Friday, June 1, 2012

Police activity isn't conducive to sleep

I had only been asleep about 30 minutes when the doorbell rang (just after 9:30).  I got up and there was no one there.  But a police car was parked on the street.  I opened the door, stepped outside, and a policeman was walking up to my neighbor's door.

Seeing me, he came over to me and said there had been an attempted sexual assault down the street, the suspect escaped into the retention basin, and could he look over my back wall.

I did him one better.  I put my shoes on, grabbed the gate key, and I let him out into the retention basin.  He said I didn’t need to wait for him, but I told him I wanted to make sure the gate was locked back up.

I watched over the wall while he scoped out the area to the east of me.  I was amazed at the range and intensity his flashlight had.  When the helicopter came back from being refueled, it took over the search with its infrared scanners. I let the policeman back out the front gate and locked up.

When I went inside, I realized the front door had been unattended while I was outside.  I searched every room in the house to make sure no one had hidden themselves inside.  I put the bar stool in front of the doggy door so it would fall over if anyone tried to get in.

Not surprisingly, the sound of the helicopter and the news of the assault did not make it conducive to getting back to sleep.  For the first time in 14 years, I felt unsafe.  I turned on the lamp to play more Palm games, but felt exposed by the interior light.  I didn’t need the light on to play solitaire anyway.

I played only a couple games.  I looked out over the retention basin a couple times from the bedroom window, watching the searchlight scan the area .  I checked from the studio window to see if the police car was still out front.  It finally moved away around 10:30.

Despite that, I couldn’t sleep.  I change positions in the bed about 15 times, even moving to the foot of the bed.  I laid on the floor for a bit.  I petted Angel multiple times.

I hung from the inversion table for a few minutes.  I wondered if Angel would bark if someone broke into the house.  I took some aspirin.

I finally got back to sleep a little before 11:30.  And still woke up before 5.

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