we are ignoring their comments. I've never seen your comment. It's so weird. So she's talking about their page, The Paranormal Couple. Yes. A lot of times it can't see when I tag on the talker's and to me page. And so she's missing a lot. I'm missing so much. But you like like a lot of people don't stop and consider the fact that it's me and Shannon versus 500,000. How many ever followers we have? No, I don't know the exact number. But that's a lot of people and a lot of individuals that do are active and do comment, not saying all those do. But the ones that do it just gets lost in the mix. The weirdest thing and the thing that makes me so upset if I know you personally and you're on my personal page, you can almost forget me seeing your comment. It hides it from me. I don't understand that because a lot of people that I know personally I'll go on to my private side and I'll see the comments at the end. I'll be like, oh, hey. I just respond with my personal. It's weird. That's a different situation because at least for your paranormal couple page you just have so many followers. But for us, the talkers, them to me, socials, I will see them. Yes, it's easier. So use those if you have ideas, suggestions, things you hate, anything. Yeah. Use those. If you hate something, I want to know. Okay. Well, thanks everyone. Here's our little life update and we're moving on, we're moving forward and we're gonna get through all this. Nothing's gonna hold us down. I mean, last year I'm not gonna go in full detail. It kind of was yucky, but this year I've got a good feeling. It's gonna be our year. It may not be the best one, but it's gonna be a lot better than last year was we got this. Yes. Yay. It's our year. All right. Well, thank you everybody for listening. Yes. Most definitely. We're glad that you have chosen to come back. Wait, what did you say we should say at the end of our episodes now? It wasn't see you later because we won't see anyone. I don't remember. We'll figure it out for next time. We're gonna come up with an ending slogan. You'll hear it next time. It's okay. Don't worry. We'll remember. Maybe. Stay tuned. A lot happened since that conversation though. Like a lot. So we'll figure it out. Stay tuned. Yes. And that was 20 hours ago, but thank you everyone. We'll not see you talk to you soon though. Was it yesterday we talked about it? Yeah. Like 20 hours ago, but I can't remember. I can't either. Okay. Thanks everybody. Bye. Bye. Thanks for making it to the end and hanging out with us. Keep on the lookout for our next episode and stay gruesome.