News with Richard Bleil
There is a bit for me to roll out today, just some news, really. It seems as if I am in the midst of a neighborhood crime spree. One of my neighbors across the street stopped a crime at the house next to mine. He noticed that there were some very expensive power tools at the end of the driveway to the house that is actually vacant at the moment. He called the police and went over to check on it. When the police arrived, they didn’t find the burglar.
It seems as if the individual was taking items out and creating a little pile to take them all out at once and must have been scared off. The owners had hidden a key near the door. I had met the owners briefly, as did the neighbor across the street. He called to inform them of what was happening, and they said where the key was, but alas, no key. Mail was piled up on the garbage can, and the mailbox was near the hidden key, so we suspect he found the key as the burglar was looking through the mail. He seems like he was just greedy. Had he walked out with one item at a time, he probably could have kept going back for quite some time as the owners will be out for at least a few more weeks.
What really surprises me though is not the burglary so much as the fact that it only now happened. The house is very dilapidated. Although the owners are planning to fix it up, it does look abandoned. They’ve been gone for several months, and usually houses that look abandoned and that have been empty attract people who will use them as “flop houses”, places to sleep and usually do narcotics. That he left anything of value in the house, even tools he planned to use for repairs, seems very reckless to me.
So that was more or less the start of my day. But I didn’t feel much like cooking, so I decided to order something to be delivered for lunch. Which is good because I don’t like liver. (Delivered. De…liver…ed. Such an odd sounding word, and good luck ever hearing it again without thinking about that for the rest of your life.) Nearby we have a mall that had decided to build an upscale food court, a food court that would attract people outside of the mall. It’s an interesting concept, and it definitely has a different feel to it. In that food court is a restaurant that makes Cuban sandwiches. Apparently, Cubans are something like fancy ham and cheese sandwiches, but this one was pulled pork and sausage, with cheese and pickles. But it was on a Cuban bun, and it was pretty good. It was kind of a fun twist to the day.
After eating, there was a knock on the door, and a man was there asking if I wanted him to mow my lawn. Frankly, I hadn’t mowed in at least a month (and longer I think), mainly because of depression. But honestly, the grass hasn’t been growing tall, so it looked overgrown, but not very tall, and I can live with that. I have been dreading mowing it, though, so I took him up on the offer. He looked like he might have been Mexican, as many of my neighbors are. I was a little concerned because it took him quite a while to come back with his lawn mower, and I was afraid I’d miss him to pay him on our agreed upon price, but he did show up, and I paid him in advance since I had to go to work. Once paid, I took a quick shower, and as I was leaving to go to work, he called me over to where he was. He was so excited because he had finished mowing the front bit of my property and asked me to go check it out. Clearly this is a man who takes great pride in his work, and it warmed my heart to see his excitement to show it off to me. I was released early from work (a much-needed break, actually) and he was just finishing up when I got home. He did such a great job and really seemed to enjoy showing me around with what he had done.
And, no, this isn’t a blog about how bad Cubans and Mexicans are. I do not know who broke into the house next door, but the nationality of the individual means nothing. Anybody can be a criminal, regardless of national origin, skin color, accent, or any other distinguishing feature. Maybe we’ll discover who had broken in, and maybe not, but I loved my sandwich, and I appreciate how nice my lawn looks.
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