Carla Schoepfle

On my walk to work today, I saw a strange sight.  There was what appeared to be a lot of smoke coming out of one of the mulch rings that the county puts around all the small trees in the parks.  Since there were no actual big flames, I didn’t believe it was actually smoke till I took a second look.  An unfiltered cigarette butt had lit the mulch on fire.  Two dog walkers asked if I had a cell phone.  So I called 911 (for the first time in my whole life).

911 asked where the fire was, and I gave them the nearest cross street and the address of the apartment building across the street.  Then they asked how close it was to the building.  It feels very silly to say – “Uhh it’s in a park next to a tree and not near any building and it’s a small fire”.  So they took my name and telephone number and hung up.

However on the walk home, the fire was definitely put out (and mulch moved to double check).  Apparently Pete and Ian saw the fire trucks that came to rescue the tree from the cigarette butt.

To start the story – you must first know that we have two sets of power lines that go across our property.  The ones that go by the front yard where we get our power and the ones that go across the back yard where the houses behind us get their power.   Because of where the poles are set – the only way to access the pole that holds up the lines in the back of our lot – it from our back yard (the other side has a garage directly blocking the pole from the other side).

So yesterday morning we were putting magnetic letters on the fridge when we heard a loud “crack” noise.  The power pole in the back yard had broken at the base and was leaning on the garage in our behind neighbor’s property.  We quickly called the power company (as probably other people did too).

Within 30 minutes the fire department had been over to take a look.  The fire truck never made it down our street.  The fire fighters had to hike it through the 2+ feet of snow on the ground.

Another hour and a half later the first person from the power company made it out.  He mentioned it was “white out” conditions on the road and it had taken him an hour to make it the mile from his last stop to our house.  He also mentioned that they were going to have to hand carry a new pole into the back yard (at this moment I was thinking a full 40 foot pole) and that we was going to need us to move our cars!!!  Please notice that there had been 2 feet on the ground from the previous weekend, and although we’d dug the cars out then – there had been another foot of snow since then.

After lunch I visited the neighbors across the street and next door to ask if we could move our cars into their driveways (one each).  I have the best neighbors as they came out to shovel their driveways (and part of our street) so we could move the cars for the power company!  We actually had to dig out our walk way so we could move the snow over enough as the mountain of snow next to the driveway was already too tall to reach the top of.

We were done shoveling by 1:30 and the power trucks were already showing up!  There were 3 boom lifts and a utility truck carrying a “temporary” 20 foot pole to sister up to the broken one.  The guys worked hard and managed to get a huge hole dug (with the biggest post hole digger I’ve ever seen), and the new pole carried back, set in place.  I was totally surprised that they used the cable TV and phone lines as their winch mount to pull the pole upright.  The guys were done by 7:30 when Ian went to bed.

Now I’m just wondering (as the sister-ing job is with 1 bolt and some rope) when the permanent pole will be put in place…..  However, we’re really lucky we had power (so hot chocolate) for the whole time!

Do Over-

So some days you have days where you wish they could just be done over.  Friday was one of those days.  First of all - I was excited because it was my birthday and we were leaving for vacation the next day.  So all the hype was there for a letdown.

As I hate coming home and having a mess - I wanted to get a few things done around the house.  But it’s almost comical about how everything that could go wrong did…

• First - It took a while to find the screwdriver and allenwrench to take apart the crib that Ian doesn’t use any more.
• Then when I started sweeping - I gashed my thumb open on the welding rods in the basement.  As the blood was dripping on the floor - I definitely needed a bandaid.  However, we were extremely low - and only had some gag bandaids left.  At least there was the duck-tape themed bandaid though. 
• Then when getting the old cat tower out to the trash - I managed to fall down the stairs.  To add insult to injury (OK - just a small scratch on my neck) I landed in wet cat litter (since I’d shaken the rugs out earlier).
• Then there was the 18 sticks of Trident in the washing machine (Luckily I found the damage before it all went in the dryer)
• Finally after 5 hours of cleaning and packing - it was time to go-to Target for some last minute supplies.  But when I get there - I search my pockets for the list.  Then I search the car.  Why would it be any of these places (since I found it after I went shopping in the recycle bin).
• But apparently everywhere in the world is out of medium size swim diapers and they only have small or large.
• After getting Ian (and forgetting the chocolate milk for the car), as Pete had asked me to not put things in the car (going to totally ignore that request in the future), Ian un-packed all the toys that I’d gathered up for the car ride.

I guess the main part of the day that makes the whole day not a do-over, was going out for a date at the nearby wine bar.  Definitely a place for a re-pete.