House Flambe'

On a multitude of amazing levels and being thankful for fire fighters/the fire house being just down the street, our own home is not reduced to a sad little foundation of ash. Everyone is fine and we are counting our blessings as only 10% of our house is gone. And again we are safe and grateful for astute responders...dispatchers, police, fire fighters, our friends, the on-call insurance agent, the contractor and the electrician who came at the end of their own Saturday to make sure the smoldering was gone from our rafters and wouldn't return to harm us.

Today there were big plans for the weekend, especially today. Dental appointment, Lenny nail trim, meeting up with friends at a beer festival, helping a friend pick out her wedding dress, a dinner out...luckily our rally point was our house and we were all running a 1/2 an hour behind to bolt out with our plans for the day. In a string of coincidences, it allowed me to walk through the garage, into the laundry room, into the house and to repeat those steps as I smelt burnt marshmallows!?!?? Beth thought it was popcorn when she walked in the living room. I checked, nothing visually singed by the hot water heater in that room, boys to investigate further, C reached up and touched the ceiling. A hot ceiling. (yikes!) More inspection through the attic crawl space ensued on a ladder with a fire extinguisher and eventually...where there is smoke, there really is fire!

After a very long and emotional day of 4 fire trucks, 5 cop cars, our street being closed down and our access room and garage being gutted and hosed/foamed down...we have had an electrical fire. F-I-R-E in our roof. The fire crews were all amazed that things were in such an early stage and we were repeatedly told how lucky we were and the gravity of us being just minutes later...or being home at night while this quiet death crept over our heads through our roof insulation [shudder]...or to come back from our days errands to find wet smoldering rubble where once our address numbers hung high.

So grateful we didn't rush out of the house without inspecting. And the pups. Oh the pups, we almost left them at home! Not only Lenny, but B's two doggies too!!!! My heart breaks to think of them trapped inside a house aflame. Again, everyone safe. [deep breaths] It would be maddening to be displaced from our home, to return to our daily lives, to start over with the essentials (hell to even have a scrap of paper to write my claim number on!!!!), being virtually homeless...astounding. In a stark contrast we just don't have hot water, dry wall, insulation (in a portion of our home that we can quarantine) and a very dusty home in the interim time.

We are exhausted...however we have each other safe, a dog to love, friends to hug, a home to keep us warm, we have a computer to type on, undisturbed beds to sleep in and wonderful locals who came to our rescue.

Thankful, to say the very least.