I had a hard time falling asleep on Halloween night. The fireworks in the neighborhood had me on edge. I hate loud noises as it is and when they are coming from next door and are loud enough to shake the walls of my house, getting to sleep is nearly impossible for me.
In Steve's case, all I had to to was turn on a movie (Rocky Horror Picture Show! - little did I know I would have my own horror show in a couple of hours) and he was out in 15 minutes. Must be nice. Jerk.
So I lay in bed, skittish and jumpy and nervous at every BANG! SIZZLE! BOOM! POP!
Throw in nervous barking from our tenant's dogs in the basement (who are usually non-barkers, but they were scared like most animals during fireworks) and my chances of sleep were slim.
Throw in a street lined bumper to bumper with cars from the party going on next door and people wandering around the street yelling and shooting fireworks off at passing cars, and hooting and hollering coming from the neighbors back yard and I was one pissed off old broad. (Did I ever feel like an old broad) Even Sleeping Beauty Steve woke up from his usually dead deep sleep.
Finally around 11pm, things quieted down enough for me to fall asleep.
Ahhhhh....
But then the phone rang at midnight. That's never a good thing.
And it was our downstairs tenants. Oh god, I thought, what the hell do they want. This can't be good.
Steve took the call. Seconds in, he flew out of bed and ran out of our room into Ruby's room. From there he yelled out, "OH MY GOD!!"
At that point I was pretty sure that my worst fears had come true and someone had crawled through the window in the night and stolen my baby, or they were still in her room holding a knife over her body, or some other horrible scene. I flew out of bed grasping my heart saying, "What's wrong?! What's wrong?!"
It was then that I could smell the burning and saw the orange glow coming from outside.
Steve said, "Grab Ruby and get out of the house!!!" He then yelled out the window to our male tenant and told him to meet him in the front of the house. He then said something about getting the garden hose to start spraying down our roof.
I scooped Ruby out of her crib (while she laughed because apparently this was all hilarious to her) and ran out the back door. That is where I was greeted by a huge towering fire lighting up the neighborhood. The neighbor's 25 foot cedar hedges were ablaze. It was HUGE and bright and it was loud. Fire really does roar.
And the embers were floating over our house.
I am thankful to our tenants who I would have previously complained about for keeping late hours - but thanks to their late hours they were outside for a cigarette when they first heard, then saw the fire. They called 911 and then went and pounded on the neighbor's door and phoned us to get everyone out.
The fire department were there way faster than I could have imagined. They were able to get the fire under control within a few minutes. (Unfortunately it took much longer for me to get my anxiety attack under control). We were able to go back in our house and try to settle down and get back to sleep. Not easy for me since I was sure that there were embers sitting on my roof smoldering.
Now, I love a man in uniform. And firemen are probably my favorite. But I would prefer that maybe they come by in the daytime when I'm not in my pyjamas with my hair up in rollers (oh it might as well have been!), and when I could get a better look at them (two truckloads of them to be exact). And I would also prefer that they stop by to perhaps help a kitten out of a tree, instead of because the idiot neighbors who some years previously, had been unable to live in their house for two years because IT CAUGHT ON FIRE, had a fireworks party and were too stupid to clean up afterwards and make sure all sparks were out and therefore just about burned down the neighborhood.
I did however, very much enjoy watching the policemen in uniform showing up the next day to have a "discussion" with the neighbors and to take pictures of the damage.
I wish I had thought to get pictures of the fire while it was burning. Bad blogger that I am, I could only think of getting my baby out of the house safely. I did get a picture of what was left of the neighbors back yard the next day. Doesn't really do it justice - but those pretty green hedges to the right? They used to go right across. And those ugly, black, charred sticks poking out of the ground? They used to be pretty cedar hedges. 
I hope the neighbors are on good terms with their neighbors behind them. And I hope they don't mind sharing their yard with the pit bull that lives behind them who is now going to enjoy his newly expanded roaming area.
I'm bringing back the TILT. Although I can't make any long term commitments, I am doing this in an effort to bring back my blogging mojo and/or break through my writers block.
