Sunday, October 19, 2008

Fun Monday - Deja Vu All Over Again


Today's Fun Monday is being hosted by Sarah, who set forth this task for us:
I would like you to take your camera (or your artistic talents!) on a day tour with you. I want to know where you go, what you get up to on a “normal” day (disclaimer - it doesn’t have to be “normal”!). All the details you would consider boring! You are free to make your FM posts as long or as short as you’d like!


Normal day? I am beginning to think that perhaps there is no such thing. Never are two days the same in my life. Sometimes I think it would be nice, but then sometimes I think that might turn out to be a bit boring.

I could feel my heart pounding and I struggled to wake up from a not-so-wonderful dream. Very strange, because most of the time I don't seem to dream much and when I do, they're usually lovely. But not this morning. Everytime I seemed to make headway towards consciousness, the dream would pull me back down to that place that makes my heart race and my head feel like it's about to explode.

Actually, I thought that's what happened. There was a loud crash and the house shook, followed by a piercing squealing sound like misaligned belts on a car... But as I realized that those things were real, I jumped out of bed and went to the window, cranking open the slats of the blinds as fast as I could. The squealing noise was fading and looking out, I could see nothing out of the ordinary. The streetlights illuminated a quiet street. No traffic. No disasters. But in the far-off, I could hear tires squealing and thought to myself, "Crazy night at the mall parking lot..."

I checked the clock as I crawled back beneath the covers. 4am.

Sleep was elusive after that. Everytime I closed my eyes, my heart would race and thunder in my ears. After a while, a light appeared outside and I got up again to see. This time it was quiet, except for the rhythmic thump of newspapers hitting driveways. Such a mundane thing, but it calmed me and I was able to sleep after that.

A few hours later, more noise. This time there were two police cars in the street in front of my house and a big utility truck. I pulled on some shorts and went downstairs, leaving sleeping hubby and boy upstairs.

IMG_1595


With the intention of getting my paper and a little information, I stepped out into the cool morning and tried to wander nonchalantly up my driveway. My hair was crazy and I realized I was wearing a gigantic t-shirt that read "I live with FEAR (and sometimes she lets me hold the remote)" because all three of the men standing in the middle of the road turned to look at me as I approached and tried to hide smirks.

IMG_1591


"What happened?"

One of the policemen pointed at my power pole, which had split down the middle, part of it leaning crazily from the weight of the wires pulling on it. It would seem that some drunk had been hugging the curb a bit closely (on the wrong side of the street), bent the handle on my mailbox and slammed the front quarter of their car into the telephone pole. The pole had already been weakened by TS Fay back in August, and this insult to injury did it in.

I had been wondering why the flag on my mailbox was standing up.

As I headed back towards the house, I noticed this:

IMG_1590


At least this time, the power box was still attached to the house...

IMG_1583

I pretended that everything was normal. I got my coffee, my glasses and my newspaper and settled on the couch to read. Darling Man came down and asked me what was going on - and as I explained, the power went out. I wound up reading the paper on the front porch and keeping tabs on their progress.

IMG_1588

They set the new pole.

IMG_1589

Reattached the wires...

IMG_1592

The whole road was blocked off for about three hours while this operation took place. Neighbors would come out and scratch their heads every now and then, but not a one of them asked what happened!

Finally, the power came back. The guys packed up their trucks and headed out. We waved and yelled "Thank you!" at them as we went back inside.

The rest of the day was a bit anti-climactic. I did laundry. Fed the dogs. The guys played video games before Darling Man went to pick up his other son and go to see the Tampa Bay Bucaneers play tonight.

Then the boy and I went to an open house for the one we lived in before we bought this one (I was curious as to what work had been done), only it wasn't open and there was no sign of a realtor. Somehow, I don't think my former landlord is getting much out of his realtor...

We dropped books off at the library, went and wandered the mall until my head was aching. Then we went to the OTHER mall, had coffee, milk and a snack at the bookstore there, and came home.

Z immediately headed upstairs to play StarWars on line, and I sat down to watch "My Big, Fat, Greek Wedding". We had ramen noodles for dinner, the boy went to bed, and I came in here...

My normal day! I'll be checking email, posting this blog, and doing a touch-and-go at Facebook - and that will be the end of this day!

14 comments:

Faye said...

Sayre, it's a given that any sounds that you hear in the dark are going to be even more frightening. So hate storms at night because you can't see what's falling on your house--or in your case, trying to lift its roof! Glad at least that you still had power so you could have some coffee while "supervising" the repairs!

I'm being lazy about Fun Monday this week. However, if you'd like to read about a day getting to and around Amsterdam, check out my latest post. It was a "normal" travel day.

survivor said...

Great day -Glad you were 'on the job' watching the repairs. LOL I would have liked to see the pic of you in the domestic goddess 'FEAR' nite shirt. :)))))

karisma said...

Arggh Facebook! My sister signed me up to that and I have never used it! So don't take offense when you speak to me over there and find I am ignorant! He he! (Its right up there with My Space I tell you!)

All I can say now is "Would you like some Windex with that? It's a greek wedding cure all you know!"

Hootin Anni said...

Hmmmmmmmmmm, ironic!!! We had the same thing in our neighborhood just the other day. Someone ran into the street light pole and it broke in half!!! Then, a few days later, the power company came and replaced the pole.

Loved your take on Fun Monday's theme.

Mine's shared if you'd like to drop by.

Anonymous said...

I love "My Big Fat Greek Wedding."

(Just use windex.)

Unknown said...

Too bad you had to be awakened at 4 a.m., but it was nice of the Universe to give you an "event" to photograph for your normal day! :)

Anonymous said...

Wow! And to think all that happened just so you would have fodder for you Mon Funday post. Exciting.
Love the slogan on that shirt.

I had a t-shirt that said, "Will work for sex," that I only wore while doing yard work. Of course, that was the day that a couple of people from a local church came walking up my driveway. Needless to say, when they were within 'reading distance' they turned and walked away.
I couldn't figure out why until I went back into the house that afternoon and realized I had it on.

Facebook? Not for me...neither is My Space or Twitter. I spend too much time just blogging.
Have a wonderful week.

Driftwood and Pumpkin said...

WOWzers! Glad the pole didn't come all the way down! The same sorta thing happened to me the week I moved into this house. The neighbor backed his dump truck into the utility pole and snapped ours in half! Nothing like a little "Welcome to the neighborhood!"

Anonymous said...

Wow, well that's definitely not a "normal" day. So very dramatic! I'm glad the rest of your day was a bit anti-climatic, after that start it sounded like it needed some sense of calm.

Thanks so much for sharing your day with us.

Sarah x

Anonymous said...

Gosh! Definitely NOT a typical day! I am glad you are OK. Thanks for sharing this with us!

Tiggerlane said...

OMG...WOW! What a day! Loved the photos!! And that Tampa Bay game was FUN for a Tampa Bay fan! NOT fun for a Seattle fan...

Great job!

ChrisB said...

The good thing about this little incident was that it gave you some good material for this post! Great pictures as well.

wendishness said...

Great post, wow what an eventful morning you had but sorry your sleep was invaded by a silly drunk

Anonymous said...

That's it! I've decided that your house is a beacon for bad luck. Seriously!! It's time to move before you discover an ancient Indian burial ground underneath or a well to Hell in your basement.

(can you tell I LOVE Halloween? ha..ha..ha..)