Bulldozers in the Yard

Most people think of November and December as the holiday season. But as anyone in residency, or their last year of medical school, will tell you, it's actually interview season. Every Thursday night and Friday another dozen bright-eyed medical students interested in delivering babies for the rest of their lives converge upon my residency program and they try to impress us, while we try to impress them. Part of the impressing comes in the form of a different resident hosting a nice catered dinner in their home every Thursday night before the interviews officially start. This Thursday night was my turn.


Eric and I spent much time preparing the house on Wednesday. We put up the tree, cleaned, decorated, made sure the Indian food (yummy naan and tikka masala) was properly ordered, bought the apple cider, etc etc. I rushed home from work on Thursday to put the apple cider to heat in the crock pot. Three blocks before I arrived, Eric called to tell me he would be rather late, as he had gotten stuck at work. Anything he said after that was lost as I stared in amazement at my front yard as I drove past. There was a large truck w/ a flatbed trailer taking up all the parking space in front of the house, and . . . what?! A bulldozer in my front yard! Eek!


Apparently three separate neighbors had called the gas company earlier in the afternoon because they could smell a gas leak outside our house. Fortunately, the leak was entirely outside. UNfortunately, the leak was located underneath our front lawn. This may not mean much, but for the last 2 1/2 years, Eric and I have waged a battle to magically get grass to grow in our (very shady) front yard. We have reseeded 3-4times. I kid you not, it has been maybe four weeks since we were raking leaves and I commented how it finally looked like we were getting a modest amount of grass to grow, and how this was a major improvement from when we bought the house, AND how nice it would look when we put our house on the market in a few months. Sigh. I guess we should just be grateful that our house didn't blow up.


To make matters worse, the gas to our house was turned off for about four hours. We have a gas-powered boiler. Translation: it was very cold inside our house. But, all's well that ends well. The heat turned on 15 minutes before people arrived, and most people could just keep their coats on for the first hour until the house warmed up a bit. The bulldozer and trailer left before people arrived. The Indian food was tasty. The cider was....lukewarm, but still tasty. The gas line is fixed. And our lawn, well, WE bought the house when there was no grass in the front yard, so maybe someone else will do the same. :)