Judecorp.

So... one thing you never want to hear in the midst of a particularly stressful and chaotic week is, "Jude? Do we have a fire extinguisher upstairs?"

Jen and Ben (Bennifer?) were really wanting ice cream, and Jen decided she would hit up the grocery store after Survivor to go get some while Ben stayed here to watch CSI while Coworking Gina and I gabbed. Only we never got to gab. Because Jen started smelling something burning when she went outside, and noticed that the smoky smell went away as she walked away from the house. That's never a good sign. She looked up and there were flames visible on our second floor porch.

I grabbed the fire extinguisher from under the kitchen sink and passed it to Gina who was already halfway down the stairs. She passed it to Jen who was on the porch and was considering such ridiculous (and dangerous!) endeavors as attempting to put the fire out with her shirt or kicking the burning stuff over the balcony onto the ground. Instead, she deftly fire extinguished the two planters that were in flames. Apparently our crazy downstairs neighbor put a cigarette out in one of his old planters and nearly burned our house down! This is especially scary because the second floor porch is directly under our living room, which is where we were all spending our evening.

This whole scenario brought out really scary memories for me. Right before I started this eljay, in early June of 2001, the apartment building that A. and I were living in when we moved to Columbus was struck by lightning and caught on fire. I will never forget our neighbor banging on the door and saying that we had to get out because the building was on fire, trying to crate scurrying cats, forgetting to bring the computer out in the harried hustle and realizing /after/ we were out that it was finals week, I was doing papers, and I could possibly lose everything. The fire trucks came and we were eventually let back in... only to be evacuated an hour or two later by police because flammable chemicals and guns were found in a neighbor's place. (Does anyone remember all of the Fox and Hounds hullaballoo in 2001? Yeah, that was my place.)

A couple of weeks after that fire, A. and I broke up. Jen and I spent a chunk of this evening hashing out some particularly painful stuff, not at all helped by four days of clomid and her just-arrived period, and the coincidence is just enough to scare the crap out of me for just a little while. With all of the hormones pouring through my body, with all of the stress of the week with the DSS mess and the fist fight and my other weird family that has me concerned, with the lack of sleep from having the kitten all over us all night, I don't really need any more scares. Are you listening, Universe?

Thank goodness Jen saved the day and put out the bulk of the fire, and then I sent my neighbor down to hose down the front yard. She's my hero, and I'd really like Thursday Night TV Night to be over soon so she can just give me a lot of hugs.