There was a contained fire in the basement of my office building this morning. The Outpatients Clinic where I work is normally a 24/7 operation, but it closed to deal with the damage. I learned of this after taking the bus up the hill, as normal, and saw crowds in the walkway and turnaround between the OPC and the main hospital. My officemate Shawn had been roped into the duty of repeatedly proclaiming “The OPC Building is closed” and (presumably, since he’s a big, solid guy) tackling anyone who tried to enter. Many workers hung out. I ate the perishable parts of my bag lunch. Finally the Powers That Be passed along word that power would be out for several hours, so go home if you can. I could. I walked off the hill, using sky-bridges and pipe-lined tunnels I had never been through, thinking “Cool.” OHSU really has a neat campus.
Tomorrow I find out what damage we had. It’ll probably smell in our first-floor office, and we’ll likely open all the windows that we actually can open.
But neatness awaited me at home: a book I ordered by Poppy Z. Brite (that’s