Alyssum's place burned to a crisp. Please help!

I've got a super-special friend named Alyssum. She may be your friend, too, and if she's not, it's probably only because you've just not met. She's friendly like that, and funny and smart and double-plus talented; for instance, she's an astounding and multi-faceted dancer and also a veterinary student who has stuck her arm up cow's butts.

Here's the thing though—her apartment burned. She lost her sweet kitties (so sad) and many many things. Fortunately, she and her roommate were not at home and are fine.

Fire, jeez—it's just one of those things that you hope hope hope stays out of your life. If you want to help Alyssum out, there's a number of things you can do:

• You can send her well-wishes at her highly entertaining blog, You know, stuff.
• Also, you can find out more about the fire at her Tribe.com blog.
• But the thing you can really do is check out her wish list, where you can sign up for all sorts of Alyssum-helping tasks and things. (Even if you got no extra change, you might still have an opportunity to polish her smoked-up silver—we are talking about a belly dancer here, after all).

Here's a few pictures I've taken of Alyssum. One of my favorite Alyssum moments was an overheard comment by her moments before a contortion performance in Lexington: "Okay, you guys will carry me out and unfold me…"

Help her out if you can. And check those smoke alarms.