Right in front of my house chronicles: The joggers

“Okay, I need to see some milk mustaches. Drink your milk before you leave the dinner table.”

Three little hands grabbed the cup, not glass, of milk in front of them. As they drank their milk they would take turns showing the husband and me their milk mustache progress. They would giggle, we would laugh at them, it was a typical evening Summer dinner time ritual. Everyone that lived in the house was around the table.

So you can imagine our surprise when we heard the front door swing open rather forcefully. The husband and I made eye contact but before we could act we heard a young girl call for help. We ran to the door and as soon as the girl saw us she continued,

“My sister, she fell, please call 911.”

She was half way down our driveway when she said 911. I looked in the direction she ran and saw a body lying motionless on the sidewalk in front of my house. The neighbors were starting to converge.

“You make the call,” I said to the husband. Then I looked at my little boys, “Keep them in here, I’ll go.”

I reached the girl and knelt down next to her. Another woman joined us.

“We were jogging and she tripped on something I think. I don’t know. Is she going to be okay?”

I wish I could have said ‘yes she’s going to be fine.’ But she didn’t look fine. Her eyes were open but she stared straight ahead. She made involuntary movements and drool trickled out of her mouth. I looked at the other woman and she told me to go get a pillow. As I stood up to run I heard the woman start to pray and then the sound of sirens in the distance.

I ran out with a pillow, there were more neighbors. I held the girl by the shoulders and said,

“Where do you live honey? I’ll send someone to get your parents.”

She gave me her address, it wasn’t far. Three or four neighbors took off. We moved out of the way for the Paramedics. The woman that originally arrived with me grabbed my hand and continued to pray.

The girl was eventually put into a ambulance and it speed away. The crowd dispersed. I looked down at the pillow for a few minutes, when I looked up I was alone. Never during the commotion did I get a name. I never saw the praying lady again. But two days later the young girl appeared at my doorstep and she knocked this time.

“I just wanted to thank you for all your help with my sister.”

“Is she okay? What happened?”

There were so many questions and so few answers that evening.

“She’s going to be okay. We were jogging and she stepped on a rock. She went down so fast that she hit her head on the sidewalk before she had time to put her arms out to stop herself.”

We talked for a few moments and hugged. I told her to keep me posted on how her sister was doing but I never heard from her again.

I went inside to finish dinner. I poured three cups of milk and placed them on the table. Looking forward to milk mustaches, I called my family to dinner.

Life is fragile, I have learned to enjoy each day God gives me. I have learned quite a bit over the years just by watching outside my front window.

Shit that happens in front of my house. The telephone pole.

I have decided to start a new series on my blog. Since loosing the Scary Asian Dry Cleaning Dude, which I don't think I will ever get over, I feel my blog is lacking content. And the Russians have been quiet, maybe too quiet.

So let's go way back for my first entry in "Shit that happens in front of my house."
There was a time back in the day when the husband and I had only one kid, Boy #1 and we thought we were busy having a two year old. So after a day of chasing him around the house, we still don't know how he avoided having his chest of drawers smash down on him when he pulled the drawers out and made steps to climb to the top. But there he stood in the middle of his room with the entire piece of furniture toppled over. When he wasn't climbing things he was sticking whatever would fit into the VCR.
But that particular night we got him to bed and settled into our recliners for a quiet night and to watch a little TV. After about an hour we heard a big thud and crunch. Both of our heads snapped up. We looked at each other perplex. The husband was closest to the door. He jumped up and looked outside.
"Call the police."
"Wha..."
"Call an ambulance."
He was out the door before I could get anymore information. I would have liked more information, as I was about to make an emergency call and had no idea why. But I dialed,
"911 what's your emergency?"
"Uh, my husband and I just heard a loud bang in front of our house and he told me to call the police and an ambulance."
"Is someone injured ma'am?"
It was the 80's, I was tethered to a telephone cord. I had no idea what was going on.
"I don't know I can't see what's going on, I'm going by what my husband is yelling at me."
"Okay we'll send someone out."
"Thank you."
I hung up the phone and ran to the door. There I saw a car with it's front end wrapped around the telephone in our front yard. I also saw the husband, several neighbors, one of them an off duty cop. They were talking to a teenage girl. She was standing so I figured we might not need an ambulance. Then I saw the husband point to me at my front door. The girl walked my way and asked,
"Can I use your phone?"
Wide eyed and in awe I said,
"Sure."
I eaves dropped, off course. She was calling her dad. She got off the phone.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah, but I wrecked my dads car."
And she went back outside. 10 minutes later I had a man at my front door asking to use my phone. It was the dad and he was calling a tow truck. He was frazzled.
"Is everything alright?"
"Sure, she's fine the car isn't. My son just totaled my wife's car last week. He's fine, the car isn't. Teenagers. What are you going to do?"
He thanked me and left.
I decided to remain in the house,
1. because I was in my pajamas and
B. because I had a two year old that was amazingly still sleeping.
I waited for the husband to come back and fill me in on what I missed. He walked in the house shaking his head.
"What?" I asked.
"The cop two houses down got there right after me."
"Yeah?"
"We got her out of the car and she was fine. Asked her what happened and she told us she dropped her cigarette and was trying to find it when she ran into the pole."
Then he started to laugh,
"She says to me and the guy she didn't know was a cop not to tell the police that when they get here. She said she was going to tell them she miss judged the car parked on the street and swerved around it hitting the telephone pole. You should have saw her face when she found out George was a cop."

