Something Happens in Austin

Yeah, something happened in Austin today, Gentle Reader. Normally, I wouldn't give a rat's patoot, but this time, half of the happening happened really close to Chez Boeckman-Walker.

If you've missed news of the happening, a man burned down his family's home then flew his plane into an office building housing some IRS folks. The house just so happens to be two, two and a half blocks from Chez Boeckman-Walker. I'd heard sirens while kickboxing this morning, but since we live close to a police substation, a fire station and a hospital, we hear more than our fair share of sirens. I didn't think twice.

Then, around 11:30 a.m., I was in the car en route to my yoga class when I heard a plane had crashed into an office building at 183 and 360--the area where the husband planned to head around noontime for a quick visit to Target. Of course, he'd left his cell phone behind this morning, so I called his office line--and left a message. And, you guessed it, Gentle Reader, as I was calling, he was heading to Target and getting mighty snarled in traffic, which was being diverted hither and yon because the 183/360 area is just a clusterfuck of intersections and traffic lights and roads that aren't very well planned.

As I was in the gym bathroom getting my hair out of my face before teaching, I caught a news report on one of the three TVs in the women's locker room (yes, there are three of them in there, although I've never encountered more than three women in there at any one time) in which the reporter shared that the house fire and the plane crash were related.

"Oh my!" I gasp before trotting off to teach.

They weren't there when I got home from teaching shortly after 1 p.m., but by the time I left to pick up the boy from school at 2:30 p.m., a fresh crop of TV news van antennae had sprouted at the scene of the house fire. Naturally, as soon as the boy and I got home, we grabbed the camera and garage door controller and went to be gawkers and lookie-lous.

While on the scene, I was interviewed by an AP rep with a video camera, and then the boy and I had our picture taken by a rep from The New York Times. Weehee! The AP guy said I was a natural on camera. I shudder to think, though, how I look since my face is currently ravaged by acne (damn drying sinus medication) and my hair looked, I'm sure, oh so attractive. Oh well.

Here are the photos I took on our lookie-lou trip. Enjoy! (Although I'm not quite sure that's the appropriate verb here. That's kind of...icky.)