Mouse woke up at 4:30 a.m. on Thursday to her upstairs neighbor shouting "fire." Opened the door and saw a big wall of flames just outside our dining room, two or three stories high. Ran outside and didn't take anything with me. Did not stop to put on bra. Wondered if my house would burn down. Wondered if my friend, the Red Cross disaster responder, would have to come bring me a blanket and see me with no bra. It was terrifying. It burned through our cables and power cords, and the heat broke one of our windows and shriveled up our tomato plants and my jasmine. The firemen chopped down our garage door with an axe. Our backyard smells like burned plastic.

BUT.

No one was hurt, our house didn't burn down, and all that was lost were two cars (which were insured). We are all feeling incredibly, impossibly lucky. And Mouse is officially grateful for all this wet, rainy, cloudy, cold, un-summery weather, because the fire didn't spread.

P.S.-Boyfriend, please come home from Brazil because things tend to get smoky when you're gone.