unraveling my tapestry

While the neighborhood we live in has it’s share of crime, except for an incident of graffiti on our garage year ago and being help up about 4 blocks from home (also years ago and a reason I haven’t gotten jury duty over the past 6 years), we have been rather lucky. Bill did report one weekend I was away that he was watching tv and someone was turning the front doorknob, but except for the incidents mentioned. . .

There was trouble with landscaping plant destruction caused by a group of kids who gathered at the house next door (while they lived there, the best summer we had was when the neighbor’s son, a young teenager, seemed to be in some juvenile detention). I think they gathered there because the parents were extremely lax (one neighbor told me that when the boys set a dumpster on fire, the father drove them away so they wouldn’t be there when the police arrived. This was the same father who one Sunday when I was up earlier than usual was coming up my walk, reaching down for my home-delivered newspaper just when I suddenly opened the door—he claimed he was going to bring it to me but since our door only has small windows at the top and it isn’t possible to see through them, suspicious person that I am, I doubted his statement).

Our oldest dog Schubert, back in his younger days, did cause someone trying to break into a neighbor’s tool shed to give up. I had taken him outside before leaving for work and he noticed a stranger in the fenced back yard next door and started barking, I went in and called the police, but by the time they had arrived, Schubert’s noisy warning had alerted the intruder and he had fled.

This all leads to last night, when we had the cats at the vets for treatment of respiratory infections. Schubert, who is much older and in stable but fragile health, requires a special prescription diet. We purchase the canned kidney-friendly food the vets. I bought two cans and we paid for the cats’ treatment and left. Arriving home, Bill carried the larger pet carrying case (a two-handed job) and I carried the two cans of dog food and the smaller case. I had the keys to unlock the front door so, after entering the enclosed porch, I placed the cans on a pillar and unlocked the door so we could release the cats into their house.

This morning when I went to feed the dogs I remembered the cans on the porch but they were gone. Someone had spotted the cans, came in the screen door and took them. I hope at least the specialty food will help someone’s dog’s kidneys.

I also guess we have to put a lock on the screen door and remember to not leave anything on the porch.

But this all leads me to the Gates/Crowley/Obama issue over the Gates arrest in Cambridge. A lot has been said, and who called the police "nosy." I would hope that if two men were trying to push open our front door, some neighbor would call the police.