Random semi-interesting story from last night...

(By the way, you should have your 'zine by now if you live in the U.S.)

So, last night, Evey wakes up at 3 a.m. She's wide awake. Inexplicably. And she refuses to go back to sleep, or even yawn.

So I'm up dealing with her most of the time... she has me wide-awake now too. We move from room to room, trying to get comfortable, trying to get sleepy. To no avail.

It's 5 a.m. I have Evey in her nursery. We're looking out her back window. Might as well admire the first hints of sunrise, I figure. And I hear a weird noise.

There's the de-humidifier running two stories below me, yeah, but there's another sound... it sounds like a power surge or something. It's a "whoooOOO-whoooOOO." "What the hell is that?" I ask myself.

I go over to the other window in Evey's room and look outside, expecting perhaps some construction equipment, or something. And I see SMOKE. Lots of smoke. There's an abandoned home next to us, and then a neighborhood bar next to that. And I can tell that this is coming from the bar. It looks like the bar is on fire.

I run in to tell Adro she needs to watch Evey for a minute... I think Charlie's IS ON FIRE.

That shoots her awake. I'm in my [ajama bottoms and no shirt. I run downstairs and put on some sandals, and then run down the back alley. It's a car that's on fire. I'm about to take a step closer when I see there's someone admiring the fire, standing right next to the car. OK, I don't want to interrupt this dude, no telling WHAT he is up to.

I sprint back to my house and call 911. I was so winded and exasperated, I couldn't remember my own phone number when 911 was quizzing me. Adro yelled it out for me and suddenly they believe me. "There's an officer on the way," 911 told me.

The good news was that the cop was there about 10 seconds later! I was still on the phone with 911 and we had about three cop cars on the scene already.

To end the story, something small on the car exploded before the fire truck could get here, but then they arrived and put it out right away... about 15 minutes later I had an officer in my house asking me questions. This morning, I walked down there to see what was left, and a little crappy red Sunfire was still sitting there, hood popped, melted all to hell.

And Evey finally decided to go to sleep aroung 6 a.m.