Enough Excitement for One Day

After a particularly fun evening at KOL last night, I was still wound for sound when I got home - could have been the bit of caffeine I ingested last night - but I didn't turn off the light until 12am.

Mr. Happy, who is trying desperately to finishing mixing a metal band's album before the baby arrives, got home around 2:30am. He's worked some late nights, in conjunction with teaching at the local arts and technology school, so he was cutting some serious logs when the sound of sirens woke us up at 5:15am this morning.

I wasn't too concerned upon hearing the sirens - the fire station is about a kilometre from our house and they often traverse our street. It was when the truck stopped almost right outside of our house that my eyes snapped open. I reached over and shook Mr. Happy awake.

Now, it may seem cruel to wake up a guy who has only been asleep for a couple hours, but:
1. I don't move very quickly.
2. Despite the fact that my glasses are always right next to the bed, for some reason, I always insist on him being my eyes when we hear a commotion outside of our house (our street is busy, there are often commotions).

When Mr. Happy got to the window, it looked like the yellow house on the corner was on fire! I struggled out too and saw that the neighbours were in the back yard with their dogs and cat. We were horrified at the thought that their house was on fire, so I went out to find out if they needed anything - a place to put the dogs, a cup of coffee... I wasn't sure if they needed anything, but it seemed like the right thing to do, even at that early hour.

It turns out, it wasn't their house that was on fire, although it came pretty close. The city has been doing construction on our street, so there are a couple porta-potties on the corner of Slater Street. Apparently, someone set fire to the porta-potty and it, in turn, caught the telephone/ power pole on fire - thankfully, the police were doing a patrol and saw the fire. They woke up Linda and her husband and told them to get out (b/c of the danger from the power pole).

Thankfully, the fire station is just down the hill and the firemen had it out in minutes - but not before some of the siding on the house melted!

As often happens in our neighbourhood, we neighbours can go all winter without seeing each other. It's not until spring when we're all emerging from hibernation, that we start chatting over the fences. Linda was surprised to see that I'm pregnant.

I, being completely shameless, used her early morning discombobulation to ask about a share in the rhubarb crop!

Yes, yes I did.

And Linda, being a very nice lady, said, "Sure. I'll be home on the weekend. We can pull it then."

All I could think was, "Ok, baby, don't you dare make an appearance until next week."