One Helluva Weekend

My household is typical - usually.  I have a routine, dealing with dogs, walks, feedings, then my own agenda of teaching, the gym, yoga, painting, (ok, that one has been real iffy lately) and then there is grocery shopping, cleaning, (ok, that one is not high on my list) laundry; you get the picture.  Same as most average households in America.  And yet, somehow, things are never really dull around here, even though on a daily basis I don’t really have much to talk about. 

This past weekend provided me with a great prompt for writing.  As I posted on my FB page : my dog faked her death, a light fixture blew up and the fire department arrived with hatchets. 

So let me explain.

Gracie, as most know, is my elderly dog dying the slowest possible death due to cancer after finally recovering from the results of a vestibular syndrome attack last fall.  (The cancer and syndrome are unrelated except for timing.) I say it that way because this weekend, I realized, Miss Gracie has become a drama queen and I’m having to develop a sense of humor about her impending death because otherwise it’s just too sad.  

Anyway, on Thursday morning, Gracie was listless.  As the day wore on, she was unable to eat, could barely breathe or stand up, much less walk on her own, and basically was lying on her side all day.  I kept vigil and waited until mid-afternoon to call her human daddy, who promptly left important meetings (after all, he is a VBAIP- very busy and important person,) booked a very expensive flight home and arrived in a horrific downpour at 10 p.m. Like my day wasn’t already a ton of fun, most of it spent in tears emotionally preparing to take Gracie in to euthanize the next day, I had to drive in that crazy storm at 45 mph on a 70 mph highway. 

But then, her daddy walked in the door and from the moment she saw him, Gracie’s ears perked up and dang if that dog didn’t decide that nope, it wasn’t time after all.  By Sunday, she was in full motion again, eating what she could ingest and even taunting her Eugene-dog.  If I had not lived with the whole episode, I’d not have believed it.  That dog has more lives than any cat I’ve ever had.  

But no, that’s not all to the weekend.  On Saturday, while Gracie was still recovering from her episode, whatever that was, I was upstairs and her daddy down, when he yells at me, “What the blank are you doing up there?!!?” 

To which I reply, “What.?”

About that time I hear a loud buzzing.  And lights begin to flash behind me. So I ran into the hallway to find a ceiling fixture furiously buzzing and flashing light out from under the globe! no less and then there was smoke. A scene from a bad 70’s sci-fi movie. Oh no. 

I flipped off the switch on the wall and yelled to Ernie “Grab Gabby and get her out, the smoke alarm is about to go off.” 

It did. (Gabby hates smoke alarms.  She freaks and paces and won’t come in the house for hours)

So scrambling through about 5 minutes of conversation about what was happening and what we should do,  we decided to call the fire department.  

me:“ Is this _____ Fire Department?”

dispatch: “yes, this is dispatch.”

Did I mention I called the non-emergency number?  No.  I called the non-emergency number. 

me:“This is NOT an emergency, but I have a question to ask....well, this is what happened....” (repeat above story) 

“Do you have some way to tell if there is a fire in the walls or ceiling?”

dispatch: “We can send a truck out there.” 

me:“This is NOT an emergency.”

dispatch: “They have sensors that can detect heat in your walls to see if anything is smoldering.” 

me: “Perfect.”

dispatch: “We’ll send a truck out, but first I have to ask some questions....”

me: “This is NOT an emergency.”

dispatch: “I understand.  We’ll send out a truck and they’ll check it out for you.” 

me:“Can you please not turn on the sirens then?” 

She actually giggled. 

So, said truck arrives shortly, no sirens.  Four, FOUR, firemen in full outfits, hatchets and other wall damaging items in tow.  My husband goes to the truck:

“ I hope you don’t plan on using those things in my house...”

I don’t know the response....

But they all came in, with the house-destroying equipment and I became a little nervous.  

me: “I TOLD her it was NOT an emergency.”

fireman. grinning. sortof. : “ They’ll just check it out.” 

so grinning fireman, who it turns out knows my neighbors, stays with me at the bottom of the stairs and asks if I know my neighbors, which duh, I do, since we are right next door and our houses practically entwine...but that’s another story...so I say, “Yes.” 

In the meantime, with an infrared sensor of some sort the other firemen traipse through my bedroom to get to the attic with my husband and a third one scrutinizes the light fixture to conclude that we a. don’t have a fire and b. we need a new fixture and c. we could probably use an electrician. 

So we turned off the breaker, which made seeing anything in about half the house impossible, got the electrician over after hours on a Saturday night to tell us we needed a new fixture and tie off the wiring so we could turn the breaker back on. 

I think Ernie was actually, for the first time, glad to fly back out Sunday afternoon.  It was one helluva weekend. 

I’ll be shopping in the extremely near future for new ceiling light fixtures.  I’m replacing all of them.

And Gracie is still with us. Miss Drama Queen, like she doesn't already get enough attention.  God love her. 

And lastly, in spite of all the drama, thank you to Chickahominy Volunteer Fire Department.  It could have all been a very different story, and they came prepared.