hotness
shortly after midnight last saturday, there was a fire two buildings down from our apartment. living in our neighborhood, we have become desensitized to the sirens, near or far. we're in close proximity to a fire station and our street is a 'fire alley' in that they use it to quickly get downtown. the building directly across the street from us has a faulty alarm system so the trucks are always coming over.
dag responds to every wailing siren with great bravado. in hindsight, we realized that he was barking up quite a storm and running out to us, circling, basically telling us something was up. we barely batted an eye. we were talking mess about saturday night live after all.
fiance knowles was the first to notice a smell. he checked the ashtray to be sure everything was out. it was. he glanced out the window and shouted to me, "di! grab your shit! there's a fire! grab your pictures! let's go!" i flew off the couch and up to the window. embers were flying through the air. flames flickered away from a building. this was serious.
as fiance harnessed up the dag and i changed into jeans (i was not going out in gauzy pj pants! fire be damned!) and grabbed my purse and glasses. all the while, the boy was telling me to grab our pictures. i just looked around and said, "i can't! there's too much! let's just go."
in the quickest of instants, you realize you won't lose it all...if you lose it all.
the boy is the unofficial building monitor. he quickly ran up and down the floors banging on doors, waking people up, getting them out...just in case. we had to leave with out him. he'd have it no other way (damn hero!). in the haste, i remember grabbing stroller wheels and getting them down stairs. as soon as we got out of the building, we ran into a fire truck raising its ladder up onto our building (did i mention that our building and the 2 surrounding ones are wood shingled!). this was serious.
folks from our building were gathering kitty corner to our address, eyes bleary, clothes rumpled. small smiles shared. looking up at my apartment, i felt nervous and light, as if a wind could catch a hold of me and send me down the street like the embers flying before us. instinctively, i called my mom. holding onto dag's leash and having the boy find us, i felt whole again.
some of the OG's of the building (there was a bad fire a few years back that burned a church down) realized our building was ok and headed back in. a few us hung back, offering our cell phones to some of the displaced or to watch the circus that is fire fighting/life saving. you know that you have to be prepared to move quickly but you're also a kind of frozen too.
thankfully there were no fatalities but 35 folks were left homeless.
on the schedule this week:
1. a fire plan. we want to consolidate and store all our photos together in an easily accessible location. we want to draft up a list of what is sentimental to both of us so that, in the event we're alone, we won't just grab our own stuff.
2. counting our blessings
dag responds to every wailing siren with great bravado. in hindsight, we realized that he was barking up quite a storm and running out to us, circling, basically telling us something was up. we barely batted an eye. we were talking mess about saturday night live after all.
fiance knowles was the first to notice a smell. he checked the ashtray to be sure everything was out. it was. he glanced out the window and shouted to me, "di! grab your shit! there's a fire! grab your pictures! let's go!" i flew off the couch and up to the window. embers were flying through the air. flames flickered away from a building. this was serious.
as fiance harnessed up the dag and i changed into jeans (i was not going out in gauzy pj pants! fire be damned!) and grabbed my purse and glasses. all the while, the boy was telling me to grab our pictures. i just looked around and said, "i can't! there's too much! let's just go."
in the quickest of instants, you realize you won't lose it all...if you lose it all.
the boy is the unofficial building monitor. he quickly ran up and down the floors banging on doors, waking people up, getting them out...just in case. we had to leave with out him. he'd have it no other way (damn hero!). in the haste, i remember grabbing stroller wheels and getting them down stairs. as soon as we got out of the building, we ran into a fire truck raising its ladder up onto our building (did i mention that our building and the 2 surrounding ones are wood shingled!). this was serious.
folks from our building were gathering kitty corner to our address, eyes bleary, clothes rumpled. small smiles shared. looking up at my apartment, i felt nervous and light, as if a wind could catch a hold of me and send me down the street like the embers flying before us. instinctively, i called my mom. holding onto dag's leash and having the boy find us, i felt whole again.
some of the OG's of the building (there was a bad fire a few years back that burned a church down) realized our building was ok and headed back in. a few us hung back, offering our cell phones to some of the displaced or to watch the circus that is fire fighting/life saving. you know that you have to be prepared to move quickly but you're also a kind of frozen too.
thankfully there were no fatalities but 35 folks were left homeless.
on the schedule this week:
1. a fire plan. we want to consolidate and store all our photos together in an easily accessible location. we want to draft up a list of what is sentimental to both of us so that, in the event we're alone, we won't just grab our own stuff.
2. counting our blessings