Lazin’ on a sunny afternoon

We went to 7:30 a.m. Mass this morning and saw our friend Kathy in the parking lot. Kathy’s husband died two years ago of ALS. He went very quickly, a victim of a fast moving version of the disease, probably a blessing, but still a very difficult thing for Kathy. How she wept at the gravesite—it was heart rending.

She spends much of the week caring for her preschool grandchildren, but Sundays are especially hard. The day seems to drag on, as she has nothing to look forward to. Knowing this, we asked her about her plans for the day. Grocery shopping seemed to be the highlight, so we invited her out to breakfast with us. We had a great time laughing for about an hour in the restaurant. We asked the server for extra cinnamon on her French toast, and got it. She laughed at our sharing a single breakfast, each taking what the other doesn’t like (my hashbrowns go to Kathy, her sausage to me).

We dropped her off at her house later and that was that. Or it was until we came back from some errands and noticed police cars down in the next block in our street. Being curious cats, we drove down to check it out. When we saw officers with their guns drawn, we skedaddled out of there and came straight home. All this action was happening right in friend Kathy’s backyard, so I called her to see if she was all right.

“Kathy, are you OK?”
“Sure, why?”
Well, there are police with their guns drawn standing on your patio!”
“OMIGOD OMIGOD OMIGOD!”

She said she had been taking a nap on the living room floor when all this started and she was completely unaware of the bizarre happenings. I suggested she might want to get back on the floor. Instead she cracked open the back door to speak to the police. Turns out a teenager in the house next door had threatened to kill the police and blow up the block. The mom and the children are druggies and have acted strangely in the past, but this was more dramatic.

The police asked her to open her garage so they could hide in there, so she hit the remote control for the door. We hung up then, as she promised to let us know what transpired.

Ten minutes later they had the kid in handcuffs and it was all over. She hopes that this incident might be the catalyst to get that family out of the neighborhood, but who knows?