Yes, life still happens, even when our lives seem to be nicely under control and we have good and long-established routines and healthy habits and laudable lifestyles that don't pollute and enhance our health and wellbeing and help us give back to the community and all the little etceteras that come with it. We still get surprises, we are thrown curveballs. Such as the fire alarm that occurred tonight at just precisely 2 am and of course no one could sleep through the mercifully merciless racket of a fire alarm. It wasn't a huge emergency. There was no actual fire, but water damage on the sixth floor upstairs and some to my floor. I am lucky that no water reached my unit unlike my neighbour across the hall and on the left.
Middle of the night fire alarms can be very interesting, as much by what isn't seen as by what is. For example, some tenants, especially those with disabilities or mobility impairments, did not come down. Maybe between twenty and thirty of the tenants out of sixty actually left their units. Some, upon stepping outside, immediately started smoking without bothering to step out of the way of other tenants not wanting to inhale any kind of smoke. Given that this is their way of reaching for the first available comfort (barring sucking their thumbs) I will cut them slack for this. Three (or was it two?) fire trucks arrived and we stood outside in the ass-biting cold (sub-zero anyway) weather.
After a few minutes of chatting with some of my neighbours I felt that I'd outlived my usefulness standing out there and went for a walk. I ordinarily never go out after dark, especially in the small hours but here I was on Davie Street after two in the morning on a Sunday night. Very few people were out. I noticed also one apparently homeless young man huddled under a blanket eating pizza (he was eating the pizza, not the blanket) and I didn't know what to do or say so I kept walking. I saw two more in a sleeping bag in a doorway. We have emergency shelters open right now but some, because of their mental health concerns or inability to trust strangers (often for good reason) elect to stay outside even if at their own peril. Davie Street, to my surprise, is beautifully lit up at night with rows of undulating rainbow coloured Christmas lights lining both sides of the street. I was also surprised to see Christmas light displays already in some windows and in a front yard since it is still mid November.
It has been otherwise a typical late Sunday night, I suppose. It's hard for me to say because I am almost never outside this late (unlike in my "reckless" youth.) One fellow walking behind was singing loudly off key, but really at this late hour I should be expecting maybe Ben Heppner for free? Later there were two losers sailing down the sidewalk (no traffic of course) on Howe Street playing very loud Middle Eastern pop music from their bikes, from one of them anyway.
As I drew near my building I heard again the fire alarm and braced myself for the worst. The young man was still huddled under his blanket. I approached him and asked if I could offer some money so he could get out of the cold for a bit and get some coffee. He replied that he has a place and that he was actually panhandling so he could buy a play station. Fair enough.
I arrived at my building and it was quiet. There were still fire trucks and three tenants waiting around in the lobby: a fellow whom I'd seen in the afternoon on the other side of the bridge while I was walking back from church who one day months ago gave me a package of delicious dates, a talented artist from Iran whose name I promised I would not forget again, and a young woman whom I have worked with as a client. I assured everyone that the fireman had just told me it was safe to go up again. On my floor, my neighbour across the hall was trying to soak with newspapers and sweep up water from her unit. I had some left over newspapers that I gave her and helped with. We chatted a bit in Spanglish (she is from Latin America and she speaks good English to my good Spanish). Now I'm at home and already feeling the benefit of my long walk, which is to say that I'm tired and ready to sleep.
My superstitious brain also leaves me wondering about the dead small owl that I saw this afternoon lying on its face by the back exit of my building as though someone had put it there, if there could be some connection between it and the emergency in my building tonight. I remember that for a few years (I refuse to divulge any more about this on this blog) this kind of occurrence was almost an every day experience for me, with consequences following, but let's just say that it was during the late eighties and early nineties and I was undergoing some very unusual experiences at the time. I refuse to entertain the thought any further. I did call City Hall and they sent someone to dispose of it and that's all I need to know for now.
Good night.
No comments:
Post a Comment