Yesterday was a day with too much news to report!

Frank called me from the house at around 8:30 to tell me that the one of the houses across the street was on fire. The street was full of fire trucks (including the ladder truck from the fire station by our condo) and there was smoke coming out of the upstairs windows. He said all the fire fighters were running around and were sawing the bars off the windows so they could get inside. Fortunately no one was hurt and we saw the house today and it didn’t even look like there was much damage (from the outside anyhow). The upstairs windows are boarded up, but the family was outside and they said they were doing ok. No word on how the fire started.

So then Frank went to the house to let the ADT guy in to install our security system. They were just about to decide that we would hold off on installing ADT until the renovations were done when they noticed the basement door was wide open and there was broken glass on the floor. Yep, someone had broken into the house. Whoever it was got about $1,200 of our tools and painting supplies. But luckily Frank had brought his big toolbox home on Tuesday morning and our contractor hadn’t left any of his tools there. And even more luckily, I hadn’t left the camera there. (I have accidentally forgotten it twice, and was very stressed out about it both times.) We knew we were extremely vulnerable since the house is a known construction site and we are not there overnight, so we were half expecting something like this to happen. It’s funny, the back door didn’t even have a lock on it at that point, but the thieves broke in to the basement instead of walking in on the first floor. Now, of course, we have a deadbolt on the back door and the security system is all hooked up. Too bad ADT didn’t come last Friday when they were supposed to… The funny thing is that they stole the $80 weedwacker that we had just repackaged to bring back to the store — it didn’t work! But they didn’t steal the $20 replacement one that we bought (and use). Somehow just knowing that makes me feel a little bit better.

Then of course there was good news on the needle exchange front. This is just a first step in a long process, but at least it’s a step in the right direction.

The Washington Post also ran an editorial in yesterday’s paper regarding needle exchange. Let’s hope all this positive momentum continues.

The final piece of news is related to the donations that keep pouring in to PreventionWorks. We got over $20,000 in response to the NY Times article mentioned below. People’s generosity and support for this cause have totally overwhelmed me. We got a check for $10,000, a check for $5,000, and a check for $1,000, in addition to over 30 smaller donations. And it keeps coming! This is really encouraging for the future of PreventionWorks as its leadership changes.