Burn, baby, burn!

A wise woman once said, "Fire bad. Tree pretty."

Last Friday just the opposite was true. I headed out to a friend of a friend's house in Arlington for a bonfire featuring last year's Christmas trees.

Now I don't know what you may have heard, but yes, I do enjoy a good fire, and yes, I do take great delight in building up, stoking, and maintaining such fires, but that is not call for referring to someone as a pyromaniac. People these days throw around terms like that with suck reckless abandon, when they really have no idea what such things even mean. Just because a person really loves fire doesn't make them a pyromaniac. And that's all I'll say about that.

Seriously though folks, I do like a good fire. And this fellow Todd had a very nice set-up in his backyard with a large firepit, many good hunks of wood, and several Christmas trees. And trust me when I say that those suckers went up like the dried out husks that they were. We would throw on one of those puppies and then immediately retreat because the fire would surge upwards and anyone standing within 10 feet could end up sans eyebrows.

While the fire was wicked awesome, having the fire department show up wasn't. Oh, didn't I mention? Yeah, the fire department showed up. Apparently some concerned citizen called them, not to make a formal complaint, but just to make sure that they were "aware" of the backyard bonfire. Narks. Anyhoodle, the firemen showed up, stood around, noticed that we looked like a group of responsible adults (good thing they didn't know about the 5 gin and tonics I had downed earlier) and hit the road. But not before ordering us not to burn anymore Christmas trees. Which actually makes them a bunch of Debbie downers.

but there was still a good fire going, lots of new people to meet and chat with, and gin and tonics aplenty. All in all, a successful night!