The Crib: September 2006

Thursday, September 28, 2006

"No way"

Here I am saving Fish....

The pet store where I took our surviving fish went up in flames ....

Vince says "No way"

CAMBRIDGE --Fire investigators are trying to determine whether a blaze that killed several animals in a Cambridge pet store last night was deliberately set.

The fire broke out around last night inside Boston Tropical Fish and Reptile on Monsignor O'Brien Highway. Investigators found fresh graffiti on the outside of the building that read, "No More Exploitation of Animals." Several snakes, turtles, and tropical fish were among the animals killed in the blaze, officials said. Firefighters rescued some other reptiles and several white rats.
The surviving animals were turned over the Animal Rescue League.

The graffiti suggests an animal rights group or activist might be behind the blaze, arson investigators said. But they're at loss to explain why someone might deliberately start a fire that would kill animals.

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Vince says "The show must go on!"

Pictures from the weekend!

I thought it was important to post these. Moira asked me to be positive in this post. But honesty is important. And negative things happen and you should address them.

This was a big event in our lives and we should remember it. We learned a lot.

Its been a surreal few days. Sunday our apartment was burnt down by two crack addicts; two days later one of them was casually strolling by our house (out on bail); and today we signed the papers to close on our new condo. I will post pics of those when we move in this weekend....to be positive.

(Melted Fan)

We had a lot of memories in this apartment. My brother Joe got the apartment in 1999 after he left Harvard; we moved in with him about six months later. Joe moved out to go to New York the next year and we have had several roomates since. A lot has gone done since then: two presidential elections, several jobs, many friends, three roomates, 9/11, marriage, Vincent, and two weeks before we were to move out-this.

I was going to write all these little essays about the craziness of the last two days: the anger, stupidity, the police, race in america, how bad people are, how great people are, etc. But, we are kind of over it. We still have a lot to deal with, but we are all ok.

I thought I would flip out when I saw the guy who did it, but I wasn't even that angry. The guy was in another dimension. Truly a different dimension. Not even sure he realized what he did. The assistant DA says they "didn't mean it"('it' being burning down the house); hence no arson charge. "Out in six months" says one of the policemen. "At least a year till trail" says another.

The lawyer from our closing gave us some perspective today saying "In ten years, you will have a good laugh about this". Perhaps. I dont know that I will be "laughing" about this, but I will be proud of how Moira, Vince, and I made it through. And its a great feeling to have had our parents, siblings, friends, and strangers be so ready to drop everything and help us. Truly great.

Maybe I will smile a little bit.

So now that I got that out of my system, ladies and gentleman, let's bring back the star of the show....

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Vince on the News - Fox 25

"Cambridge Fire Leaves Several Homeless"

http://www.myfoxboston.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=920758&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=3.2.1

Vincent, mom, dad and Kayti the nanny are the homeless, but not to worry, it ends with "And they all lived happily ever after!"

While we were away for the weekend some drug addicts broke into our apartment and started a fire (while they were cooking their drugs on our stove). We arrived home just after the fire was extinguished and the perps arrested. Fox 25 was there to greet us.

We are still working on salvaging what we can from the ash and soot, and recovering what was stolen. The good news- what we are able to recover is going with us to our new condo! We plan to be home owners by the end of the week!

We cannot express how grateful we are to family, friends and even strangers who have helped us and offered to help. We've had unbelievable support. We know how lucky we are.

For those of you who we haven't talked to since. We'll catch up as soon as we can.

more cute pics coming soon