It’s 0608 in the morning. My alarm rang at 0605 and I quickly hit snooze. It’s dark in the fire station’s bunk room and I’m dreading getting up from my cozy bed. It’s hour 23 of 24 of this shift for myself and 8 other individuals snoozing in the common bunk room. The station’s chief and other officers sleep in separate bunks and are likely already out and about. They had a much less exciting night than us.

The fire engine and medic unit were up a few times throughout the night. I don’t think the medic crew slept more than 2 hours that night. I was fortunate enough to be assigned to the engine for the night half and managed to catch about 3.5 hours of sleep total. Still, being up and down throughout the night with only some staggered cat naps is still a tough pill to swallow.

By now, crew members from the on-coming shift are likely trickling in. Some get in early, around 0600, to provide early relief to their tired shift mates. Others get in less early. The only obligation is to be “response ready” by 0700. I’m still half asleep and debating when to get up.

06:09:28 rolls around and I hear it.
“Beeep beeep beeep. Box alarm 2 dash 11 for the basement fire”
The rest of the audio gets tuned out as the adrenaline dump kicks in.
My comforter and sheets fly off. I tear off my sweat pants and slip on duty pants.
I grab my phone and glasses off the night stand and bolt for the door that leads to the engine bay.
I see a flurry of people scrambling. Chief, aide, and safety officer dash to their duty vehicles. Crew members that had staggered in early hustle to the fire engine. I make a mad dash for my turnout gear.

My fire boots, turnout pants, and suspenders are all set up for me to quickly step in and pull up. I can put all three on in seconds. My crocs had been kicked off a few steps behind me, hopefully to not get run over or become a trip hazard for someone else.
My fire pants have one snap and buckle. I tighten my suspenders, put on my radio, and throw my hood and jacket on. I can do the jacket’s three snaps and four buckles inside the engine en route to the call.
The officer keys up “engine 19 en route”.
Dispatch marks the time stamp as 06:09:51

I half sit on the seat while the driver start pulling out of the engine bay. I triple check that my helmet is still on the hook next to my seat. I adjust my radio to the correct channel and finish closing up my jacket. Most of my radio is protected underneath my jacket so that only the lapel mic sticks out at the top and the antenna sticks out at the bottom. For my jacket, I “click” my three buttons from the bottom up and “snap” my four snaps from the top down. This routine has been engrained into me and can do it without any thought. I secure the exterior Velcro covers that provide extra protection against the potential gaps in the jacket’s snaps and pull the neck cover closed.

The other firefighter sitting next to me has been doing the same thing. The officer has the task of giving the engine driver some general directions on where to go in between getting his gear on. We’re already blaring down the road as fast as a fire engine can go. Up front, the officer and driver are discussing which hydrant would be the best choice and hose layout plans. I look over at the other firefighter with me and he chuckles out a “good morning sunshine, rough night?”. I give a groggy shoulder shrug. I text my hubby telling him I might be home late.

The possible fire ended up being nothing serious. Most of the resources dispatched to the call are cancelled, including ourselves. By the time we get back, the rest of the on coming shift has arrived. The officer mentioned two boxes of donuts in the kitchen and I see several walking around with mugs of fresh coffee. I’m eager to snag both.

How are we that fast?
In training, we have to don our firefighter gear in less than 2 minutes in order to even get the job. That also includes putting on the mask and breathing apparatus. This is a national standard expected of all firefighters.
We as a shift intermittently run gear drills to keep our skills sharp. Then we add extra challenges, such as doing it with our eyes closed or having to “mask up” while wearing our heavy-duty fire gloves.
Putting it on the same way every time helps ensure the process is smooth and therefore fast. After 2 years of doing this, putting on the gear is muscle memory. Those senior to me that keep up with their training are even faster than me.

If nothing else, let this be the take away from this post: slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Do not practice haste, but practice the skill and speed will come.

A lot of people have cool first car stories. Mine is the exact opposite. My first car was bought for me, by my parents, while I’m out of state RV-ing with my car-loving boyfriend. I didn’t have the cell strength to receive pictures, but my mother told me it was “generic” and was very excited that it was available. Excited for a generic car? That’s about the depth of my parents' car knowledge. I passed on the “exciting” news to the boyfriend and he thought I was joking. Neither of us saw the logic in how anyone could be excited for a generic car or how a car could be bought for someone when that person wasn’t even there.

That car my parents were so excited about was a used Honda Civic that was brown-ish and silver-ish in color. It already had some 80 thousand miles and was only a few years old. Not much wrong with it, but then again there wasn’t much to it in the first place. Still, a functional car with a working CD player? Any college kid wouldn’t complain, much. There was a small catch. I had to share the car with my brother. I was commuting 30-ish miles to a private college and going during the work week. He was going to the local community college but had about half of his classes on the weekends. We split the car for a while, but fortunately, he got sucked into a local car club and decided to buy a used car of his own. So while he spent his money on some shiny used red car, I got the brown-ish, silver-ish car back.

Boyfriend all the while had a used cougar, with a manual transmission and a handful of his own modifications that he and his car loving best friend worked on. Now that I’m in the picture with literally an intentionally generic car, I had some explaining to do to the best friend. Turns out parents didn’t want their daughter commuting to college in anything that would stand out. Just something to get the job done. So that’s how I saw cars; a functional object to get me from point A to point B and back.

Through the years, the boyfriend had to work on his cougar to keep it running until it eventually kicked the can one last time. Then he inherited an old jeep with about half the warning lights on. Luckily most of the issues were things he or someone he knew could fix himself. Not bad for a guy in college. My skills for car repairs included putting air in my tires with high heels on and knowing that check engine lights shouldn’t be ignored for too long. I’m pretty sure the only time that car got washed was when one of my parents had to borrow it for a while.

