I'm Not Dead Yet!

I'm not dead yet
I can laugh and I can sing
I'm not dead yet
I can do the highland fling

What I am is easily distracted. I guess life can do that to ya. So what has changed since last... october was it? Well let's see...

Since my last entry was about the little fiasco upstairs, I'll update that. I've been summonzed twice to testify against the dude, and both times the case has been continued. The third summons has just come in the mail, but if the trial date is after May 15, theres a problem.

That problem being that Kathy and I have taken summer employment at the Black Hills Playhouse near Custer S.D. She's going to design two sets and be the charge scenic artist, while I'm going to act as Technical Director and design lights for one show. We have to be there May 15, and it's probably a 10 hour drive (conservative estimate) so they'd better get this freak in front of a jury soon or they'll loose the "little old lady downstairs" (See Twelve Angry Men)

But we're excited about the jobs. Plus, we'll be able to take the cat with us. Remember the cat with the foobar eye? He's doing really well these days. No trace of the old eye problems, fat and happy. A side benifit of all the pills I had to force down his gullet is that now he's perfectly content to lay upside down on my lap, so long as I don't try to force feed him anything. The result is I can comb out his belly, which is where the matting always gets out of hand, (which if you remember was what initiated the entire affair.) Things good there.

Um...Pirates... right... taking a break from pirating for a while. The summer job means I won't be able to hold rehearsals with the renaissance troupe, so I've more or less disbanded the group. Steve will continue with his pirate gig I suppose (Pirates of Tortuga) and I wish him the best of luck. I've resigned from that group as well. Let's just say there was a difference of mind-set that was becoming alarmingly clear... and I really don't care much for people trying to force their values on me, pirate or not. So, though I shall remain a pirate at heart, unfortunately I won't be making any money at it for the time being. It's a hobby we'll pick back up tho... Kathy and I are developing a new show for 2008... sort of a "Pirates on Avenue Q" sorta thing.

Anyway... we're alive and kicking... hope you are to!

Monster in the attic

Woke up Tuesday morning at 6 a.m. to the sounds of a lot of thumping and banging around in the apartment above ours. Then I heard screaming. Or at least I thought I heard screaming... I wasn't sure, as I had just woken up and the bedroom TV had been left on all night. So I got up and turned the TV off, listening intently for fifteen or twenty secons. I could still hear thumping, and maybe muffled voices... but maybe the screaming had been in my imagination. We live in an old house that's been split into apartments, and it's surprisingly sound proof... usually a good thing. But, I sort of wandered through the different rooms, trying to see if I could get a better listen. The thumping and crashing continued, and I was pretty sure I could make out people yelling at each other.

At any rate, it was obvious I wasn't getting any more sleep that morning, so I decided to go outside on the front porch and have a smoke.

Once outside, from the upstairs window that faces the front of the house, I heard a woman sobbing, the kind of sobbing you hear from a person who has been traumatized. Then I heard more crashing, and things took a distincly nasty turn when I heard what sounded like a person choking... or more accurately a person being choked. I finally decided something was terribly amiss upstairs, and leaning out over the rail so I could see the window above, I yelled "what the hell is going on up there?"

A girl's face appeared in the window. She locked eyes with me an screamed: "Please help me -- he won't leave me alone!"

A shiver ran down my spine. Last year the girl who lived below us woke up to find a strange man standing over her bed. She had screamed at the guy and he fled... but what if he was back? I shouted back "I'm calling the cops!"

Ran inside and dialed 911, and as I was talking to the dispatcher I looked out the back window and saw some guy running like a jackrabbit down the alley behind the house. After completing the call to 911, I ran back out and yelled up to see if she was okay. Asked if the guy was still there, she said no. Asked if she knew who the guy was, she said yes. Told her the police were on the way. She thanked me profusely. It was easy to tell she was terrified.

Cops show up, and I tell them what I heard etc. They asked me to write a statement, which of course I did, mentioning that I had asked if she knew the guy. When the officer was looking over my statement, he looked at me and asked "did she really say she knew the guy?" I said yes, and he shook his head. "She told us she was being robbed and didn't know the guy... we had a feeling she was lying. We think it's her boyfriend... and we're pretty sure we know who the guy is."

