So Sunday was an interesting day for us. I played the organ for the first time in my entire life for the congregation. Nervous doesn't even begin to express what I was feeling. I was also accompaning the musical number. Needless to say I was relieved when we were done with church. It actually all went really well. Mike said I sounded good- I can point out every mistake I made. Considering my total lack of organ experience I think the fact that I made it through all three songs without fainting should be considered a sucess.
Anyway, we totally crashed on Sunday afternoon- everyone took naps. We enjoyed a nice dinner together and just as we were all finishing Mike turns to me and asks, "What do you want to do with the rest of the evening?" As we sat there trying to come up with something remotely exciting- fate intervened and we heard this really loud exploding sound. When I heard another equally loud one I ran to the front of our home and looked out my bedroom window. What did I see? Only our neighbor's garage completely engulfed in flames. The aforementioned boredom was completely gone. I ran to the phone called 911 and (I still can't believe this) I got put on HOLD! Yes for thirty seconds I sat there on hold while I watched my neighbor's car blowing up in his garage all the while thinking that he was in there with it becuase he always works on his car on the weekend. Well when I finally got through the nice lady assured me that units were already responding. They got there within a minute or so. By that time I had seen my neighbor run into his backyard to get his dog, so I knew he was okay. Thankfully his mother was not at home so she was okay too. Thirty seconds after the calvary arrived the house looked like this.
About two minutes later it looked like this.
It took them about thirty more minutes before the fire in the attic was completely out. I was way impressed with how efficient the firemen were. It was amazing to watch. By the end of the night we had four fire engines and one ambulance here. They even had the really long ladder truck here with the ladder extended so they could check on the attic fire. The bomb squad showed up- probably because of all the exploding things in his garage. The whole neighborhood was out to watch and I met people I have never seen before.
This is what the poor guys garage looked like about two hours later. Yes that is his prize mustang in the middle burnt to a crisp and the supposed cause of this whole thing.
Crews were here until about one or two this morning wetting the whole house down and then the construction crew came in a boarded up the garage and two windows. Our neighbor has a long road in front of him. Luckily he has family close to help. We are just glad he is okay. It turned out to be quite an evening. I wonder what we will do next Sunday?
