Weekend Report

Friday night I stayed home to follow the hurricane. Thankfully my father in-law, who lives in Naples, fared pretty well during the day. Power was out and there was a lot of tree damage but otherwise in tact. My brother and his family are in Orlando (in the Lake Underhill Park area) and I was unable to reach them at any point in the evening. My inner worrywart took over when the eye passed over... When I heard 105mph gusts at Orlando Int'l I knew that they had to be hunkered down and doing the best they could.

I tried to take my mind off it by watching the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. I love the Parade of Nations but the other pageantry I can take or leave. I admit I kind of dozed off during the Byzantine Empire...

Saturday: I finally got ahold of my brother in the morning. His house is fine, a neighbors oak tree came down and took out the fence but no other major damage to the house. Unfortunately, that night at 3:00am after the hurricane had passed over, my 2 year old niece had another seizure and the ambulance could not get to the house because of downed trees and power lines. My brother had to carry her 3 blocks in the wind and rain, over trees and debris to meet the ambulance. Not knowing how he would follow her to the hospital (if the ambulance couldn't get in, my brother certainly couldn't drive out), a neighbor came out and tossed my brother a set of keys and said to take his truck to the hospital. AJ is doing fine now, but a terrifying and tough night for all involved.

Saturday night I went over to MJS and Itchyraes for drinks. MJS returned from Brazil with some Cachaça (a brazilian rum-like liquor) and he was mixing up some tasty Caipirinhas. It's been a while since I've had true cachaça and I'd forgotten how quickly it kicks my ass. After 2 drinks I had to step off and go for the club soda until the fog lifted. It was a great night catching up with friends.

Sunday was my day to relax. I'd been so tightly wound all of last week that I really just needed a day to myself. I didn't want to see anybody, go anywhere, do anything. I spent the first part of the day with my big ass on the couch watching TV and then in the afternoon, somehow gathered the energy to roll out to the pool. My neighbor popped over the fence to say howdy and we were chit chatting about my vacation etc. when I heard my wife scream "MJ!! CALL 911!"

In a series of split seconds that I can't really piece together, my crisis response kicked in and I was telling the 911 dispatcher that 2 men had just broken into our house across the street and that my neighbor Al had one on them on the ground.

So much for my relaxing day.

Without getting into all the long winded details about how the missus went completely postal on them while they were still in the house and scared the living shit out of them ... suffice to say that they were caught in the act before they could take anything or do any damage.

It turns out the guy on the ground wasn't a guy at all, but the 14 year old kid (he's quite LARGE for his age) of the former drug dealing tenants. He was absolutely terrified and knew he was busted. He looked at me and said "Don't you remember me? I used to live here?" To which I yelled back at him in my pumped up adrenaline state "I don't give a shit - it's not your fucking house anymore!"

His accomplice, another LARGE boy, all of 13 years, fled the scene and was later picked up about 4 blocks away with crystal meth in his pocket. 10 points for stupidity there - if I had just broken into a house and ran from the cops I might think to dump the frickin' drugs in my pocket, but as the cop said to me, "If they were smart, we'd never catch 'em".

I was really impressed with the response of the PSPD. They had 4 cars there in less than 3 minutes. I think it might have had something to do with my telling the dispatcher that my neighbor had one of the guys on the ground. The lead cop was really nice. He knew the house (he'd responded to a few of our previous complaints) and he complimented us on fixing it up. "That house looks NOTHING like it did before - you've done an amazing job." And he knew the boys mother. "She's a known narcotics offender."

What broke my heart was that this kid's life is totally fucked. He has a prior breaking and entering conviction and it looks like it's juvenile corrections for him until he's 18. He's only 14 and this is the only way he knows, thanks to the lack of parenting and poor examples he's grown up with. It's sad. On the other hand, the not-so-little fucker broke into my house!

And so begins my Monday. I'm off to call the alarm company to install a new system over there, oh yeah, and wait for the plumber. Again.