Later that afternoon, I came home from work and there was a message on the phone from a detective. I called her back, and she said they had caught the guy, then asked if I'd be able to identify him. Unfortunately, I never did get a look at his face, and had no idea of whether I'd seen him before or not, so I had to tell her no. I've seen enough Law and Order to know what a bad identification can do to a case. Anyway, she tells me that it was this girls boyfriend and that it's the third time they've arrested him for battering her. She thanked me for calling 911, saying that it's rare for a neighbor to get involved. I don't know about you, but when somebody is screaming for help, it seems inconceivable that it would be ignored, but I guess it happens.

Now, I have a friend who works for a radio station here in town. This morning he was putting together his a.m. news items, and found this guy on the blotter. According to the news report, the girl had a restraining order against this dude, and he had broken into her apartment and assaulted her. Once the police had caught up with him, he attacked an officer and bit the officer on the leg! Apparently he put up a pretty good fight, and they had to use mace to subdue him. He's been charged with breaking and entering, felony assault, failing to comply with a legal restraining order, resisting arrest, assaulting an officer and probably a few other counts as well. His bail bond was set at $120,000.

$120,000! They obviously want to keep this guy behind bars! It creeps me out to think he was basicly in our house! I know it's a different apartment, but let's face it... it's one big house with a common back stairwell, and this guy was only feet from our back door. Very spooky! It's like discovering that some ancient evil has been lurking over your sleeping body.

Not all monsters are myth and fiction. Some are very real. I don't know what might have happend if I hadn't gotten involved, but I have a sneaky feeling that this girl might have wound up dead. Don't let these preditors get away with their crimes. Don't hesitate to get involved if you sense someone is in trouble... it's worth being wrong and irritating someone by trying to help than ignoring the possibility and allowing someone to get hurt.

Be safe everyone... beware of monsters.

D-D-S-S

Ah, you know how it can be some weeks... seems like you're just living the same day over and over and over, with nothing new, nothing exciting, nothing noteworthy.

That's been the existance here in Manhattan Kansas for the last couple of weeks. It's just been the basic daily grind of going to work, coming home, going to bed, getting up, going to work. Some days it seems like I'm doing a lot and not accomplishing anything, and other days it seems like I'm not doing anything at all.

Mostly I'm bored. I'm ready for wifey to come home, that's for sure. It's another three weeks until her summer gig ends, and those three weeks can't pass quickly enough. I've had enough TV dinners in the last couple weeks to last a lifetime. (By the way... I've discovered a fondness for the brownies in the "Hungry Man" dinners. Very good with a scoop of ice cream.)

Lets see... the cat is doing much better these days. That eyelid problem seems to have cleared up, and he's looking almost normal. His pupil in the affected eye is still not responding in co-ordination with the "good" eye, so I don't think we're quite out of the water yet, but the improvement has been very encouraging after the misery a couple weeks ago. He seems to regard me as his friend again these days, and doesn't seem to stay angry with me after our little "medication rituals." Yesterday he was chasing a scrap of paper across the floor, which is a really good sign out of a 10 year old cat. Of course, with the atropine in his eye (to keep the pupil dilated) I wonder if he's not seeing things with a bit of an aura around them. For all I know he's stoned off the stuff. If it weren't for the excessive drooling associated with the atropine, I'd be tempted to try it myself. (no, not really.)

Getting set for the Fall semester... it will be buisy again but not the insanity of last spring. I've decided to let my job as Scene Shop Supervisor go... too many sticks in the fire and along with wifey's input, we decided school was the priority. Still, with a class load that includes playwriting, directing, dramatic structure and biology, there will be no shortage of demands on my time. Of course, like an idiot I forgot to order my football tickets on line, so now I'll be lucky to see the Huskers come down here and play, but since my dad managed to get season tickets in the new expansion of Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, I might get to see a couple Husker home games.

Not a ton of stuff other than that... we have Renaissance gigs coming up in late August and through the month of September, so right now it's just rehearsals when we get a chance and a little script development. I've been doing a lot of research into the actual phenomina of pirate mock trials (something they actually did for fun) and the methods pirates used to maintain justice on their own ships... which is pretty fascinating actually. They appointed judges, advocates and juries (the accused was allowed to select jury members) and with luck, the research will lead to a new set of stage shows. If anything, I'll never let MOPO become stagnant. New material every year until we've got so much we can't remember it all. (Which some might argue has happened already... LOL)

That's it for now. Ta!