Boring Weekend-J/K!!!

3-29-10

What a weekend!!!

It seemed like a pretty mellow evening. The boys were in bed, Ken and I were chilling, catching up on some tv. Luna was at my feet, chewing on a bone, occasionally eyeing and growling at her reflection in the tv cabinet.

We heard the sirens. We didn’t think much of them until they were clearly on our street. The cars we heard were also driving super fast, speeding around our block. We ran up to look out the front door in time to watch a large pickup pull up in front of the house about 6 houses down. It was the house with a half dozen giant butterflies on it, that was frequented by the resident’s son who was there with his buddies, always working on said truck.

At first the guy got out casually. A cop car even zoomed past him, so we thought perhaps it wasn’t him they were after. The cop car that came next knew it was him, and he broke into a run up into his driveway. Within a few seconds, there were so many cops I couldn’t count. They all converged upon the house.

There were helicopters, there were guns drawn, it was a high speed chase that ended with the arrest of our neighbor on our block! It was all very exciting, especially since at this point, we assumed it was all over. Ken walked down to check it out, while Luna and I turned on the news to see if there was any video of our block from the news copters.

Ken texted me and told me that there was another suspect they were looking for. He was somewhere in the neighborhood. Not long after this, the 11 o’clock news confirmed this information with a quick blurb and visual of the neighborhood. The news also indicated the area was blocked off and that the suspect was armed.

Crap.

We put the house in lock down, making sure all doors were closed and locked. We also turned on the back porch light and front one so that we didn’t look like a good place to hide. I left Lycos in Bobby’s room, figuring she would be a good protector for him. I kept Luna out for my own sanity, since Ken was still down with the cops.

I was very frustrated that there was NOTHING on the net about this. In fact, the only news was the 2 minute quick story on Fox 11, and then they never came back to it. I hate not having information, especially now that we live in an age where I am accustomed to having it at my fingertips.

Ken got back and told me that they were planning on searching house to house with police dogs. It would probably be a little bit before they got to our house, so we shut down the house and headed to the bedroom to wait. I fell asleep pretty quickly, and Ken dozed off about 1.

At around 2 am, I heard the doorbell ring. Ken didn’t budge, the normal follow up of dog barking didn’t occur, so I wasn’t 100% sure if it was real or not. But I knew that there were still cops around, since I could hear the helicopters above.

I yelled at Ken. He didn’t move. I yelled again. Nothing. So I smacked him on the back, and he got up in a daze. We were both in a haze of exhaustion and adrenaline. The police were at the door, letting us know that they were going to search our yard. No problem! It was terrifying, though. I stood in the hallway, waiting to see if one of my children might wake up to this. Plus, I half expected Lycos to bark since there was a large, strange dog in our yard.

The police dog was funny since you could tell he was occasionally at odds with having to work, but walking along a yard covered in dog toys.

Thankfully, the boys didn’t wake up to any of this. Dax did wake up at one point, but it was standard complaints concerning being thirsty. Neither dog ever barked, either, which did not put my mind at ease in terms of having two dogs to protect me from Stabby Joe.

The cops checked the garage, the driveway, all the way back in the yard, the whole time with guns drawn. Holy shit, that was terrifying. Yet at the same time, we were excited at the whole process since it was still interesting. They were in the yard for maybe 20 minutes or so, possibly 30. Honestly, time started to all blend together and I wasn’t sure what day it even was.

We heard a lot of barking, and we wondered if perhaps one of the police dogs had found something. We also then heard a gun shot. Let me tell you, when you hear a gun shot so close to home when there is an armed suspect in the neighborhood, you freak a little. We found out the next day what had actually occurred. The barking was a neighbor’s dog. The man who owned the dog was not home. He was actually trying to get home, but the cops were not letting him go back to his house, so he had spent the evening in his car down the street. Mind you, there were some other neighbors of ours that live on the block behind us that also had been out, but were let back to their house to get their dogs. The cops, having not let this guy go back, didn’t have anyone to contain his dog when they searched his property. According to the cops, the dog attacked them. Look, I don’t blame this dog. These dudes were on this dog’s turf. The cops shot the dog. Yes, they shot this poor dog. Now look, I could understand if they shot the dog in the chest or something since it was lunging at them. Nope. Dog was shot in the ass. No joke. They shot the dog from behind. The bullet went through his butt and if I remember correctly, exited through his chest. The dog, last we heard, was in critical condition. Ken happened to talk to the owner. What the fuck!!!!

