Laughing in the Face of Natural Calamities

Here's a Einstein-esque photo of my dad from five years ago when we were visiting Alu and Michelle in Rhode Island. At this moment those two are being battered by a snowstorm and blizzard and are huddled around their fireplace with no electricity or heat while it's 10 degrees Fahrenheit outside. Send some warm feeling that way if you can.

But back to now. Well - almost now - yesterday. I was pan-frying some fish for my dad when the fire alarms went off. Jo ran around the house and performed the fire-alarm-has-gone-off ritual - opening doors and windows and them swinging them back and forth to let in more fresh air or carry away the smoke or something while the alarm screeched on in every room. Even my dad who was asleep on a recliner in front of a sunny french door heard the ruckus. He asked Jo what the matter was. Jo managed to transmit the fire portion of the message but not the rest of the context. A few minutes later when the fire alarm and the fish were stable I went to tell him what had happened and to reassure him that the house wasn't on fire and we hadn't forgotten about him in the event that it was.

Later that evening I had to park the car in the garage. The back story here is that BMWs windows only work for six years and then die in the open state. This is the second one to fail in two months and we haven't yet managed to schedule a service for it. And there was a chance of rain last night so at around 11pm while my dad was munching on a light supper I went downstairs and parked the car. The garage is directly below my dad's room and the garage doors are mounted on the ceiling of the garage. You can feel the vibrations when they are being operated if you are directly overhead as my dad was. When I finished and returned upstairs to get my dad ready for bed he mildly inquired if Austin was prone to earthquakes. I explained what had happened. And then he unexpectedly burst forth with a belly full of laughs. "A fire and then an earthquake. What a day!" I haven't seen him laugh like that in years.