MONDAY CURRENTLY// VOL. 3

A more accurate title would be belated-Tuesday-currently but what can you do.
Anyway, carry on.

 R E A D I N G 

Everything I can on "There's Something Wrong with Aunt Diane" -- due to a very near-miss this weekend (more in "Thinking"). Super morbid, yes. In the time since my last Sunday Currently I cashed Emily Giffen's "The One and Only" in about 3 days. I usually blindly worship anything she writes, but I was not impressed with this book. The writing was great, per usual, but the story line had me rage-texting Jess at various points. <<hmpf>>

 L I S T E N I N G 

Just finished listening to a semi-heated phone deposition. I think my problem is I get second hand embarrassed far too easily. This bodes well for my career, no?

 T H I N K I N G 

How unbelievably lucky M and I were on Sunday night as we were about 15 feet and 5 seconds away from being one of these cars:

Sunday night M and I were headed over to Lauren's for an impromptu visit to check out their new place, along with Jess and Syndal and their men. We were headed eastbound on 94 (for those familiar with the twin cities) and coming up on a curve in the freeway where my work exit actually is. 

M was driving, and I was glancing down at my phone at the map when I heard him gasp, felt the brakes, and I looked up to see a flash of tail lights and the first impact as several cars immediately in front of us began to crunch into each other. M made a split second decision to swerve right as he anticipated the pile up heading to the left, and he was right (as you can see by the photo, all the cars wound up on the interior of the freeway).  We were literally the first car following these people who did NOT crash. 

We pulled over on the shoulder, shaking and all around freaking out when I snapped back and realized that we needed to be the ones to call 9-1-1. I gave all the information to dispatch and M hopped out of the car and ran over to check on everyone since the freeway had come to a stand still. After finishing with 911, I got out of the car and was standing next to the car talking to a nurse who had pulled over- I saw the lights of a patrol car coming up on my side of the freeway when the second accident happened: a black jeep that had pulled over on the opposite side of the freeway on the interior shoulder was struck by a old pickup truck, which then fishtailed out and hit several other cars before coming to a rest. 

M saw more since he was driving and; after talking to some of the other witnesses; pieced together what had happened: the black jeep said he had called in the dark brown sedan (at the top of the photo behind the 2 men) for driving erratically on 94 westbound. He came upon the accident and recognized the car, which is why he pulled over. There's a curve in the road westbound that this woman apparently missed entirely, launched over the median and went airborne, before coming back down and facing oncoming traffic in our lane. M first saw her as she cut from left to right across all 4 lanes of traffic, bounced off the far side median, and then wound up drivers-side-perpendicular to traffic on our side, which is when she first got hit. It was honestly the scariest experience of my life and I can't believe we didn't hit anything. It goes to show the importance of paying attention and not tailgating, because if M had glanced at the radio for even a second - he may not have seen her when he did, and may not have had enough time to react. 

I received a call from the first state trooper on the scene yesterday, since I provided all my contact information to dispatch. He called and took M and I's statement for a "possible prosecution"- possible, because they're obviously still conducting an investigation. When asked whether everyone was ok, he told us all he could say is that "It looks like everyone will live." I know that of 2 of the 4 vehicles, everybody inside was talking and walking around. The man in the light tan car seemed very rattled but I believe got out of his car at some point and was "ok".. the woman who apparently caused the accident was breathing (according to the nurse) but M said it looked like she was in bad shape. So, we'll see if anything else comes of it.. I'm just glad it wasn't worse for everybody else involved. 


 W I S H I N G 

That this weekend was another 4 day weekend.

 L O V I N G 

that I'm feeling otherwise rested after a long weekend, and that we've settled on a paint color for the exterior updates. STAY TUNED for that! Hoping to get it done within the next week or 2.

 W A N T I N G 

Dinner. Depo prep got the best of me this morning and I had popcorn for lunch (super healthy, I know).

 F E E L I N G 

So grateful for an overall fantastic weekend. We attended Leah's beautiful wedding and reception, had friends over for dinner, went hiking at a state park with M's sister which was followed by lunch on a patio in Stillwater- easily one of my favorite places ever, still visiting with Lo and Jess and Syndal after the accident, and then had my brother over for dinner Monday night. It was the perfect mix of family and friends, and has me feeling recharged for the short week ahead. Some more snaps from the weekend:

I feel stupid and somewhat forced into the following disclaimer, which should be obvious- but I was obviously mindful of the reason for the 3-day weekend.. and as another blogger put it so eloquently, it was not a weekend to celebrate all service members. While it's a noble and important thing to want to celebrate, that's Veteran's Day. Yesterday was about paying respects to those who have given the ultimate sacrifice.. and who have paid for our freedom with their life. That reason was not lost on me- as I drove by Fort Snelling and looked out at the expanse of white tombstones, my grandfather among them. Fortunately he did not need to give his life in service to our country to be buried there, but I'm aware that so many are not so lucky. Thank you to those families who lend us their sons and daughters and parents and uncles so that we can enjoy the life we do.

