Fire Stopper

First of all, I have to explain the lack of photos. It's too darn hot! I got home from school and went straight inside and haven't left the house since. Hopefully, I'll take some new photos tomorrow. It was so hot today, that our contractor put his tools down at noon and went home. It was over 100 degrees today and I guess he didn't want to kill himself. Hmmmm, I hope this doesn't extend the timeline. Just kidding, Tom! (I'm not sure if he reads this, but I'd better be nice to him.)

So he didn't really have too much time to work today. But he did do a super important task, which was to put in the fire breaks. What are fire breaks, you ask? Well, I asked the same thing too. When the demo of the old room was finished, I noticed horizontal pieces of wood staggered up and down the existing wall. I asked Tom what it was and he explained that they were there to slow down a potential fire. Supposedly, if the wall catches on fire, these pieces of wood slow the fire down enough for us to run to safety. I was surprised that this safety element existed on a 1937 wall; after all, the original codes for the building aren't exactly state of the art. We looked at the plans for the addition (built in 1940) and the drawings weren't even done with a ruler. The owner (not an architect or a builder even) drew a rectangle, not to scale, then wrote the dimensions of the addition on the rectangle. That's it. No notes about the new roof, the electrical wiring, or the cement foundation. So you can see why it surprised me that and idea such as fire safety was not only included in that original building, but also exists in pretty much the same form today. State-of-the-art building in 1937, who knew?

Anyway, the idea of a fire sweeping through the house made me think about what we might save if we had just a minute to gather our things. Julia would bring her digital camera. She takes it everywhere she goes and spends her time taking photos and videos and then vlogging on her you tube page. She'd probably even take a video of the fire itself. Grace would have a difficult time choosing which of her mountain of books to save, but in the end she'd save her "baby" - the rag doll she's had since she was born - and, of course, the dog. Darryl would bring the ipod because his playlists have been built with painstaking care and each and every song has so much meaning to him.

As for me, I'd look at our photo albums. Our wedding, Julia's baby book, Grace's baby book, albums from when Darryl and I were kids, vacation albums, school memories. Halloweens and birthdays. How do you choose between those? Which ones are irreplaceable? It's not exactly Sophie's Choice, but it's still too difficult a decision to make. In the chaos of the moment, I'd probably just grab my laptop and run. That way, I could start a new blog: "After the Fire - a story of rebuilding." You'd check it out, right?