The one in which Blake and I feel really guilty

I'll start from the beginning.

Two weeks ago tilapia was on a great sale at Giant.  So I bought some.  A lot, actually.  And I put it in the freezer with my other discount meats.

Around this same time we also worked out a deal with our 12-year-old neighbor boy, Noah (grandson of this guy...remember him?), to water our plants while we were at the Lake.

Then, last Thursday night, we went to the lake.

It turns out that it was a great week to be gone.  Not only was the heat index a nice roasty 115 - 119, but there was also a rather large and destructive storm on Sunday night.

....(This is where I start to hear things second hand from our neighbor, Dianne, whose chief employment seems to consist of watching Neighborhood Theater)....

Sunday is when a massive tree in my neighbor's yard blew over.  And it took the power lines with it..and it blocked the street (this was a big tree).  And so the power went out on my street.

Can I just mention that this didn't stop Dianne?  A street over from us- the street whose backyards back to our backyards- didn't lose power, so Dianne bought a lengthy orange extension cord, and strung it over the back fence and into the other neighbor's house.  So her fans worked.

Back to the downed power lines.  They were laying on our grass, so that when the power finally came back on on Thursday night (again, so glad we weren't there to experience that sort of indoor heat and humidity), they started a fire.  There are snaking burn marks all over the grass.

So the fire trucks came.  And they put cautionary yellow tape all over our yard.  In fact, there's still some stuck in our bushes).  And Dianne's dog (Ava) had to miss her beauty appointment because the street was blocked off.

And Dianne told me all of this when she came over to warn me not to eat anything from our fridge or freezer.  Don't worry, we'd found out as soon as we entered our house that we had a problem.  Remember all that tilapia I bought?  Well, it didn't fare so well in the power outage. 

Let me tell you, it was not fun to clean out the re-frozen tilapia juice from all corners of the freezer.  And it smelled (smells?) awful.

I thanked Dianne for letting us know what went on, and mentioned how glad I was that at least our flowers and garden were still doing great thanks to Noah.  "Wait, you didn't know?"

"Know what?"

"Noah got hit by a car this morning!"

Seriously?

I should mention here that he's ok.  Just banged up and tired.  But wait, there's more.

Noah had forgotten that we'd be back on Sunday night.  So, he was on his way across the street (we're talking literally 60 yards from his front door to ours) to check on our plants on Monday morning.  And another neighbor hit him.  And kept going because she was on a cell phone and didn't notice.

What type of person doesn't notice when they've hit a 12-year-old?  A 12-year-old who happens to be sprawled out in the middle of the street after you feel a bump on your car.

And then (this is a first-hand account from Noah and his mom) she blamed Noah for running into her car.  Yeah, lady, like a 12-year-old is going to viciously run into you at a high enough speed to leave a dent and rip off your side-view mirror.

The police came.  And the ambulance came.  And Noah's brand new iPod, which he had dropped on the road when he was hit (but up to this point was unharmed), was crunched under the ambulance's tire.

It was not a good day for Noah.

And all because we asked him to water our plants.