Girls night and a fireball

This is a short story of how a seemingly innocent girls night can go terribly wrong in a matter of minutes. 

Intrigued? Good. Stick around, and you'll find out what I'm talking about. ;-) 

Friday night I had some girls over for dinner and drinks, as I mentioned previously. Ever since I gave TJ a taste of the great outdoors (via leash and collar) he sits at the back door looking pitiful when people are on the deck. 

Exhibit A:

 The girls, minus Leah, on the deck. From L-R, Molly, Sarah, and Laura. I've known Molly since middle school. She's also a bridesmaid. Sarah and Laura were college friends of Molly that I've since gotten to know, and love :)

 This girl never says no to cheese.

 And a tasty little treat I call the "French Kiss" (equal parts chardonnay and Simply Lemonade brand Raspberry Lemonade. I've never tried it with another type of lemonade and I don't care to.. the Simply Lemonade stuff is just SO GOOD.

 The girls got a sweet action shot of me prying the cork out with my teeth. Yes, that's an electric wine opener next to me on the table, and no, apparently I don't quite know how to use it.

 Lemon cream pasta with asparagus. nom nom nom. Similar recipe (with brussel sprouts) HERE.

For the asparagus, I just blanched it (boiled it for 2 minutes, shocked it with cold water), and then diced it up into 1/3's, and sauteed it in olive oil with salt, pepper, red onions, and garlic. Lil' bit-o-basil and parmesean cheese on top.

 The remainder of the evening was relatively unassuming. We sat on the deck drinking, chatting, laughing. M came home from happy hour and joined the convo. We moved things inside when the bugs got bad, and continued the drinking, chatting and laughing. 

Then it started to rain. Nothing TOO bad, but heavy rain, and a "threat" of a potentially big thunderstorm. There was some thunder and lightning but again, nothing to seek shelter over. 

M started to fall asleep sitting up, so he dragged himself upstairs around 10:45. 

It was a little after 11 when there was a flash and a crack and then black. Power was out. I think I exclaimed something along the lines of "fuckkkkkkk." I just get annoyed with power outages. You don't realize how much you rely on power until you try to do little things and realize- oh wait, that too requires electricity. I stumble into the kitchen to get the lighter and start lighting candles in the living room. We're giggling because we're buzzed and it's kind of silly at this point. Then M comes RUNNING downstairs screaming "THE NEIGHBORS' HOUSE IS ON FIRE!" We run to the backdoor, look down the alley, and all you can see is this huge, intense, orange glow. The unmistakable flickering orange glow of flames. 

For about 5 seconds it was one of those "OMG this is happening. This is real. I actually have to call 911" moments. 

So 2 of us grab our phones and call 911... it's raining hard so we still can't really see what's on fire. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, we get through... the dispatcher picks up and the first thing she says is: 

"are you calling about the fire on _____ Avenue?" 

"uh, yes." 

"yep, we got it." 

click.

Sooooo we turns out the fire dept was on it! a minute later the sky goes from orange to black. Then we hear the sirens and see the lights. The truck stops at our end of the alley and for a second we're confused. It quickly becomes clear they were blocking off both ends of the alley, and then walking towards the scene. 2 firemen walk by, as all of us our standing on the deck in the rain. M, in what I didn't think was the best decision of the night, decided to put on a poncho and go walk down the alley. He ended up chatting with a fire fighter and found out what happened. Lightning struck a tree, which caused a branch to fall on the transformer in the alley, which promptly exploded into flames. Thank god it wasn't anybody's house. They cut power to the wires which killed the fire for the most part, but the fire was still smoldering/flaring up a bit.. so they stuck around to douse it. There was a live wire down in the alley though, so they taped it off for the rest of the night. We went to bed, hoping to wake up to power. Alas, no such luck. 

We hopped on the internet and learned it'd likely be out until 11 p.m. or at least that was their forecast at the time. So, we packed a bag, packed up our food that may spoil, and crashed M's mom's house. I had bought a bunch of brunch food dead set on having a lovely little Saturday morning with M.. since I had been absent studying. So I still made us breakfast, just at his mom's. :)

 Her spaceship stove. That I love.

