This isn’t as bad as the day that Theodore Roosevelt’s Mom and Wife died but you be the judge.

SO…

Normal hard day with 2.5 year old. No this No that. She is rubbing her abdomen but won’t answer me if she is hurting.

Won’t take nap. Lack of my nap sets off side effects to my SSRI drugs cause me to vomit and get confused. Luckily I set my daughter up with a snack and “Max and Ruby,” she doesn’t see a thing. The way to “fix” SSRI side effects in my brain? Coke a Cola and a candy bar with exercise.

Put daughter in stroller and walk the 1.2 miles to Greenwood Playground. (Not the famous Green-Wood Cemetery.) I start to stabilize.

Play.

As I am walking home I see a long line of fire trucks and emergency vehicles. I get closer, and closer still. Bingo. My building had been on fire. No one was hurt but the tenant on the 4ht floor – we are on the second – had been BBQing. What ever they were cooking caught fire and they threw water on it. Problem with that I hear you ask? Why the problem with that is that, water and a gas grill that is on fire when mixed causes an explosion. Two apartments gutted by fire a third destroyed by water damage when their ceiling collapsed under the weight of all the water.

Our appt has some minor water damage but is fine. However, the only thing in our entire appt that was destroyed by the water, you guessed it, my plane tickets to Istanbul.

SO…

As it turns out my wife sent a letter to the Landlord soon after we moved in warning him of these conditions. He did nothing. Next step we sue (we are American after all) to have the Landlord buy out our lease and pay for us to move.

Fellow dad/friend and fireman who lives next door told me two interesting things. One that in the former CCCP a criminal could be sentenced to be a Firefighter, so many former Soviets who live in NYC and in Bklyn and in my building don’t trust the FDNY or fire regulations because they have no experience that tells them they should, and they think that the laws exist to make the thievery of their property, a real concern under Communism, easyer. Two, people should know how to put out a fire, and you shouldn’t be cooking with an open flame almost inside your own home.

Man am I tired.