Sunday, October 2, 2011

I got a target on my back

Ramblings Post #161
The funny thing about learning from your mistakes is you actually have to make the mistake first to figure out what you did wrong. Which is cool when it's something you can fix, or problem you can leave behind after a reasonable amount of time. But if the problem is huge, and your middle aged, and the economy is bad, and you are sick and tired of being sick and tired. Well, let's just say some mistakes create larger learning opportunities than others.

My new alarm system, post my last alarm system's horrible failure, has revealed to me a disturbing truth. My new alarm has an exterior motion sensor, placed in an area where the only way to trigger it is to stand precisely where one would stand if one were say...examining the window into which one would break if one was so inclined. Not looking at the window, examining the window. Like from less than five feet.

It's gone off four times in the last four weeks.

I realized sometime ago that the individuals who broke into my house sometime ago were probably the guys who broke in years ago, and just kept coming back time after time, knowing I would replace stuff, mad they didn't get the TV. What I didn't realize is how often your casual criminal wanders past and says "Hey, nobody's home, let's check it out!" The little bit of seclusion that would have made my house a touch more desirable after the neighborhood changed is working against me in this case. It's more than a little unnerving. And it only spurs on my need to finish up this law school trip, and find a gig that will let me slip up out of this piece.

I know that things are rough all over, but damn.

I'll be visiting the local constabulary to let them know of this change to my alarm routine, so that they don't start marking me down for excessive alarms. 

They say that hindsight is twenty twenty, and I guess their right. I should have chosen one of the other many spots available, including a house that if I drove by today I wouldn't be able to look at because I still remember my boy looking at me as we finished walking around it saying, "you need to buy this house" and me standing there trying to come up with a reason not to. I'm stupid that way sometimes. I know they say don't dwell on the past and things you can't change, but we still need to learn from our mistakes.

Bacon & Egg Scrambler with Goat’s Cheese, Spinach, Puff Pastry and Béchamel Sauce
By the way, this would have been a post about my Sunday afternoon, but this last alarm when off I was on the terrace at Canoe celebrating Shade's birthday. She's a girl in transition, having just gone through med school in Georgia, then more med school at Harvard, then more med school at Howard, and is now doing a fellowship in Philly. One of her girls asked her why she keeps coming back, as we've had her birthday brunch there at least six or seven times,  and she told them that with life always in transition you need to keep some traditions to keep you grounded. That was what I was going to write about before all this happened.

So as they chat I'm standing in the garden, talking to the dispatch trying to figure out if the cops pulled up in time. Yes, really.

Then the Cowboys, er, let me correct myself, then Romo choked again. It is rough being a Cowboy fan.

I just need to get on with the getting on. And finish my Tax homework. And find some food.

Barkeep. I need in this order: Glass, Ice, Bourbon, coke.

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