Buckets of rain yesterday, and I drove in downpour, taught my class, and drove home in downpour . . . highway speeds reduced to 45, visibility nil, roads awash. The class site was only 25 minutes from my house but felt like 6 lightyears away.

And then, when I pulled into the driveway, I saw the tree. Remember the tree I mentioned a few days ago--the one in my backyard neighbor's yard? Remember I'd noticed it was starting to crack at the fork, and I'd alerted the various people whose property would be damaged? Well, my Cassandra-ing hadn't done much; the tenants and property owner didn't seem too concerned, although my next-door neighbors were correctly panicked about their cars and their garage.

But when I pulled into the driveway yesterday and saw the tree, I knew we'd reached crisis mode. In the four hours I'd been away from home, the tree had developed a split reaching almost to its roots. I don't know why it was still standing. So I started in again on my emergency alerts, and this time the tenants recognized the dire nature of the situation. It was hard to miss. So landlord was alerted, landlord called tree guy, tree guy showed up at 4 p.m. and said "Tree must come down immediately," and cranes and bucket trucks and chippers and a thousand workers appeared in my next-door neighbor's driveway--not the tree owner's, but this driveway was the only angle that allowed the tree guys to access the tree, which was jammed in tightly among four different houses (ah, city life). And then there was a scene: roaring engines, massive tree limbs and trunks dangling over roofs, brushing chimneys. It was terrifying and awe-inspiring, and strangely efficient, and by 8:30 the tree was gone, detritus cleared, and street quiet.

And now we have a hole in our landscape, where once lived a tree. You could say this was all my fault.