Several years go by and boyfriend popped the big question and he got upgraded to fiancé. When it came to discussing a wedding gift for each other, the MVA happened to be doing a special for license plates. They were doing a limited release on 1910 Vintage tags. The default tag was VR0001, or whichever number you secured. However, since it was a till death do us part type gift, he was given the choice for a custom tag. He chose it to say “CAR”. It was around that time that he also secured his own new vehicle, a 2012 Ford Focus. He ordered it straight from the factory and got his choice of features, which included nothing fancy (intentionally) and manual transmission. That vehicle became a ride which my fiancé could enjoy without having to pull over and dump a gallon of coolant fluid in twice a week.

But something happened to me too. Vehicles suddenly had personality. They weren’t just something to get you from point A to point B (and back). The vehicle you owned was another way to represent you. It was another median for art, for self-expression. That Ford Focus, with a license plate spelled out CAR, was called CAR. When we’d debate who would drive, that question would go, “you wanna take your car or CAR out?”. CAR was not just its custom license plate, it was its name.

From there, the vehicles we owned had some meaningful story behind it. We bought a jeep from the local coffee barista for $700 and named her Terri. We both went through motorcycles phases. Hubby’s Honda Hawk was named Jenny, after the girl who gave us dance lessons for our wedding dance. My Duke KTM was named Duchess. The Duchess was sold to a friend, since borderline racing bikes weren’t my style. Seeking something more cruiser style, I ended up with a red, white, and blue Honda Shadow 750 RS and named her Pinstripe.

I eventually conquered the obligatory car wife duty of learning to drive a manual transmission. Although I wouldn’t recommend learning to drive a manual while going to paramedic school and raising a one year old. Stalling is hardly the soothing motion that can lull an infant to sleep during teething season. Nonetheless, my vehicle adventures continued to grow. I went on to expand my wheel driving capacity to 6 wheels and being able to safely run red lights by taking my Emergency Vehicle Operator Course. Luckily by then I was proficient at driving with my left hand. After all, in an emergency vehicle, you drive with your left hand and manage the siren with your right, since technically by the book, you use the bee-do bee-do sound when driving on the road and the wee-woo wee-woo sound when approaching an intersection.

With now having a certain pride in the vehicle I was driving, I started seeking something that represented me. CAR was, after all, technically my husband’s before it was ours. Terri was considered a working project vehicle. And well, I couldn’t take the shiny ambulances home, even though I’d wash them at the beginning of every shift. Hubby had been sending me neat cars for years from various websites, such as Japaneses classics LLC and Bring a Trailer, as well as pictures of his own projects with Nissan Skylines, Mercedes, and Subaru’s. While occasionally these cars were just completely obnoxious or impractical, some were for sale. What he didn’t expect was for me to actually buy one.

Enter JoJo, the 1992 Mitsubishi Pajero and she is very unique. She’s right hand drive, manual transmission, and just the most fun little truck I ever owned. Buying JoJo was partially impractical, since it meant we’d have to make the repairs on our own. But she ended up being my primary commuter vehicle during fire academy, since Terri was starting to become more work than what she was worth as a daily driver. JoJo would rattle if you went above 100 km/hr (yeah you read that right) since having only 99 HP meant you were cruising in the +3000 RPM range if you went much faster than that. But she still managed to squeeze out a better fuel economy than the jeep and she had basically no rust.

(Terri is behind Jojo)

Suddenly, I wasn’t just the only girl at the firehouse who could drive a manual, I could manage a stick with either my right or left hand (heh). Now granted, I’m still no grease monkey but I can handle the basics. They taught us how to change a tire during week 2 of fire academy and by the end of academy, we had to understand the difference between disc brakes and drum brakes and how to check slack adjusters on the trucks. But something more important sprouted and grew. Pride. Not only was I fitting time in to wash the ambulances and fire truck in between being on the busiest medic unit in the county, but I was washing my own vehicles too.

Once I’m off rookie status, the Pump Operator and CDL classes are in the near future, since I plan to upgrade my driving capability to 10 wheels and learn to drive fire trucks. Did my then boyfriend, now husband, predict that a dorky science major would become a future truck driver? Not likely. But then again I never expected my own journey to go this way either. I thought I’d end up with some shiny Mazda that goes zoom-zoom in a quiet research lab but instead I’m in a bright red truck that blares wee-woo wee-woo en route to my next adventure.

Mid-March is nearly here. The significance of that date? My 1 year since graduating fire academy a.k.a. The rookie year.

To backpedal for a moment … Fire academy is 6.5 months; 6AM-4PM M-F crash course of 13 certifications ranging from awareness-level courses (i.e. trench rescue) to an operations-level courses (i.e. firefighter II). It’s para-military in the sense that there’s marching, motivational speeches while holding the push-up position, and lots of team building opportunities involving ~200 lb logs. It’s somehow one of the best yet hardest experiences of my life and I’d do it again in a heartbeat to earn this job.

If you make it to graduation day, you’re released to the field and start shift work. 24 hours on. 48 hours off. First day at the new fire house involves carrying 2 duffle bags with 50 lbs of gear in each and a 20-gallon storage bin for bedding and spare uniforms. Your job title goes from Trainee to Rookie. Instead of bright green Trainee shirts, you get the traditional navy blue t-shirt that proudly bears the logo of the fire department you worked so hard to earn. However, once your gear is out, they slap on two big shiny “R’s” on your fire helmet. That way on the fire scene when they see that big red “R” everyone else knows to look out for you. The start of your rookie year has begun.

