Today started out normal enough…I guess. Come to think of it, I guess it wasn’t really that normal of a morning when I got up. Ian was sleeping on the futon rather than in the bedroom, which is odd, I suppose, but not unheard of. I got up kind of late but not too late since I knew I worked at nine. Before even getting out the door though, I had the fun of cleaning up Kitty vomit from the couch. Luckily (if luck has anything to do with cat vomit), she had thrown up mostly on the blanket she uses while on the couch. Whee. That meant that, because I was running a little late already, I wouldn’t get breakfast or have time to fix lunch to take to work. Oh, well, no biggie.

Apparently it was incredibly busy this weekend at the library, so there were lots of videos and books leftover from yesterday since they didn’t have time to shelve them. I didn’t get a chance to get caught up either after my four-hour shift. I ended up leaving quite a lot for the page who clocked in after me. I think it’s because everyone around here is freaked out about the possibility of snow. (Yet more fun for the near future as several people said they’re predicting a couple inches.) I heard about a dozen people this morning say they were getting extra books in case they got snowed in. Can’t say that I blame them, but I have enough books here I haven’t read; I don’t need any more!

After clocking out, I checked my phone for messages as usual. The first message contained this video clip: Right click to save (I think that’ll work) or if your browser supports it, you can watch it on-line too. Simmons (Simons’s 1992 Dodge Caravan) on fire. The following message was from Simon telling me that it was his van because, well, from the video, it’s hard to tell. I immediately started texting him to see how he was and to see if he were home. When he said he was both OK and at home, I called and talked to him while driving my own 1992 Dodge [Grand] Caravan home.

Simon said that what happened was essentially this: he was speeding down the highway when a minivan pulled out in front of him from one of the side roads near the Lakeview restaurant. He hit him then spun around and ended up in the other lane. That’s when he was rear-ended by an on-coming vehicle. The man in the minivan was all right, but the man in the car that hit him suffered an open fracture in his leg. Simon’s face hit the airbag (he thinks, he honestly can’t remember many details) and then probably hit the headrest because he was very dazed for several minutes. He got out of the van, saw that it was on fire, but because he was dazed, really couldn’t think clearly enough to do anything. His best friend Zak happened to be passing, saw Simon’s van, got out and put Simon in his truck. It was Zak who shot the video. Dad was home sick (have I mentioned this day sucked all around?) so Mom ran down and got to watch all the carnage of the van burning up then taking Rook to the hospital. Simon had no idea that his van was so engulfed until seeing the video that Zak forwarded to him. Rook’s actually fairly worried because his school books and oboe were in there. Otherwise, he had a wooden pencil in his pocket that bruised his leg but didn’t puncture it, and he banged a knuckle on his right hand on something, bruising it. At the hospital, they x-rayed and scanned all the injured parts to make sure there was no internal bleeding or any fractures. Nothing came up, so Simon’s home today and tomorrow to recuperate.

Once I got home from the library, I was still talking to Simon. I sat down on the couch to discover yet more cat puke on the carpet near the couch. She really let loose this morning, apparently. Yay, more to clean up. After talking to Simon a while and getting all the details listed above, I texted Katie, Tommy, and Sarah en masse to tell them Rook was in an accident but was OK. I texted back and forth with Katie to give her some of the details. Sarah and Tommy are probably at work and will get their messages later.

My plans for the rest of the day include using carpet treatment on the floor, washing Kitty’s puke blanket, putting away laundry, and probably playing World of Warcraft while watching old movies. PLEASE NOTHING ELSE HAPPEN TODAY, OK?! The stress is causing my left shoulder’s pinched nerve to act up and it’s already going numb painfully! Maybe today’s a good day to go back to bed…

Addendum: Rook’s school books and oboe were both lost in the fire. Plus, I typed all this with information from Simon who was still pretty dazed and forgot to mention it was Mom who ran down to the site of the accident and went with him to the hospital. So Super-Mom to the rescue! 😀

Also, Ian thought it’d be interesting to point out that he was thinking of some parallels between Simon’s accident and the ones Katie and I both had while we were in high school. Katie’s was while she was sixteen and involved our full-sized van hitting a stopped school bus, mine was when I was seventeen and involved my dumbass classmate running a stop sign causing me to T-bone his SUV with my Calais, and Simon’s was while he’s eighteen and involved his minivan hitting another minivan then his minivan getting hit. Not sure where Ian’s parallels are, but at least the age we were having our wrecks was increasing. 🙂 That’s something, I guess.