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October 29, 2006
Timber
Long-time readers of this-here blog might recall that bad shit tends to happen in the days surrounding my birthday. Pets have died. My grandmother died. Car wrecks have occured. And illness! Oh, the illnesses! The long and short of it: I dread my birthday.
This year, I thought my bad birthday mojo cumulated with the turbulent flight to Cleveland, and the minor fender-bender prior to the Wilco concert last week.
Oh, but there was more!
Shortly after I posted my last blog entry on Friday, I was sitting at my desk, contemplating getting my ass up, getting dressed, and taking Clara Jane to my parents' hotel so B. and I could get on with the business of having a rare grown-up night out. As these thoughts crossed my mind, a wind blew. And as usual in this neighborhood, when the wind blew, the power went out.
"Power's not going to be coming back anytime soon!" B. yelled from the back of the house while I looked out the living room window. Last time the power randomly went out, the source was a lightening-struck transformer I could see from my living room window. So, of course the source of the latest power outage would come from the same direction, right?
This was the source of Friday's power outage:
That tree? It's not some sideways-growing tree. At 5:03 PM on Friday, it was a vertical, healthy tree in my backyard. At 5:04 PM on Friday, it became a horizontal, health-impaired tree laying on top of our fence and covering most of our next-door neighbors' backyard.
No lightening. No unusually high wind. No chainsaws. The tree just fell the fuck over.
Oh, there's probably a scientific reason why the tree just fell the fuck over. The tree, while healthy, was growing against a hill and had some exposed roots, which probably didn't give it as much support as it needed. Add two days and two nights of rain, which made our backyard feel like a giant sponge. There probably wasn't much holding the tree to the ground. One slightly stiff breeze from just the right direction, and down she goes.
The bad news, aside from the obvious: there were about a million various power/phone/cable lines torn out of the poles by the tree.
The good news: Mother Nature protects swingsets:
Well, except for slides. Mother Nature hates slides.
In all seriousness, luck was on our side. Well, as much as luck can be on anyone's side when she's got a giant tree lying on her fence and devouring her neighbors' yard. The damage was minimal to everything except the tree. The swingset took a fixable blow. A small bit of siding got knocked off the neighbors' house. It goes without saying that the fence has seen better days, but it's stable enough to keep the dogs contained.
In more lucky news, my parents were in town on Friday. Clara Jane was freaking out, so my mom and I took her to dinner while my dad and B. waited for the utility company at home. I'm also lucky that I'm friends with PKB, whose husband has power tools and enjoys using them. He was ready to come over at 7 AM this morning, chainsaw blaring. She made him hold off until 9 AM.
The fact that I have friends who view a felled tree as an excuse for a party? Stellar.
B., Mr. PKB, her eldest, and our neighbor worked on the tree while PKB and her youngest kept me company. I made chili and gumbo. We thought about hiring a band. Okay, not really. But it was pretty festive, all things considered.
Once Murphy stopped barking in terror at the exposed tree roots, the uprooting has opened up Scent Hound Nirvana for my dogs:
Chloe's decided to live underground where the moles smell so very, very good.
It's so funny how people react when something bad happens. Five minutes after the tree decided to have its little lay-down, I was on the phone with my mom, freaking the hell out. What's the last thing you want to hear when you're freaking the hell out? "You're lucky! It could have been so much worse!"
A tree just spontaneously collapsed in my yard and I'm lucky? I momentarily felt the need to debate that point. Ten minutes later, when B. uttered the words, "God hates us and doesn't want us to go on a date," I found myself repeating my mom, only with more profanities.
Yes, it could have been much, much worse. Could have been much, much better. I can say in my experience that life is infinitely better when all the trees perform their basic function of standing the fuck up. But I got to hang out with Familia PKB. I got to feel the love that comes from being stuck in a tight place. I got to see what tree guts look like. And my power came back Friday night just in time to see the St. Louis Cardinals win the World Series. I'm not a sports fan, but I like anything that puts my entire city in a happy mood. Hell, even the jackass who runs his dune buggies up and down the street offered to give us the parts to repair the fence. He had extras in his garage.
Let's recap:
1. Trees randomly up and falling down.
2. St. Louis Cardinals win the World Series.
3. Dunebuggy Jackass gives us stuff we need, instead of blasting his airhorn and Elton John's "Tiny Dancer" in the middle of the night.
If I was a pessimist, I'd say these are signs of the End Times. But I'm too lucky for that.
Posted by Robin at October 29, 2006 04:48 PM
Comments
When I first began to read the tree saga, I thought, "Fuck!"
And then I read the part about how you have very cool friends and I thought, "Fuck!" (I have friend envy right now.)
Regarding the Cardinals, "Fuck."
Basically, it's a fuck trifecta.
Posted by: m at October 29, 2006 10:52 PM
OK, now I'm laughing at the "fuck trifecta". I'm glad that good times were to be had through this and that Chloe got to smell her first tree crotch (innards, whatever).
P.S. I really love that photo of the swingset from hell. Somebody needs to photoshop Freddy Kreuger in there somewhere.
Posted by: Exena at October 30, 2006 08:31 AM
You know you are loved when people rally around you like that. You and B and Clara Jane are really loved.
Posted by: Dixie at October 30, 2006 03:44 PM
There is nothing quite like having your heart warmed by the giggles of my precious Clara Jane. She says, "Laugh, Lisa, laugh." I love that. I love her and I love you guys.
Posted by: pkb at October 30, 2006 07:21 PM
OMG, girl, I haven't stopped by in a few days, and all hell broke loose in my absence! But in a good, life-affirming way! Ha ha ha. From afar, without having to deal with the logistical details of the cleanup, I can confirm that you are, indeed, lucky.
Also, I immediately thought about you when I heard all that St. Louis Danger crapola on the radio. I think those kinds of pronouncements are usually ridiculously literal-minded.
In closing, smooches.
Posted by: michelle/weaker vessel at November 2, 2006 01:57 PM
Whoa, how scary with the tree. I can see it really did not care for the slide.
I sympathize on the bad birthday mojo -- I have a birthday curse myself. One year I got thrown from a horse and the very next year I wrecked my car. I usually just roll myself in a ball like a millipede and stay in bed all day.
(okay, I kid, but don't think the thought hasn't crossed my mind... ;-))
Posted by: Nancy at November 2, 2006 05:39 PM
