Alarmed

We only took carry-on suitcases for the week in Paris, where the weather was expected to be delightfully warm, and left the wooly sweaters and turtlenecks and extra-toasty PJs packed up in the large bags at Crash & Company's in Scotland.  I confessed to Crash's Companion that I had packed my Parisian PJs! Little did I suspect that I would get to model the outfit for more than Math Man.

It happened to be the tail end of fashion week when we arrived in Paris, but I was not walking any runways. Instead, on Sunday morning, just after 7 am, the fire alarm went off in our lovely hotel. I grabbed room key, glasses, and phone, slipped on my jacket and the black flats I'd left by the door when we'd come home the night before and proceeded down the stairs in my Parisian PJs. This is not my first fire alarm. It's not even my first fire alarm in a hotel. 

The staff are at the bottom of the stairs, reassuring us that their alarm system is very sensitive and that probably someone was just smoking in a room, urging us toward the lobby. More people began to arrive. There were people dressed for the day, suitcases ready to roll. Their taxi came, and they left. There was a couple in bathrobes over nightgowns, wishing aloud they had a drink. 

The alarm turned out to have been triggered by a hair dryer. The couple in their robes now wished for champagne, which the staff sent up. We went back upstairs. I had no desire for champagne, just a bit more sleep after a long day and late night. As we went past the room next to us, the door cracked open and a woman peeked out. "What was that?" "The fire alarm, set off by a hair dryer." "Ah!" What I wanted to say was, "How did you ignore that? It was loud enough to be painful." Also, "Why didn't you evacuate??"

We crawled back in bed, ears ringing, until it was time to get up for Mass.

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Working in a science building you get used to hearing the alarms go off. Sometimes (three times in my career) there really is a fire. I learned as a grad student to always take your keys, I didn't and we were out of the building for 8 hours after an explosion in a lab left a faculty member burned and _moved_ the wall several inches. Without my keys I couldn’t get into my apartment!

Four times I've been ousted by fire alarms in the middle of the night, once from a hotel during a conference and three nights in a row from the dorms while at a Gordon Research Conference. The latter were false alarms (and we attendees were quite grumpy by night three).

Then there was this alarming experience while on retreat. 

Photos is of a fiery evening sky in Paris, taken from a boat on the Seine.