You, the rookie, meet the rest of your shift mates (who have already looked you up and probably heard a few rumors about you) and get a tour of the fire house. Afterwards, you learn the house rules and their expectations as a rookie. Being a rookie means you’re primarily in charge of house chores, keep the coffee fresh, always helping out with daily checks, and get involved with projects around the house. The point of this seemingly strange rule is to immerse yourself into the inner circle of your shift-mates and pick up things you didn’t learn during academy (which is quite frankly, a lot). Keep in mind, your shift mates have been seeing each other every 3 days for 24 hours, having tons of bonding time, inside jokes, and stories to share. The rookie, on the other hand, is the new guy or gal. You have to earn their trust and find your place.

Throughout Rookie year, I’ve had to prove my worth and earn my shift-mates trust. I’ve been spontaneously quizzed, lead training drills, and been “volunteered” for tasks. A few examples. When we had our annual review of confined space training, they needed one person to go through the 2 foot wide tunnel while in gear. “Oh hey the rookie is here, she wants to go!” Declares the senior man on our shift. So into the tunnel I go (good thing I’m small). Another time, I accidentally called the station’s captain by her first name, so on her birthday later that year, I was volunteered to sing “Happy birthday” to her in front of the whole crew. I also have yet to sit on the couch and watch TV. I have viewed the TV twice in my whole year - once to watch a documentary (was told to) and another to watch a series of training videos. Both times I sat on a nearby chair. The couch isn’t for rookies.

Another time-honored tradition in the fire service is the rookie dinner. This happens near the end of rookie year, where the rookie cooks up a nice meal for their shift. Like many odd things we do, there is symbolism behind it. The rookie dinner is meant as a way to say “thank you” to your shift. They’ve had to take time to show you the ropes, deal with your mistakes (I’ve only broken two things on the fire engine so far), and answer millions (or in my case, billions) of questions. They’ve had to host extra training sessions (mandated by your rookie book) and help prepare you for the 6-month and 1-year exams that are pass-or-get-fired type important. So the least you can do as the rookie, besides not be a knucklehead, is make your shift mates a nice meal.

My shift has a few extra challenges. Most shifts have 6-10 individuals to feed. Mine has 12. On top of that, my shift is very diverse in food preferences. There are several who are gluten-free and/or vegetarian, plus one who is vegan and several more who don’t want pork or fatty meats. Despite all this, we still make meals together every shift and eat together, however it typically takes half of us to cook and prepare everything in a timely manner and usually 2-3 individuals to come up with ideas. For my rookie dinner, however, I’m mostly on my own. For the past month leading up to my rookie dinner, I had been brainstorming ideas with several of my shift mates. I thought about sushi, but I didn’t want to risk bad fish(since they are still on duty). I thought about Pho, since there are plenty of ways to customize your individual bowl to fit your own dietary needs. And I thought about surf-and-turf, but that is one of the most common rookie dinners made. My shift mates have taught me so much and helped me in more ways than just how to be a good firefighter. They’ve helped me learn how to deal with the job-induced anxiety, brought me closer to God, confronted some of my own struggles from abuse in my past, and given me strength to push through all three COVID spikes at the busiest house in the county. Needless to say, I owe them a really good meal.

Enter James May, with his latest cooking show “Oh Cook!”. His first episode, “Asian Fusion” showed a few dishes that were simple enough to make. It grabbed my attention and thought I could make something like that for my dinner. However, there were still 6 more episodes to go and I still had a few weeks before my rookie dinner. The next episode was “Pub Food”, which included delicious vegetarian and meat pies. Had there not been several gluten free individuals, I would have probably done this. The next episode was about pasta. Again, there was the hurdle of gluten free. Yes, I could have made them something separately. However, the individuals that are gluten free or vegan or vegetarian are almost always getting special made food for them at the firehouse. I felt that I should take this opportunity to make something that could include everyone.

Enter the 4th episode, “Curry”. James made two main dishes, lamb curry and red lentil Dahl. There were also several side dishes, such as a mint sauce Rahita and a tomato chutney. He also demonstrated how to make Chapati, a.k.a. Unleavened flat bread, which turns out is amazingly easy. I remember watching the episode, with its wide array of dishes and knowing that I wanted to make this for my dinner. Hubby and I watched the rest of the series to enjoy watching amazingly simple but delicious food being made by a car guy. We also found his cook book and bought it. Luckily the measurements were in both the metric and units systems. All I had to do was double or triple the recipe to feed 12 firefighters.

On the morning of my rookie dinner, I had most of the ingredients packed up. I decided to test out how to make Chapati since I had never made them before. After rolling out a few, hubby walked into the kitchen asking if something was burning. No nothing was unintentionally burning. Just the pan had to be sizzling hot and some of the residual flour was burning off the pan. I had hubby test one out, but he ended up eating 4 more, just to be sure the first one wasn’t a fluke.

By early afternoon, I was at the firehouse ready to start chopping. Unfortunately I neglected to get any pictures (much to my husband’s disappointment) but I had a huge bundle of cilantro to chop, a dozen tomatoes to dice, and about a dozen onions, garlic, and shallots to dice. It was nearly 3 hours of prep work and while my shift mates helped a little, they primarily sat back and watched me work. Plus, they were out running calls (busiest house, remember?). The cook time was roughly 45 minutes, but since the cooking was primarily a 5-10 minute sauté and a 30-minute simmer, almost all the chopping had to be done beforehand. Plus, the three sauces I was making all needed time to refrigerate so I had to make those early as well.

What dishes, you might ask? Well here they are… Lamb curry (my only non-vegan dish), red lentil Dahl, tomato chutney, mint sauce raita, avocado raita, jasmine rice, and freshly cooked Chapati (the only item with gluten). Now I’ve made curry before, I’ve diced things nicely before, and I’ve even hosted major holiday dinners before there was such a thing as size-limited gatherings. But nothing is more nerve-wracking than making food for your shift-mates. Relatives will forgive and forget if you mess up a meal and then politely refrain from asking you to make certain dishes in the future. Firefighters in a much more tough-love fashion won’t let you live something down like that for years (or until the next major screw-up, whichever comes first). I still have firefighters that remember a nickname they came up for me from one incident in 2016. One incident 6 years ago. (In case you’re wondering, it was “BLS Bag” because I used to carry a ton of stuff in my pockets). Pasta night is still unofficially banned from my fire house after the last pasta night that went wrong several years ago (dunno the story, just was told “we don’t do spaghetti nights after Don messed it up”).

