let the wild rumpus begin!

so today . . . i am alone in my new house, all by myself, for three whole days :-)

i love my family. they are my favorite people on the planet. so i'm not quite sure why, but i occasionally need some extended solitude in my own house.

when we lived in oregon, rollie used to leave me fairly regularly. he would make short out-of-town trips every few months. but since we have moved to southern california, it almost never happens. because all of his meetings are now less than an hour away. unless traffic is bad. but traffic is never bad enough that he has to stay overnight somewhere...

this has been a craaaazy summer. between packing and moving and unpacking and going on vacation and starting school three weeks later than i normally do, i have completely lost track of time. which is how i find myself sitting here tonight all by myself...

...because several weeks ago, rollie was asked to speak at a retreat this weekend. he said yes. the retreat is for the church where my school is, so i thought it would be fun to go for at least part of it. but we are leaving on tuesday for a business trip and won't be back until saturday. which isn't a big deal, except my mom and dad are coming to visit NEXT FRIDAY. before we get home. so i have a lot to do...

and then, as i mentioned, i am not going to start working until the end of september. a perfectly capable substitute will be teaching my class. my wonderful assistant will be there to assist her. so i decided i was not going to even try to whip my classroom into shape. i decided i would just leave it alone and deal with it at the end of the month, and instead use the time to finish unpacking. and then, i got the class list...

for the first time, i will have more pre-k kids than kindergarteners. i am not thrilled about this, but that's the way it goes. at least i still have a job! but this change in enrollment is going to be a problem unless i make some changes in the classroom. so i spent almost five hours cleaning and rearranging furniture this afternoon. and i'm still not done. i'll be going back for a short (i hope!) time tomorrow morning. because i am almost done. i think.

and then, rollie asked me if i wanted to teach one of the sessions at the retreat. he asked me this about a month ago, and since it would help him and it's easy for me, i said, "sure!" i said this a month ago when i thought i was almost done unpacking (which clearly i wasn't!) so now i have to make some notes about what i am going to say tomorrow night. i know what i am going to say, and i don't get nervous about speaking, but if i don't have notes i tend to get off track--which can be entertaining, but sometimes i forget to say what i had planned to say...

...which is exactly what is happening on my blog tonight!! this was supposed to be about being home alone, and look what i've written so far! sheesh...

ok, so i'm home alone. i worked at school until almost 8:00 tonight, and then went to target. at 8:00 at night!! probably not a good idea. but i knew since i would be home alone, i was going to need snacks. and new nail polish. and while i was there, of course i wandered about. i found a perfect lamp to put on my piano, and it was on sale for only $13! but then as i looked at it, i realized that i was going to need to buy a shade. so i looked at shades, but the shades cost more than the base! the base!! the part with all the electrical parts (and a bonus free light bulb,) was cheaper than the part consisting of a wire and a bit of fabric. which was bad enough, but then i couldn't figure out how to attach the shade to the lamp. i thought maybe that was why it was on sale, but there were lots of lamps with no visible way to attach a shade, so i don't know...

and then i saw these.pillow pets of the anaheim angels rally monkey!! (ok, i know they are now the los angeles angels, but really, i don't know how anyone who calls themselves a fan can refer to them that way! los angeles has a team--the dodgers. angels stadium is in anaheim. they are, and always will be, the anaheim angels. it isn't rocket science, people. it's marketing.) i love pillow pets! i have loved them since i went on a hunt to find one for my nephew at christmas. they are cute and soft and cushy. the main reason i don't already have one, is that i haven't been able choose just one. but i think now i have--this is the pillow pet for me. sadly, it didn't get to come home with me today, because i was already carrying nail polish, cheetos, a shade-less lamp, and a bag of chocolate chip cookies. (oh, did i forget to mention the cookies? they weren't my first choice, but i couldn't find the devil donuts.)

i wandered back to the lawn and garden section by way of the school supplies. thankfully my hands were too full to pick up any pens or markers, but there was a giant CLEARANCE sign above the outdoor stuff. i don't know what there is about clearance signs that make me suddenly feel the need to purchase something. i was looking at gardening tools (even though we have a gardener who takes care of our yard,) decorative pots in all sizes and colors (even though we have all these empty plant beds around the edges of our yard just screaming for me to plant something in them,) and grilling accessories (even though we don't have a bar-be-que yet.) i managed to talk some sense into myself and headed for the cash registers. without any clearance merchandise.

and then a miracle happened (other than making it out of the store without buying any clearance merchandise)...

...because i have a track record at target. it doesn't matter what line i get into, the people ahead of me in line inevitably have problems with their transactions. my line is always, ALWAYS the slowest line in the store. always. but tonight i found a cash register with no line at all! the cashier was just standing there, probably counting the minutes until the store would close and she could go home.

it was pretty exciting for me.

i got home, pillow petless, but with snacks and new nail polish. i let the dogs out, watched some tivo and ate my sourdough jack. i was home alone. in my new house. and feeling pretty good.

and then i needed to go upstairs...

i don't normally get weird about being home alone. but i started up the stairs, and then realized that the back door was open. the back door was open, because we don't have a doggie door installed yet. so when we are home, we just leave the back door open so the pups can go in and out whenever they want. but it suddenly occurred to me that if i went upstairs, and the dogs followed me, then someone could come in the back door unnoticed. and i watch enough tv to know that when someone sneaks in your back door, it never ends well.

