usually for rosh hashanah, we make a nice dinner -- usually a stuffed chicken, sometimes it's been lamb. twice a pheasant and chartreuse and lentil stew that it's just a little too warm for, weatherwise, yet.
this year -- with purchasing and renovating the house, and various other creative and business projects going -- we forgot about rosh hashanah. or, we got the date wrong. i'm the atheist, so i leave it up to ben to remember. monday night he said, "why does everyone at work keep asking me if i'm going to be in on thursday?" and then we realized why.
we were unprepared, so, last night, we ate out at one of our favorite places -- the astral plane. for the second night, we still wanted to do something homey -- i think of rosh hashanah as a kind of mini-thanksgiving -- but, short on time and energies, we decided it was going to be a Very Trader Joe's Rosh Hashanah.
which was challenging. it was so funny to see that there was no chicken, and no apples, to be had anywhere in the store. (but piles of pork remained unsold.) we tinkertoyed together a pre-fab but yummy looking meal, brought everything home, and went to bed.
around 1:45 am, i woke up to a big, big noise. (ben later remarked that he heard this noise too, and it made him dream that the chimney to the woodstove at the new house had been dropped off of the roof). i looked outside to see our neighbor brian trudging out in his skivvies, and saw a police cruiser slam to a stop in the middle of the block, and put its flashers on.
running to another window while dressing, i saw a very bashed-up car in the middle of the intersection. cars all along the block, actually, were in various states of bashing. ours looked mostly okay, although a totaled SUV was shoved up against our back bumper.
i woke ben up, and we stumbled outside, where all of our lovely buildingmates were already goggle-eyed. apparently, some idiot was being pursued by the police in his car, and he lost control on our block -- ricocheting off of no fewer than SIX cars. keep in mind that we all heard ONE continuous sound -- so that indicates just how fast this hellbound moron was going. six cars, back and forth, in one big smash. six. three totalled, two pretty poorly off.
three plus two doesn't equal six, though, does it? that sixth car was ours. the bumper was dented. when the tow-truck guy moved it, the dent popped back out into place. nothing. not a thing wrong with it.
not only this, but if any of the cars that WERE damaged or destroyed, the culprit's car would, in fact, have ended up directly in our apartment. this is the one thing that has always made me afraid to live on the first floor, and right before we move out, it almost happened. incredible!
the driver of the out-of-control car apparently abandoned his blood-filled vehicle and fled on foot. police searched while we watched. then we started to smell the gas. the gas tanks from two of the wrecked cars were leaking.
a hazmat team came out, poured some powder around, and decided it wasn't enough. they opened two fire hydrants, flooding the street for an hour or so. debris -- fiberglass, safety glass, an axel -- was everywhere, like there had been a tornado.
it took two and a half hours for everyone to report their information to the police and get everything under control. i was out sweeping glass at four in the morning just so flanny could pee; ben and our neighbor mike were out again doing the same thing when we woke up today.
ben is working from home today. we're just a little tired.
still gotta go get a challah though. yeah, and my paxil, by no small coincidence.