Episode 2: Night-time Visitors

For those of you following my tweets, you understand my latest frustration. First the oil change ends up costing $60 (if I'd known it was so easy to 'install' an air filter I would have just done it myself), then I get a parking ticket on my own street. I don't know why it isn't residents only, but the City said if I want to change it I have to go around with a petition and get all my neighbours' signatures and the whole block is apartment buildings. Not really conducive to door to door. Besides that, I'm just not a petition-person. That's a little too "good-citizen" for me. And to make matters worse, Lani is refusing to contribute to any of this.

She's really sticking with this bike thing. I'm kind of surprised.

So we did do some thieving this weekend - a big house by the water (the side of town with trees and views of things other than concrete). I warmed up the car and everything was going smooth as silk. The sky was a moody blue-grey, so I said Lani, it's probably going to rain. And she said that's why I have a rain jacket. Then she put her helmet on (which I noticed she'd decorated with flower stickers), and turned on about a half a dozen bike lights. She pedaled away like a Christmas tree on wheels.

Well, I thought her taking a separate vehicle kind of defeated the purpose of our romantic crime spree, which I shouted at her as she rounded the corner, but she didn't seem to hear. I was ticked, so I sped across town, parked a block from the house, turned on the radio and kicked the seat back. I wanted to look warm and cozy before she caught up. It was hard to relax, though. I was worried about my little Christmas tree. People drive so fast and it was getting darker and starting to rain. I kept sitting up to wipe the condensation off the windows and look around for her.

After three songs, I saw her, blinking away. Kind of reminded me of when we tented at the beach and watched the lighthouses blink green, white, and red all night. That was back when we didn't need a TV to spend an evening together.
She stopped at the car and I rolled the window down. Her cheeks were all wet and rosy and she said she saw a family of raccoons on the way over.
I thought of their masks and said "we should get going if we're gonna do this."
She almost looked disappointed, and I actually felt sort of lame for mentioning the time.

The house didn't have any fans. They have air conditioning. Can you believe that? It probably never gets above 25 C there on the water and they need air conditioning. I got some computer speakers, though. And Lani took a can opener. Ours has been broken for a couple weeks.

When we got home, Lani wasn't even interested in testing the new speakers. She just put the can opener away and went to bed. I hovered by the door once, debating whether I should try to cuddle or something. But what if she really just wanted to sleep? Instead, I googled stuff about raccoons. There was some guy named Davis who did intelligence tests on them in 1908 and found those raccoons could open 11 out of 13 complex locks. . . Maybe I'll tell Lani about that tomorrow morning. . .