Fight or Flight

I am trying so hard to imagine a post without using such worn out words as "weary," "fatigue," "construction," but I'm pretty tired and my creative juices are sluggish.  So I guess that leaves me to talk about "fire," "valiant effort with forty large saucepans of water," "screaming sirens in our quiet residential neighborhood."


DH is away ... again.  Last week Dubai, this week London, and when he heard about the fire (in between worried inquiries) he laughed and said, "Why does this stuff always happen when I'm not there?"  I said I suspected it was to test the resolve of his wife - you know - see what I'm made of.  Well I've learned that at least my fight or flight response seems to be in good working order.  I know when to fight and I know when to flee.


The evening started innocently enough.  I was already ... low on energy ... from the very start of the day and, remembering the chaos I returned home to last week after a day out ice skating, I threw the blankets over my head and decided to skip the lessons for this week.  It's not hard to lose motivation now that we've moved further out and have to take planes, trains and automobiles to get there.  The blankets didn't stay over my head for long when Peanut started his sing-song "mamaaaan? mamaaaan?" and the workers arrived, but at least our morning was low-key with a trip to the store, a quiet lunch and a nap.


By the time we came back from spending the afternoon at a neighbor's house, the workers had already left with instructions for us not to use the back door as the landing had just been tiled.  So I brought the kids in the front door and down the stairs to our usual nesting place - on my bed and in front of a dvd.  Never mind the children's therapy later on for all the television they were subjected to as kids (if they are still able to form sentences), I will have to undergo some heavy therapy myself to deal with all the guilt.


So it was in front of the computer that I first started noticing my nostrils fill up with acrid dust.  I didn't understand why all of the sudden the dust was bothering me and opened the window to get some fresh air.  Instead I got a good gust of smoke, which made me immediately think that one of the neighbors had a fire in their fireplace.  I started to wonder if our little fires would be as obtrusive, and what could possibly be done about neighbor's fires that caused my nostrils to fill up with smoke.  I was still wondering as I went out to get YL's library book from the outside studio so she would be able to return it the next day.


And that's when I saw all the live coals.  "You've got to be kidding me," I thought.  It was from the workers' cigarette butts thrown onto the pile of rubble adjacent to our house.  I ran  along the outside of our house to get some water from the kitchen (since the back door could not be used and the outside faucet had been turned off for the winter).  Armed with my big pot of water, I climbed over the natty carpet now on the rubble pile, and promptly sank into the big hole it was covering.  It should come as no surprise that I fell into the hole, spilling the entire pot of water on myself as the coals winked at me maliciously.


Providentially, the doorbell rang at that point and it was our grocery delivery.  I quickly sequestered the guy and steered him toward the large pile of live coals in the back of the house.  He kept his cool, asking if I had a fire extinguisher, which I ran to get.  That didn't last long and didn't quite do the trick, which wasn't a problem since I had another pot of water at the ready.  He then asked me for a "pelle," and I was thinking "pail? pail? why do you need a pail?  I have a large pot of water right here!"  He finally spotted a rake and grabbed it (as it dawned on me that he had been asking for a shovel) and started raking the rubble, unearthing plenty more live coals that had been covered.  When we had pretty much extinguished everything we could see, he said, "Put two or three more pots of water on it just to be sure" and happily left with his 20€ thank you tip.


So over the next hour and a half, two or three pots turned into about forty large pots of water because every time I would dump one, steam would come up and I would think, "It's still hot?  That means it can flame up again!"  After about ten pots, it occurred to me that I could actually dump them from the living room window instead of running outside along the house.  After a few more I realized that, for better access, I could open the condemned back door that used to lead to the outside staircase, but now has nothing but rubble underneath.  And all the while I managed to bathe and feed all three kids in between trips from the kitchen to the window/door.


So that's pretty much when DH called.  And insisted that I call the firemen, because if it kept steaming and smoking that much, who knew if there were still live coals underneath?  And it is their job after all - they're the experts - that's what they're there for.  I felt a little foolish asking the firemen to come extinguish a fire I had already extinguished, but DH had insisted.   I felt even more foolish, knowing that the kids' tuna sandwiches I made as an easy dinner ended up all over my shirt when I tried to squeeze the fish juice from the can in my haste.  


I fervently hoped they would come in stealth with a little car and not a big red truck, and we were off to a pretty good start in terms of discretion (except for the sirens) when a little police car showed up and screeched to a halt.  All four doors opened, each one spilling out a uniformed policeman.  I ushered them to the back of the house and showed them the soggy pile of rubble while they took notes, tried to explain about the burning coals (which is something like "braize" in french and which I have a sneaking suspicion I pronounced very much like a swear word).


I discovered that the firemen were on their way, and as I feebly expressed a hope that they wouldn't come in a huge truck with sirens, the policeman laughed and said, "But madame, of course they will - they're firemen."  So they showed up in all their glory a short while later to the huge delight of YL and BB who were staring out the bedroom window.  With the four policemen looking on, the three firemen asked me again for my explanation, looked on in disbelief that I had disturbed them from a card game for this, made a show of digging in the soggy pile to show that there were effectively no more live coals, and dumped a bucket of water on it again for good measure (which they got from the outside faucet, that had apparently been turned back on by the workers).  Hugely embarrassed, I had a hard time containing the insane urge to laugh that was bubbling up within as I saw them to the gate, mumbled an apology, and escaped into the house.  


That was my flight.


And after dealing with my children's recurring nightmares all night long, then greeting the workers with a good deal of composure, I must say given the circumstances, diplomatically explaining the situation and asking them to be careful where to throw their butts, I was astonished to find that there were some fresh ones again on the soggy pile of rubble today.


And that was my fight.