I also had one more ace up my sleeve - dessert. The other thing about my shift is, these are all health-conscious folks that won’t buy dessert for our shift dinners. But. If someone happens to bring dessert in, they will gobble it up. I also know that these guys are a huge sucker for cinnamon rolls because every weekend when we make breakfast, there are always cinnamon rolls on the shopping list. Now I’m not a baker, but I happened to find an easy cinnamon swirl cheesecake recipe, and it was simple to adjust the recipe so it was gluten-free. I had my hubby test a slice and he broke his diet by eating half the slice instead of “just one bite”. Nailed it. At least now I knew that even if I blew dinner, I could save the night with a tasty dessert.

While cooking dinner, I was busy juggling the lamb curry, lentil Dahl, and kneading dough for Chapati. One of the vegans happened to be around and I casually asked him to taste the Dahl. The purpose of asking him was twofold - one is that I tend to under-salt things (according to hubby) and second was to test the waters to see how terrible my food is. Our conversation went something like this:
“Hey Dan, can you taste the Dahl? Let me know if he needs more salt?”
“Yeah sure no problem.”
I proceeded to go back to kneading the dough and then realized I needed a second batch. After kneading that second batch, I realized Dan (name changed btw) hasn’t said a word to me.
“Hey Dan how’s that Dahl?”
“Oh, oh yeah it’s good, doesn’t need more salt!” I looked over and Dan has filled up a BOWL of this stuff and has likely been eating it this whole time. Needless to say, after that, the only thing I had to worry about was whether or not there would be enough for everyone.

The rest of the night went as smooth as can be. Crews staggered in (since different units were out running calls throughout dinner time) and ate. Now in the fire house, the kitchen table is the focal point. Conversations of all sorts happen here, ranging from training sessions to farewell speeches to welcome-to-the-jungle rookie embrace the chaos chats. It’s a lively place where the war stories come out as well as the hard lessons. Those of the highest ranks sit at the head. Normally myself and another rookie from my class sit at the opposite end of the table. That night, I got to sit in the middle, amongst them. Luckily, they didn’t make me sit at the head of the table, like they do to the more quiet individuals. The dining area was silent for much of the meal, other than the clatter of forks. The last time the kitchen table was this silent was when we cooked homemade pizza with fresh dough bought from the Italian market.

The cheesecake ended up being the ultimate mic drop. I warned everyone that there was dessert so they should save some room. I don’t think the gluten free folks realized I had made gluten free cheesecake. I had made 6 servings for the couple of gluten-free individuals and they said they’d return my baking tin in the morning after they ate the rest of the cheesecake for breakfast. Guess they weren’t gonna let leftovers go to waste. Oh and all those health conscious individuals? Yeah they had two slices of cake each. One threw on some fresh strawberries and crumbled up some vegan cinnamon cookies to be more “health conscious” over his second slice.

There were only two unhappy individuals by the end of the night. One was my husband, who helped provide the brilliant idea for this dinner and didn’t get to eat any (don’t worry I made him turkey curry and Chapatis the next night).
The other unhappy person was the other rookie from my shift, who still has yet to make his dinner. He’s mad he didn’t think to go first because I set the bar so high and his plan of surf-and-turf isn’t looking so great right now. He also says he “can’t bake for shit”.

To complete this much longer than intended story, my rookie dinner was a huge success. Ironically, it was my shift-mates that introduced me to curry in the first place. Then of all the food demo shows and cooking competitions I’ve watched, my dinner was inspired by a meal presented by car guy James May. But then again, he did defeat Gordon Ramsey in a cook-off once. Sometimes, all it takes for a good meal is basic techniques and the right combination of spices.

I still have another 2 weeks before I reach day 365 since graduating and can scratch off that big glaring “R” off my helmet. That doesn’t mean I still won’t ask a billion questions (okay maybe only a million) or spend time training with my shift. But that does mean I will get to sit on the couch. Then it’s off to bigger things, such as Pumps and Instructor III.

TL;DR - I learned how to make a dope dinner from a car guy and fed it to a bunch of firefighters, who realized that I can actually cook really good food.

P.S. Sorry this story is dense. But its like the cheesecake I made, dense but delicious

I forgot to upload the one picture I do have. The final product:

@whoistheleader No I wasn’t on Kinja on my own but I was indirectly connected through hubby (@frinesi2). Decided I wanted to share some stories of my own since I have had some adventures lately on the shiny 6 and 10-wheeled rigs.

@rallydarkstrike My first fire station has this beauty restored recently and is on display in our legacy hall.

1947 Mack fire Engine (photo pulled from their website)

@annoying_salman I certainly can share, although @frinesi2 is much more technical savvy than I am on the matter

@old-busted-hotness
Most times it does take a little more time for me as well. However, hearing specifically those three beeps indicates a structure fire. Other alert tones are used for different types of emergencies and tend to generate different types of reactions.
For example, while a “beeep beeep beeep” indicates a structure fire and tends to generate much excitement and purposeful movement, a “beeeeeeeeep beep beep beep beep beeeeeeeeeep” indicates a medical call and looks more like a stumbling out of bed, gulping down some water to help the wake up process, and throwing on a hat to hide the bed head.

