M y wife — as usual — understood the situation before I did. The night before, Monday, Jan. 6, we’d both been awoken by the wind. Hundred-year-old pine branches snapping off like matchsticks. Iron lawn furniture tumbling across the yard. Our dog, shaking, tried to crawl under our pillows. “This is not good,” my wife said. We’d moved to Altadena a few weeks earlier. Our dream house, right at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains — three years of permits and renovations in the making.