I needed a break.  I’ve been running too hot for too long, and signs were starting to show that I just needed to step back and breathe.  You know, regain healthy perspective, stop chewing my nails, stop chewing out my children, stop chewing my cud, that kind of thing.

But relaxing does not come naturally to me.   Being wound around the axle comes naturally to me.  I have to fight an intense mind battle with myself to make a semblance of cool happen in my spastic world.

My good friend, Cupcake, understood this, and took us out for a day of sailing on the Chesapeake Bay.

I climbed out onto the bow and laid my head on a folded towel, prepared to just relax, to meditate, to possibly sleep to the wonderful, rhythmic lapping sounds of water on the hull of the Windtrip V, Cupcake’s 36′ J-World club sailboat.  The sun warmed me while the gentle breeze made it comfortable.  The sound of far-off seagulls reached me and all was right with the world.  I could feel the muscles in my shoulders begin to ease.

And then the wind picked up.

Which of course made us tilt.  List.  Lean rather alarmingly….

…with Mama up on the bow.

Did she fall off?  Nay, nay!  She gripped the side rail of the deck with a viselike clamp that bespoke years and years of figuratively holding on for dear life.

Did she get up and yell at Captain Cupcake?  Did she curse the wind?  Did she cry and wail and gnash her teeth?

Nope.  And you know why?

Pure, Intense Determination.  Now maybe some people might not pair the concepts of intense determination with relaxation. I realize that.

But that is how I roll.  Only I wasn’t rolling.  I was solidly on the bow, gritting my teeth, refusing to not relax.

Look, it makes sense to me.  Just go with it.

With love,

Totally-relaxed-in-a-completely-tensed-up-sort-of-way Mama

It wasn’t supposed to be a big deal.  It’s a 3.5 hour drive on average, sometimes longer if it’s a holiday weekend.

Dickerson, Maryland to Bethany Beach, Delaware.  Easy-Peasy. No Sweat.

My Captain was masterfully driving the mini-van through the crowded, busy speedway that is Interstate 495.   I kept a steady stream of inane banter going to entertain him.  I’m sure he appreciated it greatly.  Who wouldn’t?   Incessant drivel….it’s one of my charms.

Then it happened, his entire body tensed and he slammed on the brakes.  The sickening sound of squealing tires on asphalt filled the air.   We all held our breaths and waited for the painful crunch.

But none came.  My Captain’s evasive maneuvers training (from when he was a Fire Marshall) had kicked in, and he managed to escape the crash. He was totally channeling Burt Reynolds in Smokey and The Bandit as he angled our car away from harm in the split second that this all went down.

Four or five cars in front of us were not so lucky, unfortunately.  There were asphalt bits, smoke and debris flying everywhere.  Cars spinning.  Cars leaving the highway at weird angles.  The sound of impacts among the trees along the side of the road.

And then it was over as fast as it happened.

My Captain pulled the van over to where a man holding a baby had just bolted out of one of the spun cars.  My Captain dropped me off to take care of him, and then went further up the road to the cars that had careened off the highway and into trees.

The man with the baby held his head, looking baffled and stunned.  I took his son and had him get all the way off the road as I began asking him questions as ingrained in me as they were back when I was a paramedic.

My Captain was knee-deep in poison ivy helping a woman who had T-boned a tree.  Sirens could be heard in the distance.

I moved the man and his son out of the hot sun and into our air conditioned and quiet minivan, as we waited for the medic unit.

The fire department from Prince George’s County arrived, My Captain gave them the update of the situation, and everyone eventually was taken to the proper rescue apparatus.  Traffic was well and truly hosed.  The mayhem and carnage had blocked several lanes.

I reached for the Clorox wipes and began methodically cleaning any surface the victims had touched in our van.  Critter and Varmint were wide-eyed, having gotten to see, perhaps for the first time, what it is exactly My Captain does so well: Make order in the midst of chaos.

It took a while for us to get back on the road, but eventually My Captain eased us back into traffic, unruffled and unshakable, as he always is.  We’d hardly begun our trip, and had just spent a good portion of an hour helping the folks at that accident. We still had a good 3 hours ahead of us, and traffic was still thick.

The van was quiet at first, as we all assimilated what had just happened.   And then Critter, in his distinctive 12-year-old voice pitifully asked,

“Are we there yet?”

Seriously.  We’d just witnessed and helped clean up a disaster, and even had close interaction with the victims in our own car, and that was all Critter could focus on.

In his defense, though, it IS the beach we’re talking about….

I was so pissed at him last night.

My Captain had JUST finished his medicine as he battles Lyme’s Disease.  He had just spent the majority of the day fighting a muscle spasm in his neck.  He had been “draggin’ ass” since he’d gotten up yesterday morning.  He looked like hell.

