On the street

We've had a number of interesting things to watch on the street out in front of the house lately.  First they chewed up the pavement: ("Nimue, you need to leave for school RIGHT NOW, or you won't get out...")

leaving it looking like this for weeks.  (Bad for bikes)

Then one random day I was stuck because of this

which at least improved the road surface enormously.

This morning, as Chad was leaving, he came back in:  "There's a fire down the street."

Indeed.  An electrical fire tried to turn the power pole into a torch.  I watched for a while as the fire department and PG&E arrived.  The PG&E guy was lifted up by the crane in the truck until he could reach whatever he was after with the end of his long pole, at which point the top of the pole lit up like a giant sparkler and all the flames and sparks from the bottom went out.  The fire department then sprayed everything down as commute traffic turned into the maze of streets to the sides in an attempt to get around the mess.

At least it has been wet out.