Little Black Rain Cloud

So Friday night, (or very early Saturday morning, whichever you prefer) at about 3:30 AM, Brody and I are jarred out of deep sleep by our apartment building's fire alarm. There were a lot of things going through my mind, a lot of emotions--fear, anger, cold, being super tired, but mostly a profound sense of severe incredulity--how was this happening? What are the odds that we get a flood and a fire within two weeks of each other??

I  had to shake Brody awake (such a lucky deep sleeper), and it took him a few moments to realize that it was the fire alarm and not his phone's alarm.  And as I clumsily put whatever clothes on I could find, because it was a balmy 16 degrees outside, we also got to experience an interesting psychological 'what would you grab in a fire' moment, but for reals.

Brody and I keep all of our most important documents and files--like birth certificates, social security cards, marriage license, etc.--in a box that I made him grab (it's too heavy for pregnant me), and then I grabbed our wedding sign-in book and albums that we keep on our coffee table. Brody grabbed our phones and ipad and stuffed them in my purse and we headed outside to join the rest of the confused tenants out in the freezing cold.  The fire department showed up really quickly, and about a half hour, they let us back in.  I'm not even sure what actually happened, I was too tired and out of it to really care, but I think someone on the 6th floor had set it off. Thankfully no one was injured, and I don't think there was any major property damage.

One other little tender mercy of the night was that literally for the first time since the day we moved to DC, our car was parked right in front of the building, so I got to sit in it instead of standing out in the cold for that half hour. Which felt like a nice win, and at this point we'll take what we can get since this little black rain cloud seems all too comfortable hovering over our heads lately.