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.

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.

"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:

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

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.

They set the new pole.

Reattached the wires...

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!