Planning My Escape

"So what are you doing tomorrow?" The husband asks me this during our wild Friday night ritual of sitting on the his and her recliners and seeing who can stay awake the latest.
"I'm staying home until I have to take Boy #3 to work, then I'll grocery shop. What are you doing?"
"Oh I thought I'd work on the house."

When the husband gets up in the morning and puts his painter/work pants on, the rest of the family scatters, like frightened mice. Boy #2 has already made the escape. I woke him up this morning and told him, "Dad's working on the house." He bolted out of bed, stumbled and tried to shake the deep sleep from his head.
"You don't want to be late to work, right? You better get going."
He grabbed his wallet and keys and looked back at me, "But....."
"Go without me, I have to go try to save the other one."

Mother's Day is coming up and this one has a better job than Boy #3, so I saved him first.

When the husband is in "Home Improvement mode" he can never find anything, because after the last "Home Improvement mode" he never put anything away in the same spot he found them from the last time he was in "Home Improvement mode". See the vicious cycle. He has crap everywhere and it messes with his creative Home Improvement abilities if he has to stop what he's doing and look for a screw driver. That's where his family of gophers comes in. So far this morning I've had to "go fer" a Philips head screw driver, a plastic garbage bag and I've had to turn a light switch on 5 different times. Yes, he's messing with the electricicals. Which makes my leaving all the more difficult, I'll feel bad if he electrocutes himself. The dog can perform CPR but she can't dial 911 and I plan on being gone all day if I can get out.

The Home of the Brave

Seven years ago I sat at my desk at work listening to the radio with Bob the copy machine repairman. We listened to the tragic day unfold. I remember stepping outside for some air and noticing how still the sky was and quiet. I guess it shouldn't have surprised me when I went out for the mail this morning at work that I had that same feeling.
It was 9:30 in the morning and the air was still, I looked up at our flag and it just hung there, half staff, unmoving. By the time I left work a breeze had picked up and the flag was waving proudly. It was as if the flag was quietly morning the events of September 11, 2001 along with the rest of the country. And then it picked itself up again, to carry on bravely.

Crackle, Whoosh, Thud

I'm hip to the sound a tree makes when it falls. Because the trees in are neighborhood are, for lack of a better word, whimpy. So when I heard the unmistakable sound of crackle, whoosh, thud, my first thought was, "Oh please let it be my neighbors tree."
Very insensitive of me, but all the neighbors were saying that to themselves. The thought of spending, what was turning out to be a very lazy weekend, on the phone with insurance companies, tree removal and contractors didn't appeal to me in the least.
This post can remain somewhat humorous because no one was under the tree. And it wasn't my tree. When I looked out the front door there was a tree strategically place across the street and the neighbors were starting to gather.
"Anyone call 911 yet?"
There were some blank stares and heads shaking no.
"I'll do it." I'm a take charge kind of person and I've called 911 more times then I've cared too.
I told the 911 operator my street name and she said, "Fallen tree across street and no one hurt?"
"Yep."
"We're already on it."
I put my sweatshirt on and congregated with the neighbors, some of us hadn't seen each other since last fall, so it was nice to catch up.
A tree across the main road in a development needs to be removed immediately. You know in case anyone has a heart attack or falls into our lake, an ambulance needs to be able to drive through. The first to arrive was one policeman and a chainsaw. Boy #2 informed me later that he was using the chainsaw wrong and it could have kicked back at him. As the policeman cut pieces of the tree off, the neighbors all jumped in to clear the street. It's great to have good neighbors. And I stood their wondering if I had time to get my camera to take a picture for when I blog about this. I didn't want to spoil the moment of neighborhood camaraderie, so I stayed put, didn't want to miss any gossip either.