Thursday, September 03, 2009

what i would save if there was a fire

about five years ago, i nearly burned the house down when some candles that i thought were very far away from the curtains turned out not to be. thanks to a little bitty sabin, who said, "mama, den is burnin'" and the fact that i'd just given her a bath and had a plastic bathtub full of water at hand, i put the fire out before it had done too much damage. and we got a new floor upstairs out the deal from the insurance company, so, as ma ingalls would say, "all's well that ends well." i try not to think about the fact that it was about 10 more seconds from being too on fire for me to put out, so we won't really go there.

but ever since, i have thought about what i would try to save if there was a fire. and what comes to mind every time is our red smeg refrigerator. if it weren't full of various incubating life forms, i would also throw a whole bunch of other stuff inside of it before dragging it out of the house with my superhuman strength.

see this picture over on across ø/öresund as well. it's red week!

i love that refrigerator so much so that when i threw out the idea to husband over dinner that in light of global warming and rising sea levels, we consider living on a boat instead of getting a farm property, he said, what is the one thing you'd want from the house, since you'd only be able to have one thing on the boat and i immediately, without hesitation, said the smeg. (dang that was a long sentence.) it's beautiful. bright. shiny (mmm, shiny). it's red. its rounded, retro curves are just totally lovely (note mini-lesson in it's/its usage). if we move, it's coming with us. and yes, i stuck those frogs on it with that blue tack substance (so as not to harm the shiny surface). aside: at our house, we refer to blue tack as consultant snot, by the way.


anyway, back to what i would throw inside it before dragging it outside...

: : the requisite boxes of pictures from my time in the balkans and the early days of our relationship
: : my macbook pro
: : my iMac or at the very least the Time Capsule (so I'd have the 34,000 pictures i've taken in the past year)
: : the nikons
: : rolleicord and rolleiflex
: : a little box of treasures from when sabin was a baby - she was born 10 weeks early and i saved some of the tiniest clothes she had (they were really tiny, she weighed 1500 grams)
: : that picture of husband building his first structure
: : my blankie

have you thought about what you would save if there was a fire?

25 comments:

An Open Heart said...

Have I mentioned that I collect frogs? and, um, those little frogs attached to your smeg with consultant snot are absolutely adorable....where might one get some? I would save those....and, well, would I have to be able to carry it all by myself? my dog, my cameras, laptop, my journals, all of the old family photos and as many of my books as I could muster, yep, as many of them as I could.

;o)
S

my wv for this comment is:
britel

Stacey Childs said...

My macbook pro. That is all. (And everything of sentimental value is still in storage at my ma and pa's.)

Geezees Custom Canvas Art said...

hmmm...i am assuming we mean besides people...then I would have to say...my hard drive ,since it holds all my photos and music, my kids favorite stuffed animals...one my son has never slept a night without and he is almost 7 (shhh, dont tell his friends) and my old diaries from when i was a kid

Char said...

my cameras, my laptop and externals, my mother's artwork, my fathers knife and ring....the dogs and cat. and that would be about it

McGillicutty said...

my wine!!! and some wine!! and a couple of my favorite wine glasses.

iasa said...

nothing

Lynnae said...

I have a written list, because I'm sure my mind would go blank in an emergency. Pictures and journals are high on the list of things...and I'd be lugging out the computer that serves as our home server. Hubby even backs it up and takes one to the neighbors house when we go on vacation to protect the photos in case of fire.

la pianista said...

Wow, i wish I could say as IASA did that i wouldn't need to take anything with me; but alas...I think I would first grab the things nearest the door: photo albums that hold the baby pictures of my children before there were digital files, document folders or birthd certificates ( so we can prove we were born--jeezus), and my great grandmother's tatting, (though not exactly sure why now that i think about it). As a dear friend recently pointed out to me, stuff is just stuff, people are the important things. And memories.

