Trouble Comes In Threes So Please Be Prepared

It is true that trouble comes in threes and last weekend provided ample evidence of this for me. The thoughts of what could have been weigh on my mind when I think about a fire we had Saturday night.

We were hosting two other couples for dinner and I was seated at the outdoor table with our guests while my husband was in the kitchen. I looked up and saw flames shooting out from the camp stove that we had set up on a table next to the grill and outside our kitchen window. Our camp stove, (which we were using to deep fry french fries to go with our grilled steaks), had flames at the bottle/stove connection and it caught two other small propane bottles on fire. Suddenly, I was in front of the stove and for a split second I reached over as if to put the fire out with my hands. I then reached underneath our gas grill and grabbed our fire extinguisher I had just put there the Week Before after reading a Be Prepared post from a dear blogger friend, An Eagle's View. I put out the fire immediately with the extinguisher without ruining any of our dinner. Somehow during this process and for the life of me, I don't know how or when this happened, but the two quarts of boiling oil with french fries ended up on our patio deck. Also, a foot sized oil stain on the outer side of my right jean leg. I am still processing how lucky I am, we are. I then proceeded to get clean cat litter and use it to soak up the oil spill and then we served our beautiful dinner. It's surreal to me, small seemingly meaningless circumstances, me wearing jeans, putting a fire extinguisher under the grill, keeping calm, all helped truly avert disaster. Truly incredible in the sense it boggles believability. To say I am thankful and appreciative is a major understatement. It is also helping me maintain perspective and reminds me what is really important as I struggle with the challenges of parenting teen sons. It also confirmed what I thought earlier about my loved ones and Angels looking out for me and all of us. I recently completed a family necklace with the birthstone colors of my family and Saturday night was the first night I wore it. I take it as a very good talisman. I think if I was a cat I would have definitely used up a couple of lives.

Thank you for listening, being here. Deep Breathes, for the real stuff versus the what could have been, but isn't.

What is synchronicity but like the one drop of water that tips over the bucket? Or the one additional blog post to stimulate a thought, and then an action. Thanks, E.V., you remind me, we are all connected.

Holy Crap Yet Another Reason to Compost

Here is a Traffic Alert or what is called a "SigAlert" that is in effect here in LA. Nothing too exciting or earth shaking about bad traffic in crowded Los Angeles. Until you read what is the Hazardous Material causing the freeway shutdown.

From California Highway Patrol website: Hazardous material spill closes 5 lanes

The northbound I-5 freeway at the 405 is the site of a SigAlert, after a late morning accident caused a spill that covered several lanes of traffic. Two traffic lanes and the truck lanes remain shut down, awaiting Caltrans cleanup crews. The substance, described as black and slippery, was initially thought to be tar, but was determined to be irradiated human waste. The waste is not hazardous and was on its way to be processed into fertilizer.

I am never buying fertilizer ever again.