 We lounged, I napped, and then we got ready to go to my cousin Mitch's 2nd birthday party. He loved his Elmo cake his mom made him. That's his brother Max in the green. 

M and I got into the party spirit. Actually, some little boy was running around making everybody take, and put on, a birthday hat.

 And then M was naughty and had to eat his Elmo cake in the corner.

And thus concludes girls night gone wrong, a fireball, and an Elmo birthday party. 

M and I have ZERO plans tomorrow. I'm quite looking forward to it. Actually, he looked at the weather (I call him Dave Dahl - local meteorologist- for a reason...) and it's supposed to be 78 and sunny. No more deathly hot temps! (I know people live in states where it's regularly 90+ degrees and I honestly don't know how. It's been in the 90s and humid for WEEKS/over a month here and it makes me want to die.) So, we're thinking of putzing over to Wayzata and Lake Minnetonka, where his dinner boat cruise was, for a nice little afternoon out there. 

Unrelated. Are people not supposed to post on weekends? I feel like I should be scheduling posts for weekday mornings. Is that what people do? I just draft them when I can, and then post it right away. I guess I don't care at this point what my stats are or which day the fall on. I barely look at them to begin with. I figure people will read it when they open up their google reader anywhoo. Whatevs. 

Hope everybody's having a fantastic weekend! and HAPPY WEDDING DAY to Syndal! Can't wait to see photossss!!

machine guns and lunch dates

Well, suffice it to say this weekend was hands down the most exciting one of my life! (well, besides the proposal weekend). Let me back up first.

Thursday I had court for my clinic. Thursdays are just "payables." Basically that means there's no judge present and it's the second to last step that gives people a chance to come pay the fine to the prosecutor. Usually they're speeding tickets, driving after suspension, things like that. Fridays are legit court days, judge and all.

Saturday morning was spent hanging out with this little guy. Perfect morning for some window sitting. M was golfing with the guys Saturday morning...

So I had a lunch date with an OLD friend from college. It was nice to catch up with her. This is what I wore: my new F21 dress ($9.50 online!), an old H&M cardigan, and a jade-like necklace from Heritage I believe from last year.

NOW, let's go back to the excitement. Friday night I, along with the other girl that does clinic with me, went on a ride along. The 3rd clinic student goes to the U and for their clinic they HAD to do a ride along. So, we thought it'd be fun to do one as well.

We showed up at the precinct at 9:00 for roll call. We sat in as the sergeant went over bulletins and people to "look out for" so to speak. The "overnight" shift is also known as "dog watch." After roll call the officer I was paired with, "Officer B." got a call about a potential burglary over at a warehouse nearby, the alarm was going off. We walked out to the car and it started to rain pretty good,..and he mentioned that these types of calls are usually nothing especially with the rain like it was. We pull down the street, whip a U-turn to check out the parking lot, and see a black SUV pulling out of the parking lot in front of us. Officer B says "well look at that, we may have something." and he initiates a traffic stop. I will tell you, after watching hundreds upon hundreds of hours of Criminal Minds.. sitting in the front seat as the rain pours down, watching Officer B approach the car (with a hand on his gun, just in case) had my heart SLAMMING in my chest. 2 other squads showed up a few minutes later to check out the scene and see if there was any evidence of a burglary. The man in the car said he was out for a walk on the trails and had parked back there so it was a shorter walk. It's 9:45 on a Friday night and it's pouring. hmmmm, okay. The other officer looked around but saw no evidence of a break in, so they ran the guys license and plates and let him go.

We conducted a few traffic stops after that, but wrote no tickets.

Officer B told me that the dog watch crew tries to meet up at 11:30 at a particular Holiday station for soda. The officers can all instant message each other, in essence, on the computers in their cars. SO, to be funny, Officer B IMed the sergeant on duty to ask if it was "okay" if I came to their secret meeting. I started referring to this as their "secret soda stop." It was about 11:18 so we were going to go to the secret soda stop early,.. we pulled into the parking lot and got a call about an assault at a bowling alley nearby. This was the first time he really flipped on the lights and started to FLY down residential streets. I will tell you this: NOTHING, and I repeat NOTHING is as exhilarating, terrifying, and adrenaline-inducing as going 70 down residential streets in a squad car. We get to the bowling alley and Dude 1 and Chick 1 were saying Dude 2 hit Chick 1 (who was pregnant) in the face. I got out of the squad and was standing there listening. Apparently, Dude 1 said Dude 2 was "stalking him" because Dude 2 accused Dude 1 of sleeping with Dude 2's mom. chicka-whaa? OH and Dude 1 owed Dude 2 money. Chick 1's sister came out and was all "He did WHAT? he hit you" and the cops were like, "don't even, lady." and made her stand out of the way. All in all, no arrests and no charges were filed.

