Fire and Mugging in two days!
This past weekend was an interesting one. The serenity of a lazy night of video watching in the apartment Sunday night was broken by a fire alarm downstairs. Nothing to surprising really. I mean, you only need a little smoke to get that thing going - "probably just someone baking," I thought. But wait... what's this? My ear distinguishes that the fire alarm in the hallway has just kicked on as well. Uh-oh. Maybe this is worth a pause and a visit. I burst out the door and down two half-flights to find our downstairs neighbor's door wide open. As I round the corner, I see orange light emitting from behind a wall - the wall to the kitchen, since it is a duplicate layout of our own apartment. As quickly as I popped my head in, I was turned around, running back upstairs to grab our fire extinguisher. (In retrospect, I'm not sure why I didn't just assume they had one and try to help them locate and use it.) I fling open our door, tell ticklemerisi that our neighbors have a kitchen fire, grab one of our two fire extinguishers and bolt back downstairs. As I come into the neighbor's apartment again, I see less orange, but the smoke it strong and choking. The window has been opened, but I'm focused on the kitchen. I dash around to the stove only to find what is now, happily, a tiny little grease fire ignited next to one burner. Holding the extinguisher in my right hand, I squeeze the trigger... nothing! Oh wait, the safety peg! Only this one doesn't have a peg. It's a tab, but it's intuitively placed enough that I snap it right off. Three squirts of foamy liquid and the stove fire's out. My neighbor gestures for the extinguisher, so I pass it and turn to look out the open window. One of the "lawn" chairs is playing host to a flaming guest and my neighbor is squirting foam over what remains of what was to be their dinner for the night - fried fish. Everyone exits the apartment and I rush upstairs to tell ticklemerisi that the fire's out. At this point, sirens can already be heard in the distance. I go outside to check on things. Everyone is okay! The only injury: a burn on my neighbor's thumb from where she grabbed the flaming iron skillet to launch the contents out the window into our pebble courtyard. Firemen arrive, check the apartment, check the people and have my neighbor fill out a report. It may have been a wasted trip for them, but that beats a necessary trip! The humorous part is that as I'm moving to walk back into our small wing of the apartment, I see our first floor neighbor shuffling out, still half asleep with a dumbfounded look just after the fire engine has left. I tell him the excitement just ended and he missed it. He almost slept through the entire incident and wouldn't have even known.
The following evening's events were less dramatic. I stopped by the LoBill grocery store to get a couple things. We often go to the larger store, but this one's closer, so I go here for small things even though it's in a shadier side of town - our side. I'm about third in line at the checkout counter when a woman jogs into the store and more calmly than expected explains that she just had her purse stolen by a guy who ran "that way." I momentarily felt the urge to drop my things and give chase, but either fear, the realization that the burglar was running and this woman had come back in more slowly or the vague hope that "somebody else" was on top of the situation kept me standing in place. The store manager was on the scene in a flash, but all he could do was call the police, console the woman and post an employee or two as "guards" outside the entrance for the night - like the guy's gonna return, right! A group of three guys next to me ask who the guy was. The woman insists she doesn't know. They ask: "was it the guy who was standing right there (they gesture to the right of the entrance)?" "Yeah, that's right," she says. "I saw the guy!," boasts one of the three. "I can totally identify him!" I wasn't a witness per se and hadn't even noticed this guy loitering when I entered, so I left. I immediately thought: "What if I had given chase?," then "What if I had caught him?," and then "What if he'd had a gun." I know that chasing the guy down would have been the chivalrous thing to do and had I been out front at the time of the purse snatching, I may have reacted more on gut instinct, but I couldn't help thinking that a woman's stolen purse is not worth getting shot over. It certainly sucks for her, but hopefully she's only out the money and headache of canceling all her cards, replacing her license and keys, etc. I wasn't proud of myself, but I wasn't convinced I should be disappointed either.
Going back to the previous weekend, it was wonderful. We had a great time up in Michigan, just across the water from the UP. We stayed in the same quaint hotel that we did on our honeymoon and again last year. Two years being married! We reflected a lot on what matters and doesn't matter. What does matter, for example, is that we truly love each other no matter what and really appreciate having each other in our lives. What doesn't matter are all the endless spats and stupid things we frequently find to argue about. We managed to find few such things to argue about on this particular weekend, instead choosing to be free to fully enjoy our surroundings. I didn't meet my quota of whitefish sandwiches, but I did eat one. It really wasn't amazing enough to encourage me to even try to eat the half-dozen or so more I'd "committed" to, so I let the thought go. We visited most of our routine spots: the fudge shop, ticklemerisi's favorite jewelry store, and the Irish pub on the island, Sinclair's, where we usually enjoy our best meal of the visit. The best part of the vacation was the hiking, which was far too short. Mackinaw Island has trails all over the interior both paved and unpaved. The unpaved are best because you really feel like your out in nature away from society.
It's a busy week at work and I have to get back to it, but hope this made for some enjoyable reading. I'll try to keep it up.
The following evening's events were less dramatic. I stopped by the LoBill grocery store to get a couple things. We often go to the larger store, but this one's closer, so I go here for small things even though it's in a shadier side of town - our side. I'm about third in line at the checkout counter when a woman jogs into the store and more calmly than expected explains that she just had her purse stolen by a guy who ran "that way." I momentarily felt the urge to drop my things and give chase, but either fear, the realization that the burglar was running and this woman had come back in more slowly or the vague hope that "somebody else" was on top of the situation kept me standing in place. The store manager was on the scene in a flash, but all he could do was call the police, console the woman and post an employee or two as "guards" outside the entrance for the night - like the guy's gonna return, right! A group of three guys next to me ask who the guy was. The woman insists she doesn't know. They ask: "was it the guy who was standing right there (they gesture to the right of the entrance)?" "Yeah, that's right," she says. "I saw the guy!," boasts one of the three. "I can totally identify him!" I wasn't a witness per se and hadn't even noticed this guy loitering when I entered, so I left. I immediately thought: "What if I had given chase?," then "What if I had caught him?," and then "What if he'd had a gun." I know that chasing the guy down would have been the chivalrous thing to do and had I been out front at the time of the purse snatching, I may have reacted more on gut instinct, but I couldn't help thinking that a woman's stolen purse is not worth getting shot over. It certainly sucks for her, but hopefully she's only out the money and headache of canceling all her cards, replacing her license and keys, etc. I wasn't proud of myself, but I wasn't convinced I should be disappointed either.
Going back to the previous weekend, it was wonderful. We had a great time up in Michigan, just across the water from the UP. We stayed in the same quaint hotel that we did on our honeymoon and again last year. Two years being married! We reflected a lot on what matters and doesn't matter. What does matter, for example, is that we truly love each other no matter what and really appreciate having each other in our lives. What doesn't matter are all the endless spats and stupid things we frequently find to argue about. We managed to find few such things to argue about on this particular weekend, instead choosing to be free to fully enjoy our surroundings. I didn't meet my quota of whitefish sandwiches, but I did eat one. It really wasn't amazing enough to encourage me to even try to eat the half-dozen or so more I'd "committed" to, so I let the thought go. We visited most of our routine spots: the fudge shop, ticklemerisi's favorite jewelry store, and the Irish pub on the island, Sinclair's, where we usually enjoy our best meal of the visit. The best part of the vacation was the hiking, which was far too short. Mackinaw Island has trails all over the interior both paved and unpaved. The unpaved are best because you really feel like your out in nature away from society.
It's a busy week at work and I have to get back to it, but hope this made for some enjoyable reading. I'll try to keep it up.