is it just me?

I live in a nice neighborhood. Not fancy nice, but quite lovely. It's an older neighborhood with lots of trees and kids and old people. I like it so much that when I sold my awesome old house I bought a new one about six blocks away. Several weeks ago, on a lovely early summer Sunday evening, we decided to take the kids for a walk. We packed them up and headed for the park. Just as we rounded the corner a few blocks away, we saw a man in camouflage carrying his gun. Because we are naive, and because this is Wisconsin, we thought "oh, a hunter". But we thought it was weird that he was carrying his gun. And then we saw another one. And another. And we realized that they were policemen, not hunters. (At this point we also realized that we clearly are not destined to survive in any vaguely dangerous environment and should plan our lives accordingly.)

We start looking around and everything gets creepy. The policemen are sneaking around yards, and people are standing on their stoops looking nervous. We keep walking down the street, but just as we are about to turn down a little secret sidewalk to the park, we decide to ask someone what's up. Um...turns out that some guy allegedly killed his ex-wife, was on the run, and they thought he was hiding at his mother's house. His mother lives next to a park we frequent, but not surprising we don't know her as it is several blocks away. The park is closed, there are snipers on garages, and the whole thing is very dramatic. So, since we cannot go to the park do we do what any sensible person would do and take their tiny children home and lock the doors? No, we do no such thing. We decide to just WALK TO A DIFFERENT PARK. Because, you know, the bullets can only go in the one park. Or something. In retrospect it seems so, so crazy but at the time it made perfect sense. Because we do not live somewhere scary so I think we were so surprised that we had no idea how to act. So we're walking through the neighborhood, and there's command central with no fewer than 20 police vehicles. There are unmarked cars parked all over the place watching, and we even saw this huge armored vehicle that looked like it belonged in a war zone. And there we are, strolling along. Wearing fashionable targets on our heads.

They didn't find him that night, but I was out running errands a few days later and my friend called to say they were looking for him again, in a different park on the other side of my house. The park where my husband had walked our dog that very morning. I start trying to go home (this time to lock my doors with me and my babies inside) and all the roads are blocked off. This time I am appropriately freaked out. Baby Liz goes to school in our neighborhood and they were not allowed on the playground. I pulled down all my shades, because we all know nothing bad can happen in your house when the shades are down. They did find him, but he was not alive having decided to just end it there in the park. Believe me when I say I have not been there since.

While this was going on, they kept interviewing this guy's crazy brother on TV. Apparently he also lives in my neighborhood (yay) and owns a wolf (double yay). So who the fuck ARE the people in my neighborhood? Scary people, that's who. The other night I was grocery shopping at about 8pm on a Monday, and in the produce aisle I come across the crazy brother. I mean, I guess I shouldn't be surprised since everyone needs to eat, but it was weird to see him there inspecting bananas. And my favorite part was that he had the little ad circular and was looking for deals. Because even if you are crazy and your brother is crazier, and thanks to your exceeding willingness to be interviewed now the whole city knows it, you can still save 25 cents on toilet paper.

I feel much better now
After all that foolishness we were looking at our neighbors a little more carefully. But my faith was restored. A couple weeks ago, we were walking home and someone was mowing. Baby Liz covered her ears, but I thought nothing of it because these days she covers her ears at anything louder than a normal speaking voice. A week later, we are walking by again and they guy is mowing again. He stops the mower and says "is it too loud for her?" and because the whole sensitivity to noise thing is kind of annoying to me I say "She's fine" and they guy says "I saw her covering her ears last time, so I'll stop." And he did. The whole time we walked by. How nice is that?

You missed a spot
On our walk home we also pass by a guy who is always picking something up out of his yard. I can never see what it is. Tiny weeds maybe? Leaves? Air? But there he is, every day, picking "them" up and putting them in a bag. And if that isn't a good advertisement for not retiring too early I don't know what is.

Thanks for the offer
HA! This is another story from walking home. We walk home a lot, and since it takes us half an hour to travel three blocks at the speed of a two year old, we see a lot of people. One day I was chatting with a guy who seemed nice. He let baby Liz pet his dog. (I didn't want to touch it because it was old and old dogs skeeve me out.) He walked away, but then let us catch up and seemed kind of nervous. He said he was a videographer, but was trying to get into photography. He then offered me a free photo shoot of the family so he could practice. No free photos, though. It was a nice offer, and on a scale of one to ten I would say my interest was a five. He gave me a card. He said he didn't have one for his video business, but this was his other business. It was some kind of uber religious newsletter and after that I was afraid he would try to brainwash me so I never called him. The end.