We Slept Through All of the Excitement

Normally, not very much goes on in our neighborhood, and we’re very happy with that state of affairs.  We live at the end of a fairly quiet dead end street.  With one notable exception, most of our immediate neighbors are fairly quiet.  Most of the people on our block have been here for a long time, we know each other, and we tend to look out for each other.  I don’t think I’d describe anyone as especially nosey, but we all tend to notice if there’s a strange car or something unusual going on.  I know some of you probably think that sounds awful, but we’re very happy with it.  Maybe it’s a southern thing. 

Last night was apparently one of the exceptions to the “not much goes on in our neighborhood” statement.  Nick and I went to bed fairly early.  He has to get up at 5:30 in the morning for work, and I get up around 6:15 for work, so we’re usually in bed well before 10:00 most week nights.  We’ve also taken to silencing both of our cellphones before bed, which we did last night. 

This morning we woke up to various missed calls and texts from two different neighbors.  After texting different neighbors this morning, I found out about all of the excitement that we slept through. 

Apparently when our next door neighbor, Steve, came home from work last night (he works odd hours, so is typically coming home much later than the rest of us) he smelled natural gas and called the gas company.  His wife, Lori, sent us a text letting us know that the gas company was coming. 

The gas company sent one person who walked around the yards with a flashlight.  Deana, another neighbor a couple of houses down, saw a man outside our house with a flashlight.  She called us, but neither of us answered, and no lights came on.  She saw our cars, so assumed we were both home, so her next call was to the police. 

Meanwhile, Steve went outside to talk to the man from the gas company, who told him that there was a leak, and a crew was on the way to fix it.  While Steve was outside, he saw that Deana was definitely awake and about, so walked down the street to talk to her and let her know about the gas leak.  Deana was still on the phone with the police when Steve arrived, so she was able to assure them that all was well before anyone made it to our street to check on things. 

Lori then sent us a text that the gas company was sending a crew to fix the leak, and that’s what it would be if we heard any large trucks coming down the street.  She told me today that they did come and fix the leak last night.

We slept through all of it.  I’m not sure how, especially since the dogs were in the bedroom and usually bark at pretty much everything.  Maybe they were just really tired, and so were we.  Somehow we slept through all of last night’s excitement.

Of course we were very happy that Steve noticed the gas leak and called about it, and we were very happy that Deana cared enough to call the police when it looked like something was wrong at our house.  Like I told her, I’d much rather have a neighbor who calls the police when it turns out that nothing was wrong than one who doesn’t call anyone when something is wrong. 

With any luck, that will be all of the excitement our little section of the street has for a while.  Even if we did sleep through it.

So what about you?  Have you had any excitement in your neighborhood lately?  Or do you sleep through it too?

9-11: Twelve Years Later – A Dozen Reasons to Thank Our Emergency Services Workers

Can you believe it has been 12 years since the 9-11 attacks?  Time certainly marches on.  Once again, I debated whether or not to post anything today.  It seems that so much has already been said, by people far more eloquent than I am.  But then I thought about everything the emergency services workers did that day. 

It seems that every year on this day we think about the first responders and all that they did and sacrificed, and then we move on to taking them for granted for another 364 days.  So here are a dozen reasons to thank our emergency services workers, including firefighters, police officers, 911 operators, paramedics, and EMTs, every day:

1.        They’re always there when we need them.  It doesn’t matter if it’s a holiday or the middle of the night.  They are there, and they will come when needed.

2.       911 operators sort through frantically delivered, sometimes woefully inaccurate and inadequate information to send the help we need.  And they remain calm while doing this.

3.       Firefighters will go into a place that everyone else is leaving.  When everyone’s instinct is to run, they go in to save lives and control damage.

4.       Paramedics and EMTs go straight into bad situations to help injured people, once again when most people want to leave, they go in to help.

5.       Police officers deal with the side of human nature that many of us prefer not to think about.  They see it up close and personal, and they make things a little safer for the rest of us.

6.       Often, these people continue to do their jobs, and go above and beyond, in spite of budget cuts that make their jobs harder.

7.       Many of us know what to expect on a given day at work and are offered a certain amount of safety.  They aren’t, but they still do the job.

8.       Some emergency services workers are volunteers.  They’re doing these things with no pay, on their time off.  Enough said.

9.       Even the paid ones aren’t in it for the money.  Google salaries for some of these positions to see what I mean.

10.   They will deal with something truly horrible, and when most of us would want to hide under the bed with some comfort food, they go back and do it all again tomorrow.

11.   Studies show that because of the schedules they work and the things they deal with, they are far more likely to develop stress related issues, including PTSD.  Yet they still do the job.

12.   They are very rarely thanked or recognized for any of this. 

To Protect and Serve

This post is going to be a little unusual for me as I usually try to avoid mentioning my work in my blog.  I believe that the best way to keep work out of your personal life and endeavors is to leave work out of your personal life and endeavors.  I’m also a person who always gets pretty upset when there’s a big news story about a police officer, firefighter, or 911 dispatcher doing something wrong.  It’s not that I think these people are infallible; I think that as an overall group they do an amazingly good job in terrible situations.  Yet, the thousands of good things they do every day rarely make the news.

Photo from Wikimedia

That being said, I feel like I need to share something that happened yesterday at work, though I’m not going to share specifics in an effort to keep work and my blog separate.

I work in a secure building on a secure floor.  I’ve always respected the officers who provide the security.  I think they have a hard job, and they do it well.  I can honestly say I feel safer with them being there.  Yesterday there was a person coming to our office for an appointment.  The person hadn’t exactly threatened us; just made comments about whether or not things were bullet proof.  There were no outright threats, but it was enough to make me very uncomfortable, so I let the security officers know about it, largely to give them some warning in case we had to call.

They did so much more than just make a note that we might be calling; two officers came to our office to keep watch.  They came about fifteen minutes before the appointment was scheduled, and stayed a little over half an hour past the appointment time.  The person was a no-show, so obviously nothing happened, but I felt indescribably better for having them there.  I felt safe and protected.

I know my blog doesn’t have a huge readership, but I just felt like this was something I had to share since I complain so much whenever I come across articles or blogs focusing on something police officers have done wrong.  I know they’re not perfect, but yesterday their presence made my life a lot better.