We finish up there around 11:25 and head back over to the Holiday to try our secret soda meeting a second time. We pull in at 11:31, head inside, and Officer B gets a call. All I heard over the radio was "hit and run" and "gun".... Officer B's face gets super serious, he says "let's go." very seriously, and then we run, not walk, out to the car. Did I say my heart was racing during the potential burglary stop? This time it was damn near jumping out my throat. I know things are about to get serious. We're flying around and he's on the radio trying to get more information. [What ended up coming out was this: a toyota was involved in a fender bender with a blue van, the toyota stopped, but the van didn't. Toyota calls dispatch screaming about being involved in a hit and run and that he was following the van. Dispatch told him not to do that. Next thing dispatch hears is the toyota catch up to the van, and the passenger in the van say "just kill them! just kill them!" and the toyota freaking out yelling "he has a gun!"]

We end up over by a very 'trendy' part of town near the lake, and come up behind a teal van. Officer B asks what the plate was, reads off the plate of the van, and dispatch confirmed that the numbers matched. We're the first car there, so Officer B flips on his lights to initiate a traffic stop. In my head I knew it was going to be serious but I wasn't prepared for what happened next....

Officer B opens his door, uses it as a shield, draws his gun and starts yelling "HANDS IN THE AIR." I about shit myself, pardon my french. Next thing I know 4 or 5 other squads are pulling up, forming a V behind the suspect, cops are opening their doors, drawing their guns, and yelling as well. My door flies open (which in this situation almost induced a heart attack) and one of the cops is practically falling on my lap as he uses my door as a shield. (I went to college with the cop, actually...) It's only after I scoot out of the way/onto the console in the middle that I notice the sub-machine gun in his hand. (HOLY F%$# --was my first thought).

Officer B yells, "HANDS OUT THE WINDOW! Open the door from the outside, put your hands in the air, and walk backwards towards the sound of my voice!"... the driver isn't getting out of the car. So Officer B repeats his directions more firmly. The driver puts his hands out the window, opens the door, steps out, and then makes a move like he's about to turn around and face the officers. (my hands are over my face, jaw dropped, as this is going on.. just trying to stay out of the way of the cop that's sitting on my seat with the machine gun). Officer B (and about 3 others) scream "TURN AROUND. HANDS IN THE FUCKING AIR!" oohhhh god oh god oh god oh god- is what I'm thinking.

Finally the idiot does as he's told, and is cuffed on the ground. Officer B then directs my college buddy to "call out" the front passenger. So they tell him the same thing (this one was far more compliant) and he's cuffed. Finally the third and last passenger was taken from the car and cuffed as well. They then formed a shape like this ==> \ , with 3 cops, and tactically moved in to clear the van. They saw some alcohol in the back so that provided probable cause to search the rest of the car for evidence of a crime (oh look, crim pro coming in handy!)

During this, the driver was cuffed and in the back of the squad I was riding in. Officer B was off talking to other officers and searching the car so basically I was sitting in the car alone with the guy, which is when he started trying to TALK TO ME. I was panicking so finally when another cop came by and told me I could get out, I did. Not before I noticed he was on his cell phone back there, somehow, despite being cuffed. So I told one of the cops, who then proceeded to take his phone. They did a sweep of the car no gun was found...also looked in the grass near the area of the stop and couldn't find a gun. Dispatch got ahold of the victim's car and they said they wanted nothing to do with any of it anymore. After 4 unsuccessful attempts to get the driver to blow into a breathalizer (which was INFURIATING the cop, because it was clear the guy was 'faking' it on purpose) the driver only blew a .06. After all that, the officers had nothing to hold any of them on, so we let them go.

Once I stopped shaking I asked Officer B why the stop was treated the way it was, and he said any time there is a report of a gun involved, or a weapon, or the suspect is dangerous, they do that kind of a stop (called a felony stop). We performed a few more stops later in the night.. a DWI that wasn't actually a DWI,... a welfare check on an allegedly suicidal guy- except we only had his address as of 10 years ago. SO we just scared the crap out of a different person at 2:00 a.m. Last, we had a (VERY) drunk guy, who was on dialysis, wandering around the parking lot of a BP at 3:30 a.m., so we waited with him while the ambulance showed up, as he dry heaved (Bleck) and they took him to the hospital.

I highly recommend a ride along to everyone.. It's really a unique experience, and one I'll remember for the rest of my life.

-Kelly