They say bad things happen in threes. If that's true, I should be in the clear for now.
1) A week ago Sunday our house was burglarized during the middle of the day, while my husband was upstairs in the bedroom reading a book. They came in through a door left open in an effort to keep the house cool from the summer heat. They didn't end up getting away with much, ultimately, but they did make off with my husband's keys. So we spent the rest of the day putting new locks in the house and the garage. Luckily they were extraordinarily dumb crooks; two of them were caught a couple of blocks away when they were spotted dumping items they had stolen*. There were a couple of witnesses who had seen and identified the third person who was involved. Apparently he's a known entity. Lontrez, stay the hell away from my house.
2) Yesterday at 3am, my husband and I were awakened by a loud crashing noise. It turned out to be a very large branch (at least 10" in diameter) from the elm tree across the street from our house suddenly falling. This was very strange, because the tree appeared to be in good health and there was no wind. The branch completely blocked the street and fell almost directly on our housemate's car. By the grace of the tree gods, however, the branch somehow fell around her car and did no damage. However the vehicle was trapped until workers from the park service could come with their chain saws. The workers arrived about 7:30 that morning and had just about extricated her car when another large limb fell, narrowly missing her car and instead landing on the van that was (illegally) parked behind her. Let that be a lesson to those who park in front of others' driveways! The whole incident left us, and especially our roommate, a bit shaken, but with nothing lost beyond a night's sleep, thank goodness.
3) As most of the world now knows, during yesterday evening's rush hour, the Interstate 35W bridge crossing the Mississippi River collapsed for no apparent reason. We were just sitting down to my belated birthday dinner at a restaurant a couple of miles away when our housemate called my husband's cell phone to see if we were okay. We ran into the bar area and watched in disbelief as they showed the wreckage on television. Fortunately, all of our family, friends, and co-workers are safe, but at least four people and possibly as many as 20 or 30 lost their lives and many others were injured. A wiki page with information on the disaster is already up and running, and my colleagues in the government publications department of the University Libraries have already put up links to U.S. Federal and Minnesota government records on bridge technology and bridge inspection. Although I wasn't directly affected (other than being forced to find a new route to get to work), a disaster like this shakes up the entire community. I've been touched by the e-mail messages from friends around the country and even in other parts of the world who wanted to check in and make sure we're okay and express their sympathy.
*If you don't believe the crooks who burgled our house were dumb consider this: One of the two who was caught had a fairly extensive record of petty crimes on his record including two separate charges of spitting on the street during the past six months (neither of these was in conjunction with any other charge). How stupid do you have to be to get caught by the police for spitting?
14 AUG UPDATE
In the past few days I've discovered the bridge disaster hit closer to home than I had thought. The cousin of a very close friend of mine was driving across the bridge with her boyfriend when it fell. Their car ended up in the river. It began to fill with water, but fortunately, they were able to escape and make their way to shore. They were hospitalized for a few days, but ultimately came through with no serious injuries, other than some major shell shock.
On Saturday I attended a baby shower for a friend and found out the hostess was driving on 35W, on her way to the Mall of America with her teen-aged niece. She was maybe a quarter of a mile from the bridge when it collapsed. She had already been stopped in the rush hour traffic when she heard some noise and saw a large dust cloud ahead. At first she assumed it was related to the construction going on in the area, but after a while she saw a man walking back along the highway. She opened the window and asked what was going on. When he told her the bridge had collapsed, she never imagined that the whole thing was gone. Eventually she and the other drivers stranded there were able to turn around and drive the wrong way on the Interstate to get back to the last exit. It wasn't until then that the announcement came over the radio and she realized exactly what a narrow escape she'd just had.
Just hearing stories like this makes me feel like I've had a narrow escape myself! I'm sitting here now in Andersen Library on the West Bank of the U of M, and I'm little more than a stone's throw from the wreckage. Despite this, I haven't actually seen it except on television. The 10th Avenue bridge, which is a few hundred yards from here, has been blocked off since the collapse, and although I've thought about it, I haven't brought myself to scouting around for another place with a good view. It doesn't seem right. On the other hand, it's hard to believe that it's actually right outside when I can't see it. When I just see it on TV, it could be anywhere. Weird.