Janet said...

never heard of a smeg before, but it's a beaut.

let's see. some scrapbooks, a little chest/trunk of "treasures" from when my kids were young, my mother's ring, my pillow and blanket.

Extranjera said...

Is it weird that I, like Iasa, cannot think of a single thing?

It is weird, isn't it?

I own a lot of stuff too.

Ju said...

Apart from family members ( we don't even joke like that), my Macbook, and all the old pictures of our ancestors that are framed and hanging on our wall, oh and our wedding album, because no one has copies or negatives of those pictures anymore.

julochka said...

note, of course, i assume that family members are the first to be saved, this was just about the stuff. and really basically an excuse to write about the smeg. :-)

Katie said...

Assuming that I wasn't having a mental breakdown at the time and could think straight (I'm scared of fire. It wouldn't be good), I'd probably save: the laptop, my fourteen or so notebooks, and a box of stuff I keep like ticket stubs, etc.
And my dog, cause he'd be freaking out too.

I totally want your fridge!

The Redhead Riter said...

If you had said "the refrigerator" I would really start to wonder about you...LOL

Mariana Soffer said...

Interesting post, thanks!
It is a hard question for me cause I mostly do not care about things, but after a while I came to the conclusion that it should be this:
-My laptop
-The jewls my sister makes for me
-The paintings my mother also does for me
-Some of my clothes
And that is that.

Bye bye

Suzanne said...

I love your list. And I want your refrigerator very, very badly.

Gwen said...

I'd save my kids. Hopefully, I'd be able to get both of them out in time, cause I'd hate to have to choose between them.

Katie said...

I stumbled upon your blog doing a random search and I found this entry really coincidental (or perhaps not so coincidental in light of the terrible fires blazing through California). I had this very same conversation with my husband on Tuesday where I asked him what he would save if our house was on fire.

His Response: Computer, Cats, You (meaning me).

My Response: My journals, boxes of pictures, and cats. Everything else just feels like stuff to me and we have no heirlooms or precious treasures beyond the items I mentioned above.

I think it's an intelligent practice to think about this question every so often and assess your belongings, that way if a fire ever does occur, you'll be ready with what to grab.

Like yourself, I almost set fire to a house once. I was in the 6th grade and wanted to make french fries. I put a pot of grease on the stove then went upstairs to do something, got distracted and came running downstairs to a screaming fire alarm and a blazing fire on the oven. The oven was pretty messed up but thankfully my sister and I grabbed a fire extinguisher and put it out before there was too much damage.

christina said...

i so want that fridge! damn you, woman! why do you tempt me.i do have the red stand mixer though. : )
mac book all the way~
xo

jane said...

i also have an unhealthy relationship with the smeg. however i want a light blue one... your photos are stunning btw! besos-jane

Anonymous said...

photos and memory boxes that i have created (and am adding to as the years pass) for each of my children. everything else is pretty much replaceable.

paris parfait said...

I have an antique Chinese basket full of photos and I'd save it and my cameras and laptop. And probably some antique Japanese hand-block prints, which are very Arts & Crafts, but go w/ modern things as well. Love your Smeg!

Ravi Warrier said...

Here's my list. Thanks for making me think about this.

http://musingsof.raviwarrier.com/2009/09/of-things-i-would-save-if-there-was.html

Ravi
http://musingsof.raviwarrier.com

Trina Y. said...

I have considered it. Being a firefighter, it somes to my mind often, not to "will" it to happen, just as safety...

a suitcase I have stuffed with all my childrens sweet baby things
a file folder with important docs
mac ( i have a remote and internet server so as to not loose photos!)
2 journals-i have written in them for my children so when they are older they will know of all my thoughts from when they where young

so many other things I would want to take but those would be my firsts

Bee said...

Uh, how heavy is this Smeg refrigerator?

I like this idea a lot. I'm going to ponder on it, and go with your rules that it doesn't matter what you can actually feasibly carry.

(I noticed the correct usage of it's and its, btw. I have to restrain myself from giving tutorials nearly every day.)