Today is my dad’s birthday. He is pretty much the coolest.
Kate and her papa
The older I get, the more I realize how alike my dad and I are. And not just our extraordinary taste in music. We have similar personalities and sometimes I’ll catch myself saying things to my kids (“Don’t stop until you’re done!”) or at work and hear him in my mind saying the exact. same. thing. He recognizes it too, I know, and when I wrote this oddball post filed under “Emily is Neurotic,” he linked to it on facebook and said “Is there any doubt this woman is my daughter?”
Yep, we’re two neurotic peas in a pod.
My dad is the person I go to when I need solid, logical advice. I’ve called him up on many occasions and blurted out, “I’m having a crisis.” And he always makes it better.
Perhaps I’ve mentioned a few times, that I live in the city. Specifically in an older, only kind-of run down neighborhood called Belmont. And, I live on one of two “main drags” in Belmont. It’s a very busy street. It’s really busy around 4 p.m. on weekdays because the entrance to our local high school is on the street that is directly across from my driveway. So, getting out of my driveway around 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. every day is murder. And so is turning left off of the street the high school entrance is on. (And may I just say, yes, 9 a.m to 4 p.m.? What kind of crazy school hours are those? Oh, the “urban” kind. Where you can’t get anyone to get up and be at school before 9. But whatevs.)
So there’s your background, now imagine me yesterday afternoon standing in my dining room, joyfully parenting my three beautiful children, when I hear a loud BOOM and my house shakes. I ran to the back window to see if someone had hit my neighbor’s car (they park behind their house), because I could tell the boom came from that side of the house. But there was nothing to see. So I ran to my front window and saw this:
Well, the hedges DID need trimming...
That right there is the front of a Toyota Tacoma pickup truck in my hedges and the bumper in my front yard. The blue you see peeking out from behind the tree is the fire hydrant that is usually under where the truck is sitting. Thank goodness it didn’t spray everywhere!
So, I called 911, which made me feel pretty bad@$$, and reported the accident. From what I could see, it didn’t look like anyone was hurt, and there were plenty of people out there checking on the driver, so I decided to stay inside until the cops got there. Which took FOREVER. After they got there, I went outside with Jonah and talked to the policeman. I had him put the damages to our hedges in his report, because, there is now a huge hole in our hedges and who knows how much that costs to replace? Beats me. I talked to the driver and she was fine but her airbag did deploy (thanks to the fire hydrant I’m sure!) I didn’t get the story of what happened, because I just wanted to get inside with Jonah, it was a pretty yucky day out. Which leads me to what I am thankful for…the weather has been really nice this week, and we’ve been outside playing a lot. I am so thankful that yesterday was yucky and we were safe inside!
I am also thankful that they built a big new high school with a nice traffic light entrance around the corner and that it opens in January. It will make it much safer at my house! Also, it will cut down on teenagers walking down the sidewalk yelling the F word in the afternoon. SCORE!
