Things that go crash in the night

Last night was to be the first night of my new schedule. No more 2am nights, waking up at 1030 and getting little done. So I went to bed at 1030pm, finished the Golden Compass (erk! so good, and yet, so disturbing in the way that well-written way kids books can be) and shut my eyes by 11:06. Yes, the sleep of the virtuous.

Until 1am, when everyone in the house jolted awake. I hate that feeling, the one where you wake up suddenly and you're not sure if the sound was your own body breaking or something happening outside of you. Luckily, it was the latter. Some kind of accident had happened outside, and there was a car up on the curb and a guy in a puffa jacket stumbling around. Another guy took off running. At first, I couldn't process what was going on and thought that some kind of intentional violence was going down, so we backed away from the window directly overlooking the scene and got the phone. A large male neighbour approached puffa guy and asked if he was okay, keeping a safe distance. Dude looked okay and then started really stumbling, so I called 911. The thing that I love about my hood is how busy it is, at all times of the day and night. People are really proactive, and will call the ambulances and then come out of their homes to make sure that everything is okay. I've lived in far wealthier places where you could die screaming on the street and no one would twitch a curtain to see what was happening. So when I got on to 911 dispatch, they said that there were already many calls and that they were coming. They wanted to know if anyone was trapped, or if there were downed power lines, which there weren't. Within 30 seconds of hanging up, the fire engines arrived. Then ambulances and police. We went back to bed, but I was all adrenaline-y and the flashing lights made our room look like a law enforcement themed discotheque. It seems that almost everone was physically okay, but I think quite a few people went away in the police wagon instead of the ambulance. The flashing lights kept on until 230, when the last car was towed away.

So I just got up, not at 645 as planned, but at 12. Curses! The upside to this awful start to the day is that a phone call woke me, and it was my dear friend T calling from Geneva. We had a lovely chat, and caught up with each other. And the big new is that I get to be a bridesmaid at her wedding! and the dresses are going to be black! and made in Paris! Sweet.

Now: make tea and toast, and go to bloody work on the thesis!