| I'll be your witness. Part 2. | 4/14/2006 |
First, it was the rear-ender in the next lane, witnessed out her window by the intrepid Kelly, herself. I think I may have written about it. Last month? The previous one?
And then tonight.
Tonight, I did something I've never done before (and quite frankly, I'd be happy if I never had to do it again, but I'm not holding my breath).
I called 911.
From my cell phone.
In my car.
After a lovely supper out at a local Szechuan place, Ken took the boys home, while I took Kelly with me on a tour through the two farther-away Joann Fabric stores, searching for the "Amaretto Linen-Like Solids" fabric that was marked down this weekend to $2.99/yard. I've been asked to make draperies for the new youth room at church, and they'd like to have as much of the room done as possible by Easter Sunday.
Um, that'd be the day after tomorrow.
(begin giant aside about sewing draperies)
Last week, I went out with one of the women who's the driving force behind the remodel, and she showed me to this great fabric place up in San Mateo right on the 101. I don't recall the name, but it was a little warehouse with bolts and bolts and bolts of fabric. Mostly, it wasn't appropriate for our needs, but she found a bolt of navy twill that she thought would be good. (Six bucks a yard. Cough cough) 24 yards later, I had a nice bolt in my car, and was heading home to make drapes. I decided to go for quick-and-dirty and cut 3-yard panels, not hemmed down the selvedges (it IS for a youth lounge, after all), sewed a 3.5 inch rod-pocket across the top, and steam-a-seamed a 2 inch hem. An hour, and I had eight panels ready to go. We managed to get those up on the wall by last Sunday.
Then my "supervisor" went on vacation with her family, and I was cut loose to "make my own decisions" about what I thought would be good for the other 36 feet of walls. And if I could get another wall done by Easter, that'd be gravy!
Earlier this week, I went out with my dad (another of the things I got done while they were here. I forgot!) and picked up 15 yards of ruby red bull denim. It's a bit heavier than the navy twill, but it sewed up nice. This morning I got 5 panels cut and the tops sewed. I ran out of steam-a-seam, though, so only brought 3 panels to the church at noon when I went to walk through the Good Friday Stations of the Cross with Skip. On the way home from that (hooray for Play Dates for Kelly and Nate. I coulnd't have taken 3 kids into Joann's and survived) Skip and I stopped at the local Joann's and picked up some more hem tape. While I was there, I realized that the fake linen fabric (that WAS $4.99/yard) was on super-sale, and this was the time to grab it, so I snagged 15 yards of a "tropical green'. ($2.49/yard. Woot! No... double WOOT!) I bought out what the store had, though. I really needed more, hence the post-supper trip south with Kelly.
(end big giant aside)
Anyways, we went south to the closer of the farther-away Joann's, and snagged all the "tropical green" they had. And I also got sucked in by a lovely "lime yellow" (really, a bright chartreuse!), and got 9 yards of that, too.
Seeing as I'd already driven that far south, and there was still over an hour left in business hours, I decided to make the trek to the Mountain View store. Jackpot! They had more tropical green AND more lime yellow. On this visit, I also snagged matching thread (While I'm pretty sure I've got teal thread at home, I knew for a fact that chartreuse wasn't in the inventory. And at 30% off? Need I say more?)
As I was heading back to the 101 from Joann's, I suddenly realized that off ahead to the right the sky was brighter. And suddenly orange. Ooh. Maybe it's a fire?
I got closer, and could see flames. I was getting ready to move out of the way, should the fire trucks suddenly whistle past, when suddenly a naked man on fire jumped out towards the front of the car, waving his hands frantically.
One word: Eek!
In retrospect, he wasn't on fire. Smoking a bit, I think. But there were flames behind him, and he looked charred around the edges. He was panic stricken, and I was too stunned to stop in time. I slammed on the binders, and looked for a place to pull over. It was nearly a block before it registered what I'd just seen.
I pulled over. Kelly was crying. Surely someone will stop, I thought, but cars kept streaming past me.
So I got out my phone.
I could never be an emergency worker. I was all tied up in a knot just hitting "send".
911: 911 operator. What is the address of the emergency?
Me: I'm on San Antonio Road, near Charleston. Palo Alto, I think. There's a naked man on fire. And a warehouse on fire.
911: Palo Alto? I'm transfering you now.
.....
911(new voice): What is the address of the emergency?
Me: I'm on San Antonio Road. Maybe near Charleston. Behind me about a block there's a warehouse to the south on fire. There's a man running out from the fire. I think he's hurt, maybe burned.
911: That's Mountain View. I'm transferring you now.
.....
911(another voice): What is the address of the emergency?
Me: (detecting a pattern here?) San Antonio Road. Near Charleston. There's a warehouse going back from the road south. One of the bays is on fire. There's at least one man hurt. He's trying to flag down help. Has someone else phoned this in? I'm not really familiar with the area here.
911: Fire is on the way. Thankyou. I'm hanging up to take another 911 call.
I pulled a U-turn at Charleston (turns out I hadn't come to Charleston after all), and drove back to see if anyone else had stopped. Kelly was very worried, so I reassured her by showing her that two cars had stopped, and the man was no longer running in the street. "Don't worry, honey. The firemen are on their way, and they can put out the fire and help the man who was hurt." At that point, I didn't want to jet up the freeway, so I turned up Middlefield and putt-putted north. On my way, what did I see? A PALO ALTO firetruck dispatched to the scene.
I guess Palo Alto 911 was listening after all.
And now I've got the 9:00 news on, and wondering if the warehouse fire will make 'Breaking News".
I'm still a little tied up in knots inside, though.
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