Ahh, peaceful, tranquil Sunday morning...no work, no worries.....interrupted by a fire alarm! Fortunately I was already awake, as my body is preprogrammed to awaken at the same precise moment every day. I had just turned on the fan in our living room when I was greeted with a piercing sound that ousted the last cobwebs of sleep from my body. However, as you might know, for some of us it takes awhile in the morning before our brains fully
function - I was thought that somehow the fan had triggered something in the speaker for the TV and it was having a bad electrical reaction - causing the shrieking sound. After a moment of pondering this, I realized that indeed that was ridiculous and instead turned for the smoke alarm. Tracy is a heavy sleeper and sleeps with earplugs and I contemplated waking her (on the off chance there actually was an emergency)...however, the piercing noise wound its way past the earplugs and she came confusedly out of her room to meet me under the smoke alarm. I attempted the push the button (it said "push here and hold". This proceeded to add an extra aggravated noise to the already deafening one and did nothing to solve the problem. We stared at each other in confusion for a few moments before realizing that you really do learn something in elementary school - smoke alarm, fire drill means go outside. Now I, as I imagine many of you have, have thought about or played that game where you can only choose one thing to take with you in an emergency - or if your house was on fire. Tracy and I both randomly grabbed things and stumbled out the door....into the dull gray morning, to finally meet our neighbors - in pajamas! We all stood around in confusion grumbling and muttering to each other. Now the important part - what did we grab on the way out of the house? I grabbed a sweatshirt and my phone. Tracy grabbed the security phone number, keys, and her bible. What a holy roommate I have!!
I proceeded to call the security people, who told me there was no one on duty (helpful!!). Finally another neighbor called the fire department who did indeed show up on the big red truck in the plastic yellow outfits with axes and hoses in hand.
What excitement for a Sunday morning! The best part was meeting all the neighbors in their pajamas and watching a majority of them have a 6:30 A.M. cigarette in the back of someone's pickup....Needless to say, I don't foresee in any building BBQs forthcoming...but you never know.
P.S. The alarm went off because some kids broke the glass on the fire extinguisher. Tracy and I tried to start a mutiny to have them kicked out of the building by chanting and thumping her bible...ok, not really, but we contemplated it.
parents in my hometown. Amazingly enough, somehow over the past year of living in Lynnwood surrounded by freeways and dirty city buildings I've come to embrace my inner nature girl.. I know! Where the heck did that come from? Well anyway, my jaunt to Sequim was made enjoyable by quality time spent with my family and the serene atmosphere of the little town. I've come to jokingly refer to Sequim as "my happy place" which is ironic if you knew me in high school because I made a beeline out of there as soon as I was able - but now, Sequim has become a port in the storm. Over the past year, the worst of my life, Sequim (due mostly in part to my supportive family) has become a refuge for me, and I was so thankful to get to spend a couple of days there. Outings included breakfast with Grandma at the local Oak Table Cafe (the best breakfast place in the world), long walks with Dad, early Father's day gift-giving, visiting Mom at work and getting pizza at Costco (you laugh, but it's the best pizza), and a day at the lake with Mom. Lake Crescent is about 40 minutes outside of Sequim and is one of the calmest and most beautiful places I've been in my 23 years.
