A scary end to Day 5 of the Summer of Martie.

FIRE TRUCK!

Just after we finished supper, a fire truck came wailing up our street and stopped right there--OMG!! There was a fire two houses down from ours, and as you can see from the houses across the street, we're all built very close together. Turns out the back porch of that house was on fire (mind your barbecue grills, people!), there were flames *shooting up*, and having a neighbor across the alley with a straight-shot view of that porch and a phone in his hand saved a lot of houses. We couldn't see it, the first we knew of it was the fire truck, then the neighbors gathering, and then I ran out to the backyard (wearing a t-shirt and unders, shut up, I didn't have time to think) and just saw smoke and firefighters. That's the advantage of living in a crowded little borough with the fire department within walking distance: they were here before most of the street knew what was up. They put the fire out, did a good inspection to make damn sure it was out and there were no embers, and when I took this pic, they were packing up to go.

So that was our Great Excitement for the day, and I really hope there are no repeats any time soon.