Attempted Break In?

Saturday morning the paint crew (Dawn, my interior designer, her friend, and Ms. Ribs' nephew) and I discovered someone had slit the screen to the back window in the kitchen, and scratched up the window glass in a square like they were trying to get in. It was a pretty half-assed attempt, and strangely, the screen was torn and also raised--like they sliced the screen, then raised the window, then scratched the glass. If they were really trying to get in they didn't do a very good job.

The police evidence tech told me he didn't think that was the point. "I think somebody just wants to bother you, scare you," he said. "People get jealous when they see other people having things they don't have."

Nevertheless, I'll admit I was spooked. Good thing the paint crew was around all day and we had a lot of work to do in between two visits from the cops--one for the report, one to collect evidence.

There was some lemonade in the lemons. The first sweet part was that my interior designer's paint scheme impressed the woman officer who took the report, so they traded numbers and Designer Gal might get a real gig as a result. The next bit of sugar came when the evidence tech made friends with Dawn, who is interested in police detective work. He agreed to let her come to the station next week to do an interview. How cool is that??

In between making Ws on my wall, I picked up the phone and called lots of folks in my address book, inviting them to an impromptu "let's scare away the burglars" party. Four people showed up: my neighbor, the other white lady who bought further up the street, a friend from Su Casa, my friend the cop (really glad he made it!) and Dawn stuck around for a while.

In fact, Dawn's mom came by with Dawn and Joey after the other guests left and let them stay over. It was my first slumber party for kids. Dawn's mom is my hero--I don't know if I would have done that if I were in her shoes. She was so nervous she spoke two words of English: "My son!"

"I know!" I said. I gave her a big hug and cheek kiss of appreciation.

We stayed up way too late pulling tape off the walls and ceiling. Joey made a tape ball out of the pickings, and I kept singing "Tape Man, he's a tape tape man, yes he's a tape man..." to him. (The tune was a song called "Ape Man" which I think is by the Kinks but I forget. Anyone out there remember???)

The next morning we had eggs and rice--Aurora made rice Mexican-style. You fry the dry rice a little first, then add onions, tomato, water and spices. Joey and Aurora drew pictures and Joey dressed himself up as a witch/bruja, by wearing my big navy terrycloth bathrobe, Redi-shade clips stuck to his head, cheeks and chin, and riding the broom all over the house. He can roll his eyes way up into his head, too. Perfect! I probably haven't laughed so hard in months.

But I'm thinking about getting some barbed wire for the top of my back fence. It seems like that's the source of all the trouble.