since i'm not going to be able to sleep tonight, i may as well write a blog post

Well, I'm coming to you live from the middle of a police manhunt. 

I think.

Let me back up.

Until we moved into this house, we had little to no contact with law enforcement.  When we moved in, things started off innocently enough.  First, there was the time that I called the police because I noticed a low hanging wire in the yard.

And then, the time that our yard was flooding and we couldn't locate the source and it turned out the people a few doors away had left their garden hose on.

This past summer suspected drug dealers crashed a Maserati into our neighbor's car, which was parked on the street, spun it into our yard, crashed their car, threatened our neighbor, and fled the scene.

And those are only the times I've written about.  Earlier this summer our neighbor's teenage granddaughter had a party and served a few too many cocktails to her guests, who ended up in our backyard throwing up and falling asleep and we officially became "those neighbors" who call the cops to bust underage drinking parties.

And one time a man deposited a suitcase at the end of our neighbor Paul's driveway, and found his way across the street and into the bed of our neighbor Rob's pickup truck.  The man snoozed in the pickup for a bit and then woke up and tried to break into their house.

Anyway, we downstairs watching TV tonight and Matt said he was going to make himself a snack.  He stood up and looked out the window for a few seconds longer than normal.  I almost asked him "Is there someone out back?" but I knew he would probably say yes just to scare me and I'm no fool.

Instead he calmly walked upstairs.  A few minutes later I went up and saw he wasn't in the kitchen, but in the upstairs guest room looking out the window.  "The cops are here, and they're looking for someone," he said.

And sure enough, there were police cars out front and police officers in our backyard and the neighbor's backyard, running around with flashlights.  

For several minutes we watched as the cops searched, then got back in their cars, and sped off with their headlights off.

Shortly after we saw their flashlights again, this time in the backyard of the house behind us.

My heart was beating out of my chest.  I could barely speak.

Matt said, "I hope the chickens are okay."

We were in the cross hairs of a possible felonious pursuit and Matt was concerned about poultry.  

While Matt watched the backyard I looked out front, as a black SUV pulled up in front of our house.  Someone got out, carrying a brown bag, and WALKED UP TO OUR FRONT DOOR.  At the last second, she turned and went to our neighbor Diane's house.  And then, she turned and went to Paul's house, on the other side.

In a split second my mind went wild and I hoped my friends and family would say nice things about me when Keith Morrison interviewed them for Dateline.

She turned around before she got to Paul's house, got back in her car and drove away.  I am going to assume she was a food delivery driver, and just had the wrong street.  Because that would be some intricate planning for someone on the run.  But still, BAD TIMING.

We haven't seen flashlights in about 40 minutes and the cops aren't driving by as much, so I'm hoping they found whoever they were looking for.  

I'm still too keyed up to go to sleep, so I think I'll watch a show first.

But definitely not Dateline.