The police were in our neighborhood, searching until after 5 am. Ken and I got very little sleep. We were still on edge most of the night. I felt sick from all of the legitimate stress. It was bad. Thankfully, the boys slept in until 7, and were both cheery when they awoke. I crawled out of bed to make them breakfast, hoping that Ken would get even a little bit more sleep. I know I slept more than him, since I tend to be able to sleep through anything.

With no sleep and slightly frayed nerves, I was impressed at the rest of the day. I had planned on cleaning out my closet on Saturday, and I kept that plan. It was quite the adventure, really. I took out everything. I boxed and bagged up all my old purses, some clothing, shoes and other assorted crap I didn’t need anymore. These items now are in my car. I am going to show some of the clothing to a co-worker, then I am taking it all to Goodwill.

In my cleaning, you would be so proud of me. I threw out stuff that I never thought I would. This included old three ring binders from high school that I only kept because of all the teen angsty doodles all over them. Everything from song lyrics to announcements of random couples (My favorite was one where I had this one friend named Ben who was dating one girl, so it had Ben “hearts” and under it was a crossed out name, and then the new girlfriend’s name under it). This sort of thing cracks me up, but really, it has no place in my life anymore. It is cute, and funny, but when will I ever really need to have that?

I found a bunch of old mix tapes, including the tape David gave me when we stopped talking for like 6 months, and a tape Greg made called, “Where the hell are my CD’s” that he had made with just records. Great music on these, if I remember correctly. I was just mostly excited since I can actually listen to them since my car has a tape player! It is an old enough car that it has a cassette player and a CD player. Now I can listen to music in three forms. LOL!! Bobby certainly made me feel old, though. He looked at the cassette tapes and declared them super old.

When I was all done, my closet had all my clothing nicely hung up, I had a floor again that I was able to move my shoe rack from the bedroom into. Ken even re-did the wiring for me so my light in there isn’t made up of 100 wires. LOL! It looks great!!

By moving this shoe rack out of the bedroom, it gave us even more clean places in there. I removed a hairball the size of Monarch, which was awesome to have that gone.

In the afternoon, the boys played out in the pool. We hung outside with them, hosing them down occasionally, which they loved. Luna especially enjoyed the hose play. I decided to go ahead and do a quick bath of both dogs since it was so nice out.

We hung out in the yard most of the afternoon. Ken and I did come inside for a couple hours while the boys and dogs continued to play. I was able to get about 80% of the laundry done in this time.

Saturday evening, thankfully, was uneventful. We went to bed early to try and catch up from the prior nights adventures.

Sunday morning was bowling. I opted to not bowl since my ankle is still not 100%. I am glad I didn’t, since my back was also killing me. Ken was so tired. The lanes had no oil on them, and his throws were way off because of it. He was so out of it, that this was too frustrating to continue. Bobby, on the other hand, was having a hell of a morning. He was getting strikes and spares and doing amazing! It was awesome! Thankfully, they ended up oiling the lanes, so Ken did bowl the last game, and he felt so much better.

After bowling, we hit up Target for some supplies. Specifically, we went looking for the Star Wars Easter baskets. Unfortunately, they did not have them. Crap. We are going to have to do some Target runs this week.

Bobby picked out a toy to get with the gift card Alyssa gave him for his birthday. He was quite pleased with this. The boys were so nice, hanging out in the car, sipping their icees. It was a good trp.

When we got home, we had the boys eat some lunch and watch a movie and then go to nap. During nap, Ken and I watched “The Men Who Stare at Goats.” Awesome flick. So much fun and an amazing cast. I highly recommend it.

