Thursday Thinking – Pretty Hard to Think of Anything Else

view from Cali and Ray's deck above their patio

Ray and Cali live in a great little neighborhood in Seattle – the kind where they borrow eggs from their neighbor and the little girl who lives next door skips over to feed their turtle a couple of times a week.  The neighbor across the street takes their packages in out of the rain, and the neighbor to their left rolls their recycle bin to the curb when he takes his.  Cali and Ray are the newcomers.  The other neighbors have lived together for years and years and take good care of each other, including the newcomers.  Except one.  The 60'ish-year-old neighbor to their right keeps to himself, has some bizarre habits, and has young men coming and going at all hours.  Make that kept to himself, appeared to have bizarre habits, and had young men coming and going at all hours.     

A little after midnight on Tuesday, Ray and Cali were awakened by a young man screaming on their backyard patio.  His screams were repeated and shrill.  Ray crawled out of bed and went to investigate.  Within minutes several police cars swarmed the house next door, soon followed by crime vans, sniffing dogs, and paramedics.  Their neighbor was stabbed to death and, after hearing Ray’s report, believed the suspect was the one who had screamed on their patio.

The murder suspect eluded the police for several hours, but remember this is a helpful little neighborhood, so when some of the neighbors saw a young man that wasn’t familiar to them climbing out of a nearby park ravine, they called the police.  The suspect, a 19-year-old friend of the victim, was apprehended.   

That’s pretty much been what I’ve been thinking about for the last few days . . . and the merciful fact that Ray wasn’t traveling on Tuesday night so Cali wasn’t alone. 

Oh, and Egypt .  I’m still thinking about Egypt.  And now Bahrain.  Well . . . the whole Middle East really.

Crazy.  Crazy things are happening next door.