内容摘要：Worrall was gobsmacked the gator caller thought paramedics were the panacea for his problem.

Worrall was gobsmacked the gator caller thought paramedics were the panacea for his problem.

The fire completely devastated her property. “We lost everything. The only thing that survived is our front gate and the barbecue,” Rivers shared.She described the scale of destruction as unimaginable.

“It’s so much more than just the homes — it’s an entire town wiped off the map,” she said. “Many businesses in Palisades were family-owned. There are people who not only lost their homes but also their businesses and livelihoods.”Finding safe shelter has been another challenge.“We’ve had to move three times due to evacuations, but we’ve settled at a friend’s house in Santa Monica,” Rivers said. “They’ve been kind enough to take us in, along with another family we’re friends with.”

Rivers copes with these challenges through her self-proclaimed “dark sense of humor” and her knack for making people laugh. She also finds solace in supporting others who are struggling, which helps to ease her own burdens.“Checking in and comforting the people in my world that are affected by this allows me to not deal with my home stuff right now. I cried once for five minutes and then again for like 20 and don’t have time to do that. I am my parents’ daughter.”

Despite losing most of her belongings, Rivers is adamant about prioritizing those in greater need.

“People are donating, and stores are offering huge discounts. I see so many of my friends from the Palisades wanting to get a discount somewhere. And I keep trying to say to them, these are not meant for you. You can buy another pair of freaking jeans at Neiman Marcus just like you always did. Let the people who really need it have the first shot at it.”Birds are depicted in a pen-and ink drawing made in the 1800s by V.H. Furnier, an artist and penmanship teacher in Indiana, Pennsylvania. It includes the words “Home Sweet Home,” and above it an avian pair, one of them carrying a sprig with the words “Spare the Birds.”

New Englander Joseph E. Clapp’s beautiful birdcage is another standout. Made of Peruvian mahogany and whalebone with petite brass pins, it’s a marvel of construction. Clapp was a master mariner who worked on whale boats in the 1850s. When he retired, he created a bird sanctuary in Peru. He finally returned to Nantucket, where he was often seen strolling the streets with his pets in their cages.A drawing called “Devil House” conveys what it means when home is a literal prison cell. Incarcerated in a Huntsville, Alabama, prison, Frank Albert Jones started drawing with the red and blue pencil stubs discarded by inmate bookkeepers. A recurring theme is enclosed rooms surrounded by jagged wiry barbs he called “devil’s horns,” with grinning spirits. He frequently includes a clock; for many years, his cell faced the penitentiary’s clock tower.

Jones’ signature on “Devil House” includes his neatly printed prison number, 11451.grew up on Louisiana plantation and became an acclaimed self-taught artist. Starting in her 50s, she created a visual history of everyday life there — from laundry days to weekend parties — as she remembered it in the early 1900s. Two of her untitled works are in the exhibition; one shows people gathering at an outdoor funeral, while the other depicts a courtroom scene.