After the movie, Ken set to work on our toilet. He needed to replace something, which meant it needed to be removed. Bobby hung out in the bathroom with Ken, watching him work, which was super cute. With the toilet removed, I made the suggestion that Ken put in the bathroom flooring while he had the toilet out. My suggestion was approved, and Ken set to work on putting in our flooring. Woo Hoo!!!!!! It looks amazing. I am so pleased with it. It makes the bathroom so much brighter. Now, all we need is the edges for the flooring done, which is some kind of molding, and then paint the walls, put in the shelving and it is done!!!!!!!! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

While Ken worked on the bathroom all afternoon, the boys played in the pool again. I worked on the house. I finished all the laundry, including a bunch of blankets that needed to be done for months. I cleaned the kitchen. I cleaned the living room. I reorganized my desk, making it super nice. I swept the floor about 100 times. Since we put down the wood chips in the yard, they seem to be all over the house. Luckily they are way easy to sweep up, and, no more muddy paw and foot prints in my house!! I am telling you, my house is sparkling. It is awesome! The boys’ rooms still need some work, but they are not bad, and let’s face it, the mess is mostly that they have too damn many toys. LOL! But most of those toys were put away by the end of the day. I still have two loads of laundry to do. One is in the dryer, and the other load in the wash includes the bath mats. I am not sure why I bothered since this weekend we are going to reward ourselves with a new bath mat set for our hard work. Ken also needs to clean up his desk, which he will probably work on this week.

This morning I am sore, but I feel accomplished. I have some minor work today in preparation for tomorrow’s crazy day of reports. I look forward to report days, so tomorrow should be good.

Ken is going to the doc this morning since he has had bad pains in his lower regions. He is pretty sure it is a kidney stone, which doesn’t shock me. He is kind of due for one. Hopefully it isn’t anything beyond that, and hopefully they can give him some kind of meds. I suppose depending on what they give him, I may need to pick him up, but we will see. He has class this afternoon, but I think that if he was this bad off, it can be canceled and made up at a later date. It has happened in the past.

I started delving into what made me have such anxiety and a breakdown regarding my upcoming trip to Ohio. I had some interesting breakthroughs while emailing with Stephanie. I am concerned that a lot of my anxiety revolves around guilt. It isn’t me concerned that the boys are in mortal danger. I have guilt that stems back to my own upbringing. My parents never went out without us. They didn’t go on trips without us. They were around for our entire young lives. The longest amount of time Matt and I were without parental supervision was the maybe hour at the most from when we got home from school and they got home from work. My parents were, and are, ones who have always said that they didn’t like other parents who felt like they could drop their kids off with the grandparents every weekend. This is what I was raised on. So when I had kids, my head went into high gear on how it was that I would be able to do everything, and never need to drop the kids off to be watched by anyone. Of course, this was already compromised the minute I took them to daycare. My mom was home with us until we started school. And even then, she was at the school we attended. I, on the other hand, was a full time working mom. Ken was working. The boys had to go to daycare. Already, I had one strike against me in my subconscious.

Keep in mind, my mom never balks at watching the boys. Hell, she will watch them even if she is busy! But in my own warped head, I still hear the criticism. My parents have told me over and over how great of a mom I am. Yet I can’t hear this. It is so odd. So leaving the boys for 4 days of my own fun still comes across as selfish to me.

On top of the boy guilt, there is the Ken part. I have had him as my touch stone for 14 years. That is a long ass time. Before Ken, I only had a short time in which I was truly single. I had dated Greg off and on for 5 years and didn’t ever date anyone else in between. I don’t know that I know how to be alone. I am lucky since I am happy with Ken and it isn’t like I ended up with an a-hole who beats me or is awful. That being said, it is probably good for me, and for Ken and my relationship, that I am not just Ken and Gena, but Gena, who is married to Ken. I do have my own personality. I do stand out compared to him. When I am at work, trust me that they know me as Gena, superstar, not just Ken’s wife or the boys’ mommy. I am Gena, hear me roar! I want to make sure that I don’t lose that when I clock out.

I need to really be excited about this trip. There was a time in which this would have been the most exciting trip ever. I need it to still be. A week away from the men in my life is nothing in the grand scheme of things. It is ok to miss them. Hell, it is ok to tear up a little when they say their goodbyes. But I need to really work on in my own head, exactly how much fun I am going to have. I need to be confident and jazzed and really be myself.

