It's been over a week since the fire.  Things aren't settling back to normal yet, but much of the crisis is gone.  That doesn't make things easier though - in a crisis, there's more help available.  Now the more tedious work of cataloging loss, replacing items, finding a new house, and every other major and minor detail must be attended to.  What makes it worse is that even if there were more help, the assistance that could possibly be provided is limited.  It's not the emergency kind where clothes of any style and many sizes could be used to help cover gaps, it's where specific things are needed at specific times.

Combine all that with the fact that the kids are tired of living in hotels, eating fast food, not having personal items, and so on.  The fact that everyone is cramped up in one room (or two) just makes matters worse.

Things came to a head a couple times.  Nothing real major, but it's important to handle these things early.  The problem is that the underlying causes - the loss of personal space and possession, won't be solved for some time.  They can't be.  Even if they could replace all the personal items lost right now, there'd be no place to put them.  Even if they got a house tomorrow, there'd be nothing to put in there.  The fact that neither of these two things are immediately possible means a solution will also take time.

It was probably a combination of all of this, but most of that family came over today and almost promptly fell asleep.  For hours.  I'm not complaining, it was probably good for them.