@66p1800inpieces
I think this question begs the debate of, how are we packaging said milk? A gallon of liquid milk weighs 8.6 lbs (thanks Google) but its packaged in those gallon containers that are optimized for humans to manually grab it off the shelf. The common gallon jug containers are roughly 6” x 10” with a protruding handle and an elevated top optimized for pouring (to minimize crying incidents no doubt).
I think, if we leave the packaging to the standardized store packaging, then the question would be how many gallon jugs would fit in the vehicle. Reflecting perhaps the vehicle’s internal space and roominess for carrying things. However, if we’re able to optimize packaging to a combination of easily stackable containers from floor to ceiling and then fill in the gaps with bags of milk, then it reflects the question of weight carrying capacity of the vehicle.

It’s 0608 in the morning. My alarm rang at 0605 and I quickly hit snooze. It’s dark in the fire station’s bunk room and I’m dreading getting up from my cozy bed. It’s hour 23 of 24 of this shift for myself and 8 other individuals snoozing in the common bunk room. The station’s chief and other officers sleep in separate bunks and are likely already out and about. They had a much less exciting night than us.

The fire engine and medic unit were up a few times throughout the night. I don’t think the medic crew slept more than 2 hours that night. I was fortunate enough to be assigned to the engine for the night half and managed to catch about 3.5 hours of sleep total. Still, being up and down throughout the night with only some staggered cat naps is still a tough pill to swallow.

By now, crew members from the on-coming shift are likely trickling in. Some get in early, around 0600, to provide early relief to their tired shift mates. Others get in less early. The only obligation is to be “response ready” by 0700. I’m still half asleep and debating when to get up.

06:09:28 rolls around and I hear it.
“Beeep beeep beeep. Box alarm 2 dash 11 for the basement fire”
The rest of the audio gets tuned out as the adrenaline dump kicks in.
My comforter and sheets fly off. I tear off my sweat pants and slip on duty pants.
I grab my phone and glasses off the night stand and bolt for the door that leads to the engine bay.
I see a flurry of people scrambling. Chief, aide, and safety officer dash to their duty vehicles. Crew members that had staggered in early hustle to the fire engine. I make a mad dash for my turnout gear.

My fire boots, turnout pants, and suspenders are all set up for me to quickly step in and pull up. I can put all three on in seconds. My crocs had been kicked off a few steps behind me, hopefully to not get run over or become a trip hazard for someone else.
My fire pants have one snap and buckle. I tighten my suspenders, put on my radio, and throw my hood and jacket on. I can do the jacket’s three snaps and four buckles inside the engine en route to the call.
The officer keys up “engine 19 en route”.
Dispatch marks the time stamp as 06:09:51

I half sit on the seat while the driver start pulling out of the engine bay. I triple check that my helmet is still on the hook next to my seat. I adjust my radio to the correct channel and finish closing up my jacket. Most of my radio is protected underneath my jacket so that only the lapel mic sticks out at the top and the antenna sticks out at the bottom. For my jacket, I “click” my three buttons from the bottom up and “snap” my four snaps from the top down. This routine has been engrained into me and can do it without any thought. I secure the exterior Velcro covers that provide extra protection against the potential gaps in the jacket’s snaps and pull the neck cover closed.

The other firefighter sitting next to me has been doing the same thing. The officer has the task of giving the engine driver some general directions on where to go in between getting his gear on. We’re already blaring down the road as fast as a fire engine can go. Up front, the officer and driver are discussing which hydrant would be the best choice and hose layout plans. I look over at the other firefighter with me and he chuckles out a “good morning sunshine, rough night?”. I give a groggy shoulder shrug. I text my hubby telling him I might be home late.

The possible fire ended up being nothing serious. Most of the resources dispatched to the call are cancelled, including ourselves. By the time we get back, the rest of the on coming shift has arrived. The officer mentioned two boxes of donuts in the kitchen and I see several walking around with mugs of fresh coffee. I’m eager to snag both.

How are we that fast?
In training, we have to don our firefighter gear in less than 2 minutes in order to even get the job. That also includes putting on the mask and breathing apparatus. This is a national standard expected of all firefighters.
We as a shift intermittently run gear drills to keep our skills sharp. Then we add extra challenges, such as doing it with our eyes closed or having to “mask up” while wearing our heavy-duty fire gloves.
Putting it on the same way every time helps ensure the process is smooth and therefore fast. After 2 years of doing this, putting on the gear is muscle memory. Those senior to me that keep up with their training are even faster than me.

If nothing else, let this be the take away from this post: slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Do not practice haste, but practice the skill and speed will come.

I forgot to upload the one picture I do have. The final product:

Mid-March is nearly here. The significance of that date? My 1 year since graduating fire academy a.k.a. The rookie year.

To backpedal for a moment … Fire academy is 6.5 months; 6AM-4PM M-F crash course of 13 certifications ranging from awareness-level courses (i.e. trench rescue) to an operations-level courses (i.e. firefighter II). It’s para-military in the sense that there’s marching, motivational speeches while holding the push-up position, and lots of team building opportunities involving ~200 lb logs. It’s somehow one of the best yet hardest experiences of my life and I’d do it again in a heartbeat to earn this job.

If you make it to graduation day, you’re released to the field and start shift work. 24 hours on. 48 hours off. First day at the new fire house involves carrying 2 duffle bags with 50 lbs of gear in each and a 20-gallon storage bin for bedding and spare uniforms. Your job title goes from Trainee to Rookie. Instead of bright green Trainee shirts, you get the traditional navy blue t-shirt that proudly bears the logo of the fire department you worked so hard to earn. However, once your gear is out, they slap on two big shiny “R’s” on your fire helmet. That way on the fire scene when they see that big red “R” everyone else knows to look out for you. The start of your rookie year has begun.

