Sunday’s wild ride

All the coughing has disturbed my sleep, and I do so like to sleep! After being up a couple times in the night, somehow I got a few more hours of rest before the official start of the day. Then the dreams came---this time I was in a bathroom in a home not recognized, with a toddling Timmy. It seemed like I was packing up to go somewhere but not sure of the specifics. All of a sudden, Timmy went over backward, straight back, and smacked his head on the tile floor and the baseboard. And then quiet….

I scooped him and was saying his name over and over, as he looked at me and sort of smiled, like he knew a secret. His eyes were rolling in his head as I ran toward the kitchen with him in my arms. (excuse me a moment here…..) yelling, “Call 9-1-1!” and handed Justin my cell phone. His father was on the regular phone on a business call so Justin was calling rescue from my cell. He was talking like he had a rubber band or something in his mouth, sort of goofing around, saying he was getting advertising, and I told him to keep trying. I screamed at his father, “Hang up that phone! Call 9-1-1!!!. Justin told me that we should not cover Timmy with a sheet so I started to pull his socks off and remove his pants to keep him cool, quite frantically. And thankfully, I woke up.

I hate those type of dreams! I am affected by them much of the day, and now I’ve done the same thing to you! They set the tone for the day sometimes as mine are quite vivid, and in some ways, are replays of actual events. Maybe it was because of yesterday being Hannah’s one year anniversary or that I was going to hear my own funeral sermon preached later. But no matter what, 5:15 a.m. was far too early for me to be up!

On the way back from Victory, I noticed the overhead sign along the freeway informing drivers to move to the right hand lane and exit. But why? It must have just happened because there was no back-up of traffic at the moment. But then there certainly was! All three lanes before the St. Augustine Road exit were blocked with rescue vehicles so everyone had to merge right, exit, and the police were directing drivers where to do a U-turn to get back on the freeway once exited. I decided to get gas right away, since I had time before the church meeting at GS. On the exit ramp, I noticed police cars and a wrecker below where the other wreck was, and there, half way up the hill toward the freeway, among the trees, was a car!

I thought at first it came over the side, but later I read that she had lost control on the ramp and drove up the hill. A fire truck was parked above her on the overpass, attempting to secure the car as the lady was afraid to get out. Pow! A pick-up truck slammed into the fire truck, injuring its three passengers, but not the firemen. So, no injuries in the first crash but three seriously in the second one.

There were so many red and blue lights, and even official vehicles, SUVs, with red lights but no other markings, going up the down ramp to the scene. It was pretty dramatic, from what I could see, and was glad to be back on the road to church.

While watching the wretched Jaguar game, my laptop shut off for no reason. Hmmmm….now what? Well, it seems the power cord is touchy and did not wish to be moved. Eventually I could get it to come back up but then it would quit again. This is not healthy for the laptop so I unplugged it. At the moment, I thought this was a just such a terrible situation----but it gets better!

Having to sit at my desk then, to use this computer, I was waiting for the Packer game to come on and watching something on TV. Suddenly, I heard this loud ‘snap’ from the hallway and went to check it out. (Oh, I should mention the torrential rains and extremely high winds we were experiencing.) As I walked into the hall, the powerful stench of hot wires met my nose. Of course, my smoke detector is on the table in the hallway, waiting for a new 9v battery, which I again forgot to pick up from the store yesterday. Okay, now what?, as I frantically went room to room, sniffing and searching for a fire. Also, I was calling Hugh, my neighbor and friend, who came up to help me figure it out. He could smell it outside, due in part to my having the door open waiting for him. I told him about the circuit breaker popping so he went to switch it back on, and was looking for where it affected.

Then I heard a hissing/sizzling sound and determined it was from the TV. I pulled it out and Hugh said, “You got smoke here, kiddo” and I grabbed that plug out of the outlet so quick. It seems water had run down the wall, or dripped down, and got into the surge protector power strip. The sizzling sound was likely the floor under the protector being singed.

I called Travis and Jessica’s house to see if they had water, and why, yes, they certainly did! They had been putting towels down all afternoon, had it coming in in buckets, figuratively speaking. I had water in the river room, backing up to the wall where the TV is located in the living room, as well as the small window where the leak was in August.

Hugh suggested I call Jeff, our maintenance chairman, thinking he was home, but actually, I reached him in Boise! I apologized for bothering him but he was glad to know what was going on and hoped I was okay.

At this point I was still quite shaky but decided to go upstairs to ask the 5^th floor family if they had a leak anywhere. They are in the process of moving in so had boxes everywhere, but she was able to check around the sliding doors and the master bedroom window. Nope, no water in the house. The permeation must happen outside and run down into our houses, as has occurred in the past. For several years now we have been free of these leaks but now, they are back!

As I came back to my place, my other neighbors were just getting home, so they checked out Jessica’s leaks first and then came to my house. They pulled my TV stand further out as I got towels to mop the water. Rosemary got behind it and laid them out for me. In the meanwhile, Tracy came upstairs to see what was going on as Jeff had called her to look for leaks. Sure enough, it was wet a bit in their unit too. Both Tracy and Rosemary offered their guest rooms to me if I was too upset to stay here, and as thankful as I was for their offers, declined. I needed to stay here to keep an eye on things, and watch the Packer game.

Have I mentioned lately what nice neighbors I have?