It’s pretty rare when my excitement meter explodes. Actually, I can’t remember the last time it happened. Until today.

Everything started out normal. The only excitement was that the 2022 MLS season opened today and Portland had a game on TV at 5 pm. Fun, but hardly meter exploding. At halftime Iqbal decided to go get our dinner. I expected him home about fifteen minutes into the second half (60th minute). At the 75th minute, I started to think he’d me mad at me for not pre-ordering, that he must have had to wait in a long line. At the 85th minute, I was worried and never saw the end of the game. I stood in the cold on the front porch, praying, for a while. I checked the phone. It was working. I called the restaurants (we wanted items from two different places next door to each other), described Iqbal and the car, as well as what he ordered. They didn’t remember him. Now I was more than worried. I got into my car and drove to the restaurants. They were pretty empty and there were no signs of any accident anywhere along the way. By the time I got home, I was in panic mode.

I called the police. The woman who took my call was very nice and helped keep me calm. She took both my cell and house phone number along with what she needed to know about Iqbal and his car. Then she told me I would get a call from an unknown number when they had anything to report to me. I sat down in the living room prepared to spend some fretful hours.

Practically as soon as I sat, the phone rang. It was less than three minutes since I hung up with the police. It was another very nice police woman. She had just come from talking to Iqbal. He was fine, but his car had got stuck on a curb at the fire station and when the firemen pulled it free, the transmission (I’m guessing) wouldn’t work, since it started but didn’t move. He had tried to call me, but was unable to get through. (We don’t know why.) He was waiting for the tow truck. I didn’t need to worry. (I guess she got the call, or bulletin or whatever they call it, right after she’d left him.) Odd. I remembered seeing the tow truck at the fire station, but the lighting was such that I didn’t see his car. And besides, the fire station is very close to, but just off the normal route to and from the restaurants–the next turn after the one he missed.

About twenty minutes later the tow truck brought him and his car home. It probably took another twenty to thirty minutes to get the car unhitched. Iqbal was worried I’d be mad at him. I’m not sure about what. Then he explained that he had missed his turn (the street is not well lit) and was trying to turn around in the fire station’s drive (the very next turn, about as far away as our neighbor’s driveway is from ours). Somehow, while backing up, his car went over a curb and got stuck.

We had dinner (mine reheated, his was a sandwich) two hours after we had expected to.

But that was not the end of the excitement, although, fortunately it was the end of the stress.

As I waited for the tow guy to finish unhitching the Volvo, I stood on the deck and there was this. I don’t know what it is. Unfortunately I still can’t figure out how to post a video directly here. Also I’m not a great vidographer. This is the link video. (I still had my phone in my hand.)

(OH! The video posts with just the link!)

Not at all normal lights!

The views of the deck were when I was moving. I obviously can’t do two, even simple, things at once.

They showed up brighter IRL.

My first call is to “Cutie,” my nickname for Iqbal.

The background noise is the tow truck. It was running the whole time it was here. It was louder up close which is why I had to recall and move toward him.

I was so distressed at not knowing where Iqbal was, that when I saw these, I wondered if they might be angels confirming that he was okay and that I knew it. Who knows what they are? Unidentified.

This is the second time I have seen UFOs. The first time was almost 54 years ago, in upstate New York, while driving around just outside the village of Dansville one summer evening with my grandparents. Those were much closer.

It was quite a night!