You, the rookie, meet the rest of your shift mates (who have already looked you up and probably heard a few rumors about you) and get a tour of the fire house. Afterwards, you learn the house rules and their expectations as a rookie. Being a rookie means you’re primarily in charge of house chores, keep the coffee fresh, always helping out with daily checks, and get involved with projects around the house. The point of this seemingly strange rule is to immerse yourself into the inner circle of your shift-mates and pick up things you didn’t learn during academy (which is quite frankly, a lot). Keep in mind, your shift mates have been seeing each other every 3 days for 24 hours, having tons of bonding time, inside jokes, and stories to share. The rookie, on the other hand, is the new guy or gal. You have to earn their trust and find your place.

Throughout Rookie year, I’ve had to prove my worth and earn my shift-mates trust. I’ve been spontaneously quizzed, lead training drills, and been “volunteered” for tasks. A few examples. When we had our annual review of confined space training, they needed one person to go through the 2 foot wide tunnel while in gear. “Oh hey the rookie is here, she wants to go!” Declares the senior man on our shift. So into the tunnel I go (good thing I’m small). Another time, I accidentally called the station’s captain by her first name, so on her birthday later that year, I was volunteered to sing “Happy birthday” to her in front of the whole crew. I also have yet to sit on the couch and watch TV. I have viewed the TV twice in my whole year - once to watch a documentary (was told to) and another to watch a series of training videos. Both times I sat on a nearby chair. The couch isn’t for rookies.

Another time-honored tradition in the fire service is the rookie dinner. This happens near the end of rookie year, where the rookie cooks up a nice meal for their shift. Like many odd things we do, there is symbolism behind it. The rookie dinner is meant as a way to say “thank you” to your shift. They’ve had to take time to show you the ropes, deal with your mistakes (I’ve only broken two things on the fire engine so far), and answer millions (or in my case, billions) of questions. They’ve had to host extra training sessions (mandated by your rookie book) and help prepare you for the 6-month and 1-year exams that are pass-or-get-fired type important. So the least you can do as the rookie, besides not be a knucklehead, is make your shift mates a nice meal.

My shift has a few extra challenges. Most shifts have 6-10 individuals to feed. Mine has 12. On top of that, my shift is very diverse in food preferences. There are several who are gluten-free and/or vegetarian, plus one who is vegan and several more who don’t want pork or fatty meats. Despite all this, we still make meals together every shift and eat together, however it typically takes half of us to cook and prepare everything in a timely manner and usually 2-3 individuals to come up with ideas. For my rookie dinner, however, I’m mostly on my own. For the past month leading up to my rookie dinner, I had been brainstorming ideas with several of my shift mates. I thought about sushi, but I didn’t want to risk bad fish(since they are still on duty). I thought about Pho, since there are plenty of ways to customize your individual bowl to fit your own dietary needs. And I thought about surf-and-turf, but that is one of the most common rookie dinners made. My shift mates have taught me so much and helped me in more ways than just how to be a good firefighter. They’ve helped me learn how to deal with the job-induced anxiety, brought me closer to God, confronted some of my own struggles from abuse in my past, and given me strength to push through all three COVID spikes at the busiest house in the county. Needless to say, I owe them a really good meal.

Enter James May, with his latest cooking show “Oh Cook!”. His first episode, “Asian Fusion” showed a few dishes that were simple enough to make. It grabbed my attention and thought I could make something like that for my dinner. However, there were still 6 more episodes to go and I still had a few weeks before my rookie dinner. The next episode was “Pub Food”, which included delicious vegetarian and meat pies. Had there not been several gluten free individuals, I would have probably done this. The next episode was about pasta. Again, there was the hurdle of gluten free. Yes, I could have made them something separately. However, the individuals that are gluten free or vegan or vegetarian are almost always getting special made food for them at the firehouse. I felt that I should take this opportunity to make something that could include everyone.

Enter the 4th episode, “Curry”. James made two main dishes, lamb curry and red lentil Dahl. There were also several side dishes, such as a mint sauce Rahita and a tomato chutney. He also demonstrated how to make Chapati, a.k.a. Unleavened flat bread, which turns out is amazingly easy. I remember watching the episode, with its wide array of dishes and knowing that I wanted to make this for my dinner. Hubby and I watched the rest of the series to enjoy watching amazingly simple but delicious food being made by a car guy. We also found his cook book and bought it. Luckily the measurements were in both the metric and units systems. All I had to do was double or triple the recipe to feed 12 firefighters.

On the morning of my rookie dinner, I had most of the ingredients packed up. I decided to test out how to make Chapati since I had never made them before. After rolling out a few, hubby walked into the kitchen asking if something was burning. No nothing was unintentionally burning. Just the pan had to be sizzling hot and some of the residual flour was burning off the pan. I had hubby test one out, but he ended up eating 4 more, just to be sure the first one wasn’t a fluke.

By early afternoon, I was at the firehouse ready to start chopping. Unfortunately I neglected to get any pictures (much to my husband’s disappointment) but I had a huge bundle of cilantro to chop, a dozen tomatoes to dice, and about a dozen onions, garlic, and shallots to dice. It was nearly 3 hours of prep work and while my shift mates helped a little, they primarily sat back and watched me work. Plus, they were out running calls (busiest house, remember?). The cook time was roughly 45 minutes, but since the cooking was primarily a 5-10 minute sauté and a 30-minute simmer, almost all the chopping had to be done beforehand. Plus, the three sauces I was making all needed time to refrigerate so I had to make those early as well.

What dishes, you might ask? Well here they are… Lamb curry (my only non-vegan dish), red lentil Dahl, tomato chutney, mint sauce raita, avocado raita, jasmine rice, and freshly cooked Chapati (the only item with gluten). Now I’ve made curry before, I’ve diced things nicely before, and I’ve even hosted major holiday dinners before there was such a thing as size-limited gatherings. But nothing is more nerve-wracking than making food for your shift-mates. Relatives will forgive and forget if you mess up a meal and then politely refrain from asking you to make certain dishes in the future. Firefighters in a much more tough-love fashion won’t let you live something down like that for years (or until the next major screw-up, whichever comes first). I still have firefighters that remember a nickname they came up for me from one incident in 2016. One incident 6 years ago. (In case you’re wondering, it was “BLS Bag” because I used to carry a ton of stuff in my pockets). Pasta night is still unofficially banned from my fire house after the last pasta night that went wrong several years ago (dunno the story, just was told “we don’t do spaghetti nights after Don messed it up”).

