Why Start a Blog?

Because There is Not a Tree in my Living Room

It started with a thunderstorm on a Sunday evening in July.  A seemingly small thunderstorm that passed through the DC/Baltimore area in less than half an hour.  However, this small thunderstorm knocked out power for myself and approximately 200,000 other people in Maryland.  It was hot…very hot…so hot that I convinced myself, I couldn’t possibly sleep well. So I didn’t.  I woke up early the next morning, craving coffee and more than ready to go to work in the freezing cold basement in the Jewish Museum of Maryland in Baltimore.  Unfortunately, it was only 7 am and as an intern, I was under strict orders to not show up to work until 10 am.  Then it was in the middle of my cold shower that I suddenly realized, I had no way to make my absolutely-essential-to-my-sanity cups of coffee.

“No problem,” I thought, “I can indulge with the Starbucks around the corner.”  However, as I was pulling out of my apartment complex, I noticed that the traffic light on New Hampshire Avenue was out.  I also noticed that the drivers didn’t seem to know/understand the concept of a 4-way stop.  What I did not know at the time was that it would be this exact traffic light that would lead to the culmination of the very bad day.  Eventually I found a Starbucks that had electricity, almost getting hit once by a driver who didn’t feel like looking as he was backing up, and made my way to blessedly cool basement at the JMM in Baltimore.

I had a class at 5:30 that evening, and wanted to stop by the apartment to check on my big fluffy monster of a cat, Shadow, to make sure he hadn’t dropped dead from heat exhaustion.  I left work early to avoid traffic, and everything was going fine until I pulled off the DC beltway onto New Hampshire Ave, where the traffic lights were still out.  A police officer was directing traffic, but was not letting anyone turn left into my apartment complex.  So I had to go straight through the light and take the back way around.

When I went through the light, the car in front of me stopped suddenly, and I had to very quickly slam on my brakes.  I was just breathing a sigh of relief (thankful that I had not rearended the car) when I suddenly felt myself and my SUV being pushed violently into that very car.  Anger. Tears. Frustration. My entire body was shaking.  At which point, I notice the guy, whose old ford pickup truck was lodged in my tailgate, poke his head out his car window to shout, “Are ya’ll okay?” and then return to his cell phone conversation.  More Anger, Tears, Frustration, but immensely relieved that the police officer saw the whole thing.

I had to miss my class.  My car was drivable, but with the tailgate and tail lights completely smashed, the only place I was driving it was back to my apartment, where the power was STILL out.  When my roommate got home, I told her about my very bad day, and she said, “it’s just been a bad week for everyone.”  I asked her what she meant by that, and she told me about our friends, who had to vacate their apartment suddenly when a tree fell through their roof into their living room landing on their sofa.  A TREE fell into their living room!

So at the end of the very bad day, all I could do was thank God that there was NOT a tree in my living room.