Oh What a Night

While a third of New York goes "home" for the holidays, I wish I was going somewhere for the holidays, but alas, here I am, at home (no sarcastic quotes), and on top of that terrible realization, I came down with one of those nose colds that spews a whole lot of gunk and makes a very sore, pink nose before you have a chance to say "buy me those Puffs Plus with Lotion please."

So, two sleepness nights of waking up screaming sporadically through the night because I thought I was dead when I couldn't breathe through my nose, when there was loud  noise on the roof. One thunk was so dramatic I got out of bed and so did my son. We met in the kitchen. I was ready to put on shoes and go upstairs to shut those darn kids up, but Max wouldn't go with me and at 5:30am I thought maybe I shouldn't go up there myself because any yahoo could take me on pretty handily, even without a nose cold.

So back to bed we went, when a few minutes later, I opened my eyes to see a man facing me in my bedroom window, scurrying across the ledge TOWARD the fire escape. Not sure if I was seeing some bizarre shadow, thinking I've been waiting my whole life for this scary home invasion, I found out exactly what I would do in such a situation. Scream, is the answer. I waited until I saw him in the living room window (next window over), then shouted and got on the phone to 911. I am an excellent blind dialler, by the way. I got it on the first try with no light.

Apparently I was unintelligible because the operator kept asking me the address even though I am certain I was saying it very loud and very clearly. 27th floor? No! Top floor! Brooklyn? No! Manhattan! Etc. Plus, I was blocking the husband's glasses and didn't understand his gesticulations, thinking he was looking for a hidden weapon somewhere in the loft (they are scattered around and I'm never sure exactly where they are socked away) so it took him some time to get his eyes on and down to the window.

By then there were ten thousand cops on the roofs all around and above, and shortly after they had a man cuffed and face down on the cop car. I thought he was wearing something darker, but I now think I'm wrong.  After piecing together the story, all I could get was that this guy was trying to break into apartments when the cops started chasing him all over the rooftops and up and down the fire escapes. When I saw him, he had jumped from our roof to the next door roof 1 story lower, and then proceeded to run to the EDGE of the roof and jump onto a 6 inch ledge and shimmy across (6 flights up) to the fire escape, where he went down and tried to get into a window, but was chased away by the tenant (who says insurance lawyers aren't tough?). He must have continued down after that because that was about the time for him it took to get caught.

So no sleep last night either, it was way too exciting.

And how about all those deaths? More on that later, but the list is very long this year.

Happy and merry to all. And PLEASE install gates on your windows.