I also had one more ace up my sleeve - dessert. The other thing about my shift is, these are all health-conscious folks that won’t buy dessert for our shift dinners. But. If someone happens to bring dessert in, they will gobble it up. I also know that these guys are a huge sucker for cinnamon rolls because every weekend when we make breakfast, there are always cinnamon rolls on the shopping list. Now I’m not a baker, but I happened to find an easy cinnamon swirl cheesecake recipe, and it was simple to adjust the recipe so it was gluten-free. I had my hubby test a slice and he broke his diet by eating half the slice instead of “just one bite”. Nailed it. At least now I knew that even if I blew dinner, I could save the night with a tasty dessert.

While cooking dinner, I was busy juggling the lamb curry, lentil Dahl, and kneading dough for Chapati. One of the vegans happened to be around and I casually asked him to taste the Dahl. The purpose of asking him was twofold - one is that I tend to under-salt things (according to hubby) and second was to test the waters to see how terrible my food is. Our conversation went something like this:
“Hey Dan, can you taste the Dahl? Let me know if he needs more salt?”
“Yeah sure no problem.”
I proceeded to go back to kneading the dough and then realized I needed a second batch. After kneading that second batch, I realized Dan (name changed btw) hasn’t said a word to me.
“Hey Dan how’s that Dahl?”
“Oh, oh yeah it’s good, doesn’t need more salt!” I looked over and Dan has filled up a BOWL of this stuff and has likely been eating it this whole time. Needless to say, after that, the only thing I had to worry about was whether or not there would be enough for everyone.

The rest of the night went as smooth as can be. Crews staggered in (since different units were out running calls throughout dinner time) and ate. Now in the fire house, the kitchen table is the focal point. Conversations of all sorts happen here, ranging from training sessions to farewell speeches to welcome-to-the-jungle rookie embrace the chaos chats. It’s a lively place where the war stories come out as well as the hard lessons. Those of the highest ranks sit at the head. Normally myself and another rookie from my class sit at the opposite end of the table. That night, I got to sit in the middle, amongst them. Luckily, they didn’t make me sit at the head of the table, like they do to the more quiet individuals. The dining area was silent for much of the meal, other than the clatter of forks. The last time the kitchen table was this silent was when we cooked homemade pizza with fresh dough bought from the Italian market.

The cheesecake ended up being the ultimate mic drop. I warned everyone that there was dessert so they should save some room. I don’t think the gluten free folks realized I had made gluten free cheesecake. I had made 6 servings for the couple of gluten-free individuals and they said they’d return my baking tin in the morning after they ate the rest of the cheesecake for breakfast. Guess they weren’t gonna let leftovers go to waste. Oh and all those health conscious individuals? Yeah they had two slices of cake each. One threw on some fresh strawberries and crumbled up some vegan cinnamon cookies to be more “health conscious” over his second slice.

There were only two unhappy individuals by the end of the night. One was my husband, who helped provide the brilliant idea for this dinner and didn’t get to eat any (don’t worry I made him turkey curry and Chapatis the next night).
The other unhappy person was the other rookie from my shift, who still has yet to make his dinner. He’s mad he didn’t think to go first because I set the bar so high and his plan of surf-and-turf isn’t looking so great right now. He also says he “can’t bake for shit”.

To complete this much longer than intended story, my rookie dinner was a huge success. Ironically, it was my shift-mates that introduced me to curry in the first place. Then of all the food demo shows and cooking competitions I’ve watched, my dinner was inspired by a meal presented by car guy James May. But then again, he did defeat Gordon Ramsey in a cook-off once. Sometimes, all it takes for a good meal is basic techniques and the right combination of spices.

I still have another 2 weeks before I reach day 365 since graduating and can scratch off that big glaring “R” off my helmet. That doesn’t mean I still won’t ask a billion questions (okay maybe only a million) or spend time training with my shift. But that does mean I will get to sit on the couch. Then it’s off to bigger things, such as Pumps and Instructor III.

TL;DR - I learned how to make a dope dinner from a car guy and fed it to a bunch of firefighters, who realized that I can actually cook really good food.

P.S. Sorry this story is dense. But its like the cheesecake I made, dense but delicious

Ramps and traffic circles are some of the worst places for 2-wheelers in my opinion and where I have seen more bikes dropped and riding gear put to the test. There’s a spot that has a traffic circle at the end of the exit ramp from a 3 lane interstate. It’s claimed a few bikes.

@annoying_salman I certainly can share, although @frinesi2 is much more technical savvy than I am on the matter

@rallydarkstrike My first fire station has this beauty restored recently and is on display in our legacy hall.

1947 Mack fire Engine (photo pulled from their website)

@whoistheleader No I wasn’t on Kinja on my own but I was indirectly connected through hubby (@frinesi2). Decided I wanted to share some stories of my own since I have had some adventures lately on the shiny 6 and 10-wheeled rigs.

A lot of people have cool first car stories. Mine is the exact opposite. My first car was bought for me, by my parents, while I’m out of state RV-ing with my car-loving boyfriend. I didn’t have the cell strength to receive pictures, but my mother told me it was “generic” and was very excited that it was available. Excited for a generic car? That’s about the depth of my parents' car knowledge. I passed on the “exciting” news to the boyfriend and he thought I was joking. Neither of us saw the logic in how anyone could be excited for a generic car or how a car could be bought for someone when that person wasn’t even there.