i turned around and closed and locked the door. i started to set the alarm, but then remembered that i can't set the alarm if the upstairs windows are open. since we have a big covered patio, our upstairs windows are apparently vulnerable to intrusions. although, it seems to me that by the time a crazed criminal could scramble up onto our tiled roof and get through a window, the dogs would have alerted the whole neighborhood and mia would be waiting to eat him. or her. but who am i to argue with the security company...

so here i sit. all alone. by myself in my new house.

for three more days :-)

that's what alarms and barking dogs are for!

so today . . . we are back home. normally i would say we are back home in sunny southern california. but today we are back home in wet and slightly rainy southern california.

i don't know what happened to the sunshine! it was here when we left a week ago--and now it is gone. i blame the oregon ducks fans. they are all on their way down here for the rose bowl--and by the profusion of car flags and decals and pompoms sticking out of their trunks, they are darn proud of it!! but you know, ducks need rain . . .

anyway, we are home. i always hate to come home after being gone. i'm not sure exactly why, but i think it has something to do with unpacking. as much as i hate to pack, unpacking is even worse . . .

but our dogs were so glad to see us! they had a somewhat harrowing experience while we were gone, which probably scarred them for life. it all began with some barking . . .

. . . on sunday i got a call from our neighbor just checking to be sure we were ok. she said the dogs had been barking quite a lot, and she was worried that maybe something was wrong. she didn't know that we were out of town, and i am guessing that she was picturing us passed out and dying on the bathroom floor. i assured her that we were fine--just out of town. then i called the person who was checking in on our pets and suggested that maybe he should close the doggie door and leave the pups inside when he wasn't there. that way, even if they barked, it wouldn't disturb the neighborhood. there. problem solved.

i thought.

the next day i got another phone call from the neighbor, and her side of the conversation went something like this: "another neighbor was out walking and we got to talking about how your dogs had been barking a couple of days ago. and so we took it upon ourselves to go into your back yard to see if they were ok. and the little one came right out to us, but the bigger one wouldn't come out! so we looked in the window, and we could see her running up and down the stairs. and we were worried that something was wrong, so we tried to open the patio door. but that set off the alarm. so we called the sheriff."

wait a minute. what??

"well the bigger dog kept running up and down the stairs, and we thought maybe she was trying to tell us something." yes, i am sure she was. she was trying to say, "who are you, and why are you trying to get into my house!"

"so we thought we should go in and check it out." but how did they think they were going to get in? we were out of town, and of course all the doors were locked!

"and so then the alarm went off, so we called the sheriff." there it was again. they had called the sheriff. this was not going to be the first time that the sheriff had been to our house . . .

i'm not quite sure why, but all i could think of was that i had to get someone to go get that alarm turned off because it upsets milo and he howls. and i had to get someone to call the alarm company and tell them it was a false alarm so they wouldn't send the police. oh wait. the police were probably already on their way, because OUR NEIGHBOR HAD CALLED THEM!!

so i did the only thing i could think of to do. i called rollie.

rollie was out with diandra. he was being a good dad and had taken her to the mall, even though it was only two days after christmas. (yes, he is up for sainthood.) at the exact moment that i was getting the neighbor's story, rollie was getting phone calls from both the alarm company and the police. but he didn't know that it was just the neighbors trying to get into our house--he thought there might really be intruders! (the last pastor who lived in this house was robbed more than once.) so he called the friend who was checking on the dogs, and asked him to go over to the house and see if everything was ok. and then he got my frantic phone call telling him about the neighbors attempt to get into the house . . . and all of this was happening while he was just trying to have a few quiet moments in the men's room at the mall . . .

after talking to rollie, i called the neighbor back to tell her that he had taken care of everything, only to hear this: "well, there is a man in your house, but his name is not ernie, and you said you were going to call ernie to come take care of the alarm, so we think maybe he shouldn't be in there."

and then the sheriff drove up.

the guy in the house was the friend we had called. he had a key, which is how he got into the house. he knew the alarm code and was able to get it turned off. as i was trying to explain this to her, she was telling her story to the sheriff who was busy checking our friend's identification.

"give me the phone," the sheriff said to the neighbor. "are you the homeowner?" he asked me.

ok, technically we do not own this house. the church owns it. but most people don't understand how that works, and i didn't think this was the time to muddy the water with facts, so i just said, "yes" and hoped he would believe me.

"and did you give someone permission to come and feed your dogs while you were away?" he asked.

"yes."

"and what is that person's name?" i told him, and he seemed satisfied and handed the neighbor's phone back to her. i wanted to explain a few more things, but i heard my neighbor say, "well she has hung up, but . . . " and then the phone went dead.

WAIT!! I HAVE MORE TO SAY! THERE ARE STILL A FEW THINGS THAT NEED TO BE CLEARED UP!! but i found myself talking to a dial tone. i tried to call her back, but only got her voice mail. i am guessing that she didn't think it would be prudent to ignore the sheriff and answer her cell phone--especially since there was apparently some discussion as to why she was trying to get into our house through the patio door when she knew we were out of town . . .

my only consolation during this whole ordeal was the thought that maybe, just maybe this was the same sheriff who had responded to our false alarm last summer. because this time, my house was clean!