Uncategorized 02 Jun 2009 02:28 am
Is it getting skeezy around here?
Josh: *lifts his head, listens*
Cam: *takes out the earplugs*
— BANG BANG BANG –
Cam: “Gunshots?!”
Josh: “Yep.”
Cam: “How many did you hear before?!”
Josh: “3, maybe 4.”
Cam: *checks the clock* “1:48. From the north maybe?!”
Josh: “There’s no way to tell really.” *goes back to sleep*
Cam: *big-eyed look of WHAT WHAT WHAT*
Josh: *HOOOOOONK*…*ssss*…*HOOOOOONK*…*ssss*…*HOOOOONK*…
Nobody in earshot has called an aid car, according to Realtime 911. Whatever that was, I hope… well, it’s hard to know what to hope, isn’t it? So now I’m wide awake and vigilant. But even if had been were something to hear, the vigilance has done me no good because I can’t hear a darn thing over the snoring anyway. How does he do it? And how is it that he’ll stay up until 4 am when someone is wrong on the internet, but goes right back to sleep next to an exterior wall when someone is shooting a few blocks away? (Okay, I admit it. I understand the first half of that. I mean, someone being wrong on the internet is a powerful motivating force. Also, um, “a few blocks away.”)
We also smelled something on fire this evening. Josh even walked around the neighborhood wondering which house was on fire this time. And of course we’re just around the corner from where the big flood was. I wonder what will be next. Plague seems insufficiently local, as do bears, and we did the fleeing-bankrobber thing around here a few years ago. Falling space junk? Mini-tornado?
on 02 Jun 2009 at 8:04 am 1.Sarah said …
It was around that time that our neighbor a couple houses down from Dave and I very kindly set off some fireworks, three or four very load bangs. Lovely to jolt awake to.
on 02 Jun 2009 at 8:41 am 2.Josh said …
One way I do it is by having woken up every hour on the hour between 3am and 7am last night. So… sleepy. And if I said “Yep” it was because I was half-asleep. What I meant to say was, “could be, or maybe firecrackers”. Weighed against having gotten no good sleep last night, the threat of gunfire or possibly firecrackers from what sounded like a few blocks away seemed safe to ignore.
on 02 Jun 2009 at 9:57 am 3.Savannah said …
“Skeezy”, hahaha!
(I doubt it, but what neighborhood do you live in, again?)
It probably was fireworks. Like the First, Panicky Robin of Spring, those first fireworks of June.
on 02 Jun 2009 at 10:53 am 4.Ted said …
Geez, what’s next, zombies? Seems like the end of the world is just around the corner.
http://www.nullityvoid.com/
on 02 Jun 2009 at 11:49 am 5.Cam Sculpin said …
Savannah: we’re in a weird little neighborhood tucked between Ravenna and Lake City, both of which have had some kind of weird incidents lately. But you’re right, it probably was fireworks. It was a slow, regular series, which tipped me over into thinking “gunshots”, but I’m pretty sure I’d have seen some report by now if that’s what it’d been. (Also I was startled out being nearly asleep. I probably tend to think ***DOOM*** in general when something weird wakes me up.)
As for what’s next… Having slept on it, I think I’ll put my money on angry crows. I got dive-bombed by a crow last Thursday, and pretty soon I saw why: a little crow fledgling was staying very still in the shadows. I carefully pretended not to look at it and maintained speed.
It was an interesting little guy — dull charcoal gray, bluish eyes, a little pink around the beak, about half the size of an adult, with something different about the beak that I couldn’t quite make out. But sticking around to observe looked like a good way to get a faceful of crow. It didn’t seem to be in any distress, and I guess it’s about the right time for it to be taking its first flight. That adult crow wouldn’t have believed me, but I felt pretty protective of it myself: awww, little bitty crow going out into the big world.
Come to think of it, a hummingbird was getting mighty close to me yesterday — it was maybe two feet away behind me. I was all, “What is that loud buzzing noise?!…Holy shit!” After it flew away, I got to watch it perch and wipe its beak on a wisteria branch. That was neat. Hummingbirds are practically half beak, so it’s a rather involved, full-body process.
So, maybe it’s a bird army. Those chickens had better not turn on me, is all I’m saying. I know where they sleep.
on 02 Jun 2009 at 6:26 pm 6.Sarah said …
To quote Lewis Black: Giant frogs, giant frogs. What can I say? Back to you.