That car my parents were so excited about was a used Honda Civic that was brown-ish and silver-ish in color. It already had some 80 thousand miles and was only a few years old. Not much wrong with it, but then again there wasn’t much to it in the first place. Still, a functional car with a working CD player? Any college kid wouldn’t complain, much. There was a small catch. I had to share the car with my brother. I was commuting 30-ish miles to a private college and going during the work week. He was going to the local community college but had about half of his classes on the weekends. We split the car for a while, but fortunately, he got sucked into a local car club and decided to buy a used car of his own. So while he spent his money on some shiny used red car, I got the brown-ish, silver-ish car back.

Boyfriend all the while had a used cougar, with a manual transmission and a handful of his own modifications that he and his car loving best friend worked on. Now that I’m in the picture with literally an intentionally generic car, I had some explaining to do to the best friend. Turns out parents didn’t want their daughter commuting to college in anything that would stand out. Just something to get the job done. So that’s how I saw cars; a functional object to get me from point A to point B and back.

Through the years, the boyfriend had to work on his cougar to keep it running until it eventually kicked the can one last time. Then he inherited an old jeep with about half the warning lights on. Luckily most of the issues were things he or someone he knew could fix himself. Not bad for a guy in college. My skills for car repairs included putting air in my tires with high heels on and knowing that check engine lights shouldn’t be ignored for too long. I’m pretty sure the only time that car got washed was when one of my parents had to borrow it for a while.

Several years go by and boyfriend popped the big question and he got upgraded to fiancé. When it came to discussing a wedding gift for each other, the MVA happened to be doing a special for license plates. They were doing a limited release on 1910 Vintage tags. The default tag was VR0001, or whichever number you secured. However, since it was a till death do us part type gift, he was given the choice for a custom tag. He chose it to say “CAR”. It was around that time that he also secured his own new vehicle, a 2012 Ford Focus. He ordered it straight from the factory and got his choice of features, which included nothing fancy (intentionally) and manual transmission. That vehicle became a ride which my fiancé could enjoy without having to pull over and dump a gallon of coolant fluid in twice a week.

But something happened to me too. Vehicles suddenly had personality. They weren’t just something to get you from point A to point B (and back). The vehicle you owned was another way to represent you. It was another median for art, for self-expression. That Ford Focus, with a license plate spelled out CAR, was called CAR. When we’d debate who would drive, that question would go, “you wanna take your car or CAR out?”. CAR was not just its custom license plate, it was its name.

From there, the vehicles we owned had some meaningful story behind it. We bought a jeep from the local coffee barista for $700 and named her Terri. We both went through motorcycles phases. Hubby’s Honda Hawk was named Jenny, after the girl who gave us dance lessons for our wedding dance. My Duke KTM was named Duchess. The Duchess was sold to a friend, since borderline racing bikes weren’t my style. Seeking something more cruiser style, I ended up with a red, white, and blue Honda Shadow 750 RS and named her Pinstripe.

I eventually conquered the obligatory car wife duty of learning to drive a manual transmission. Although I wouldn’t recommend learning to drive a manual while going to paramedic school and raising a one year old. Stalling is hardly the soothing motion that can lull an infant to sleep during teething season. Nonetheless, my vehicle adventures continued to grow. I went on to expand my wheel driving capacity to 6 wheels and being able to safely run red lights by taking my Emergency Vehicle Operator Course. Luckily by then I was proficient at driving with my left hand. After all, in an emergency vehicle, you drive with your left hand and manage the siren with your right, since technically by the book, you use the bee-do bee-do sound when driving on the road and the wee-woo wee-woo sound when approaching an intersection.

With now having a certain pride in the vehicle I was driving, I started seeking something that represented me. CAR was, after all, technically my husband’s before it was ours. Terri was considered a working project vehicle. And well, I couldn’t take the shiny ambulances home, even though I’d wash them at the beginning of every shift. Hubby had been sending me neat cars for years from various websites, such as Japaneses classics LLC and Bring a Trailer, as well as pictures of his own projects with Nissan Skylines, Mercedes, and Subaru’s. While occasionally these cars were just completely obnoxious or impractical, some were for sale. What he didn’t expect was for me to actually buy one.

Enter JoJo, the 1992 Mitsubishi Pajero and she is very unique. She’s right hand drive, manual transmission, and just the most fun little truck I ever owned. Buying JoJo was partially impractical, since it meant we’d have to make the repairs on our own. But she ended up being my primary commuter vehicle during fire academy, since Terri was starting to become more work than what she was worth as a daily driver. JoJo would rattle if you went above 100 km/hr (yeah you read that right) since having only 99 HP meant you were cruising in the +3000 RPM range if you went much faster than that. But she still managed to squeeze out a better fuel economy than the jeep and she had basically no rust.

(Terri is behind Jojo)

Suddenly, I wasn’t just the only girl at the firehouse who could drive a manual, I could manage a stick with either my right or left hand (heh). Now granted, I’m still no grease monkey but I can handle the basics. They taught us how to change a tire during week 2 of fire academy and by the end of academy, we had to understand the difference between disc brakes and drum brakes and how to check slack adjusters on the trucks. But something more important sprouted and grew. Pride. Not only was I fitting time in to wash the ambulances and fire truck in between being on the busiest medic unit in the county, but I was washing my own vehicles too.

Once I’m off rookie status, the Pump Operator and CDL classes are in the near future, since I plan to upgrade my driving capability to 10 wheels and learn to drive fire trucks. Did my then boyfriend, now husband, predict that a dorky science major would become a future truck driver? Not likely. But then again I never expected my own journey to go this way either. I thought I’d end up with some shiny Mazda that goes zoom-zoom in a quiet research lab but instead I’m in a bright red truck that blares wee-woo wee-woo en route to my next adventure.