Stephanie pointed, out, which is something I know Brandy and Jenni have said to me, too, that I need to consider who I was before these boys were in my life. When I was 15, what did I like to do? When I was 10, what did I like to do? What made Ken fall in love with me? Why did I want kids? What are hobbies that I enjoy? What is happy making for Gena, not just happy making when it makes other people happy around me. I may need some people’s help on this. Despite having a great memory, this seems to be a part of me that I locked away to some degree. I would like to know why Brandy ever became friends with me. I want to know how Jenni decided I was fun to hang around. I am revisiting my own soul and it should be a fun adventure. I am feeling super positive about this, and Ken has given his blessing for this journey. He told me that he loves it when I do things that make me happy, and even if it isn’t his cup of tea, he is ok with all of me, so it doesn’t matter. I know that being Gena will be beneficial to my children when they don’t just have memories of mommy cooking dinner. They should have memories of mommy writing a book or running a marathon or taking amazing pictures. I need to be a person, and I am excited!!

I am all upset that the plan I had for Ken’s birthday didn’t occur the way I wanted it to. I am not discouraged, though. The place I wanted to take him is in Nevada City, and of course, the people who own the place are going to be in So Cal that weekend. LOL! It figures. Luckily, I am aware of another location that does a similar thing in Grass Valley, so the plan is this morning to email them.

YAY!! So all my clothing and purses and shoes all went to a new home! My friend, Sunshine at work took everything I brought. She was so happy about all of it, too! I feel so good about it, too! She is a sweetheart, and I am always so excited to make someone happy like that. She hates to go shopping, so she just went shopping in my car for free. LOL!!!

The only real problem with today is that it seems to be 100 degrees in the office. I have my fan on already. Of course, some of the heat my be the fact that I just walked outside where it was warm. LOL! Either way, I am hoping the fan helps shortly.

I am pleased with my summer dress that I got from Old Navy. Everyone keeps complimenting me on it, telling me how cute I look. Nothing like the uber ego boost!

We didn’t get to it yesterday, but hopefully this week we will do it. On Saturday night, Bobby had me read to him from this science text book looking thing for story time. It had lots of cool stuff in it, talking about climate and different things, including volcanoes. He was surprised to hear that volcanoes were in fact real, not just stuff on the tv. So he asked me questions about what causes the lava and what does it look like. I figured it would be fun to do the pretend volcano for him. So on Sunday, we picked up the supplies for the lava and Ken said we could make a volcano out of their sand, with a cup in the middle for the lava. I am looking forward to this adventure, as is Bobby. Should be fun!

I am loving this new dog bonding. Lycos and Luna have been playing together so happily lately. I don’t know if it is because Luna seems to have calmed down enough to understand the correct dog play doesn’t just mean to nip at Lycos’s face, or if Lycos has decided that having a best bud is actually fun. Either way, it is really endearing to see them romp together. I tried to spoil both of them with new bones, but only Luna was super jazzed about it. I have Lycos another treat, though. I also changed out Luna’s collar since hers was now too big. In my cleaning, I had come across Panda’s collar and tags. It was a pretty new collar, since she had gotten one right before she died. So I took off the tags and used Panda’s collar on Luna. It seems morbid, but actually, it seemed kind of cool to have my dogs share collars. It also looks like Luna shouldn’t get too much bigger, which is great. She is still slightly smaller than Lycos. Of course, she isn’t a year, yet, so I know that she could sprout. I hope she doesn’t get too much bigger since she is a great size right now.

My poor Ken is at the doc’s right now. He is in quite a bit of pain. I really hope it is just a kidney stone that isn’t anything serious. I also really hope they give him something to make the pain stop. He doesn’t normally just crumple.

Ok, it is 76 degrees in the office. I verified. It is stuffy and hot. Not fun.

I have a raging headache right now. I am guessing it is related to the hot in the office. I will live. The hot seems to also be making me sleepy. Of course, that might not just be due to the hot so much as the fact that I am tired and at work. LOL!!

Ken is in route to the hospital. The x-ray he had showed a mass that the doc thought was a kidney stone, but the radiologist thought was just some calcium in veins? No blood in the urine, either, plus the pains are not consistent with kidney stones. I may need to pick up his Lego from a class. I am waiting to see if he gets into the CT scan earlier than the appt. I hope so. I will pick up Lego, then go to the hospital.