Our router got fried by lightening, and he had purchased a new one.  Mind you, I was fine limping along on the old broken one, (and by fine I mean I bitched only a little bit), but he insisted getting the new one up and running before he left for what would likely be a 48 hour shift. Unfortunately, he kept running into glitches, and it was frustrating him to no end.

Here’s how it went down:

It was nearly midnight when I yelled, “Would you come to bed, already?!  It’s a stupid router!  It will be there when you get home on Monday!”

He mumbled something unintelligible in response as he remained solidly locked to his laptop, the muscles in his strong jaw working as he furiously typed commands.

“Troy!  You have to be up in 5 hours and you have to have your game on!”

“Mmfemfekfjphdlef”

“Dammit, Honey, why are you so wound around the axle about getting that router set up tonight?!”

“Because I’ll be gone for two days, and I know you’ll want the Sonos to work so you can listen to your old radio shows.”

“Oh.”  (I paused and swallowed the lump of love suddenly lodged in my throat.) “Well I won’t enjoy a moment of those shows if I think you are exhausted on the job because of it,” I grumbled.

“Mpfhenffeethehtmemf”

So we were at an impasse.

And by impasse, I mean that he dug his heels in and kept working on the router until it was done, and I sat in bed fuming about it.

When he finally came to bed, leaned over and tenderly kissed me good-night, I thanked him, and rubbed his sore neck, and told him I loved him.

And then I smacked him on his hiney and told him not to be such a stubborn mule….

…but he was already snoring.

A couple of weeks ago, My Captain’s shift was called out for a fire that had broken out on the back deck of someone’s townhouse.

When the firefighters got to the scene, the fire was already extending into the house! Luckily, they were able to knock it down pretty quickly, and thankfully, no one was hurt.

The same can’t be said for the deck!

My Captain’s shift threw water on the fire from the bottom, then they took the deck stairs and hit it from the top and when they could better get into it, they began to tear apart the burning elements. In other words, they had to take the deck apart!  They call this a “overhaul,” the purpose of which is to find where the fire might still be burning or smoldering and completely extinguish it.

One thing a firefighter hates is getting RE-called to a fire they already went to put out.  It looks bad (ie, is embarrassing as hell) for the crew, it causes more damage, and worst of all, it leads to unlimited poking from other firehouses.

Before the crew could put much more of their weight on the deck, they had to shore up and stabilize it, It had already been weakened by age and generally poor construction, and was made worse by the fire! Good thing the firehouse that happens to serve that townhouse houses a special ops/collapse rescue team!

My Captain would take no chances with hurting any of his men.  The fire had burned through structural members that served as connection points to the townhouse, and there were bent, or seriously compromised joist hangers…which are important if something is going to bear any weight!  So Gravy (remember him?  From ~ Something is Burning ~) tightened up some struts at key load points under the deck to support the weight of the deck and the several firefighters working on it.

Then they needed to figure out what caused the fire, as it isn’t always immediately obvious.  This is Andy, he is one of the County Fire Investigators whose job it is to determine the cause of the fire.

My Captain and Andy began interviewing the occupants of the townhouse.  At first, the residents said they didn’t know what happened, but that didn’t add up to My Captain, and under further pressing by Andy, they eventually admitted that they had been smoking and threw their butt out onto the deck.

Side note: My Captain is very good at cutting through the crap. In the early 90’s, he was a gun-toting Fire  Investigator himself, and he put many an arsonist in the slammer.  Our kids have learned that you might as well confess your sins to My Captain in the beginning, because he will grill you until you crack.  He smells a guilty conscience a miles away.  He doesn’t miss a beat.  It’s his dark, brooding eyes that I swear could slice a person in two.  I think it’s sexy. Critter and Varmint, (and the odd arsonist), not so much.

Back to the Fire: With the one-two punch of questioning between My Captain and Andy, they now had an admission and knew for certain what caused the fire.  Andy agreed it fit with the evidence in his findings.

The occupant had discarded their finished cigarette onto the deck and went back inside, leaving it to smoulder on the wood.  The air conditioning unit below was running on high, and so forcing air up through the deck, which  fanned the flames.  The heat from the blaze got so high it shattered the sliding glass door.  It melted the siding.  It burned into the house and creeped in between the floor joists.

You want to know what else throwing a seemingly harmless cigarette butt onto a deck can lead to?

Homemade skylights.

This picture is from the basement looking up after the guys had to hack into the floor and ceiling to chase the fire.  All of this from one tiny little butt.

The good news is that no one was hurt.  The bad news is that this family now needs a new deck, a new kitchen floor, and new basement ceiling, and likely a new A/C unit….for starters.

Oh….and an ash tray.

The moral of the story….if you don’t want to see Gravy, and Andy, and My Captain and the rest of his crew at your doorstep, axes and pike poles in hand, watch your butt!