A Peeping WHAT?

Imagine my surprise when Mike hands me a bright pink flyer the other morning and calmly announces that we have a Peeping Tom in our neighborhood.

A WHAT? Didn't that phrase go out in the '50's, along with poodle skirts and greasers? What the heck is that anyway?

According to my scary pink flyer, it's a man in a black trench coat slash cape, with a big black hat on. That looks like he MIGHT be FBI if he weren't a peeping Tom. And he's black too, the same color as his coat and hat. Kinda like this guy, who is apparently peeping on us all through the computer screen:

But on the flier he's got snake like slits for eyes and they're hot pink from the flyer background. So he's more like Lord Voldemort in a Halloween detective costume.

Since my PC isn't working, I can't scan it for you tonight. So I'll improvise, ahem:

Alert!

Our neighborhood has been experiencing problems with trespassing, "Peeping Toms", and vandalism over the past few weeks. Police are aware and have been patrolling over night.

We will be having a neighborhood meeting at the Shrewsbury Police Station in the courtroom ... (don't want to say when, what if the Peeper shows up to our unguarded home? Oh yes, our "guard dogs" would wiggle on him to death.) A police detective will be there to answer questions and listen to concerns and we can share information.

Let's send a message that we won't accept this in our neighborhood. Leave your exterior lights on if possible at night. Please be aware of any unusual activity or strangers and report it to the police immediately. Let's help solve this problem.

I am thrilled with the initiative taken to set up to create and distribute this notice. And the police efforts for us. Yet again, I love my neighborhood. (I would point this flier isn't signed or reference to anyone so hopefully it is not indeed The Peeper himself crafting a master plan that will have us all scratching our heads wondering where our TVs and laptops went after the meeting's over.)

I'm also obviously pleased with the police efforts and the meeting, which we will be attending. But come ON people, how CREEPY is this? I haven't seen anything or noticed anything. But this is NOT what I want to hear! It upsets me that my neighbor(s) had to get upset and feel insecure ... and now we all do. You just never know what's going on ... someone casing the neighborhood for burglary would be the best of it, you know?

This is so cliche, but I have always felt so safe here. To walk by myself at night or early in the morning. Yes I am careful, watch over my shoulder, take the dogs, prefer to take Mike ... as W would say, I am vigilant. But I never really thought twice about it. Now I am thinking just once about it. No more for me. And that STINKS stinks stinks.

Not that taking a walk or really moving, at all, for any reason, has been on my agenda lately. But I'm always waiting for the urge to strike and now it only probably should during the daylight hours.

(Matthew, don't read this.) I do miss the days before having a baby when Mike and I could get the dogs out and go for a nice 9 p.m. walk after dinner and 8 o'clock hour TV. I couldn't always wrangle him, but when I could it was so great. A time to catch up and get the dogs out there (and sooo much easier with us both; even with the Gentle Leader, I am not the biggest fan of herding them both at once by myself). But now those days are gone. We either round up all the troops together and go before Matt goes down. Or I go by myself later.

And natch now that Mr. Peeper's lurking, maybe it'll be a while longer. I am going to blame him for these last 15 lbs.

(Don't you like all this light humor about a (hopefully) petty criminal roaming my street at night? I hope so, because it's helping me not be freaked out by it.)

We Wouldn't Even Have to Forward Our Mail

...If we moved across the street to 7617 Suffolk Avenue, one number up from our address, to the big house across the street that's for sale for a pretty great price.

It leaves a bit to be desired on the outside. But the inside is 2,000 square feet (that would be about 70% more house than we have now) and its FAB. It's got a great lower floor plan, it's sort of circular and just flows nicely. From the entry you see the little sitting room (aka playroom, aka office, aka place for the piano) on the right, and to the left, you go from a nice living room with fireplace, to the dining room (all of which is light and updated with redone wood floors and white trim) back to a big kitchen with big pantry and big eat in, and room for an island.

There's a little back porch that's covered in this cute red trellis, but you could screen it in also. That's IF your dogs don't repeatedly ran their heads against it like current owners' did. Wait, what am I saying ... Bogey would be coming with us, wouldn't he ... Anyway, it has a fully fenced yard, leading back to a two car detached garage.

Back inside on the main floor, there's also a master bedroom downstairs and (here's one hitch) the one full bath that's in the finished part of the home. Upstairs, no bath, but three bedrooms. One's big, one's medium and one's smallish (but oh so perfect for a nursery or my eventual home office; sadly, does look across the street right at ours which COULD give me mental problems, but I'm willing to risk it.) The bigger BR's have two closets each. Plus there's a big crawl space (supposedly a "selling point" because apparently lickety split - at least, according to the agent - you could just whip up another bathroom right there. I'm sure.)

In the basement, there's another full bathroom with shower but that's the only finished part. The rest is huge but unfinished, with that cellar feeling thought it's painted a clean white. There is some "dampness" that comes in during heavy rains (aka, you could easily see the wet spots, but to Tim's point, this sucker's 85 years old. She'll have her little issues, I imagine. At least it's got copper not knob and tube wiring. It's a start right?)

Okay, so ... I don't know why I'm typing all of this. It's not like we're going to run out and buy it. Timing wise, this is all wrong. We are supposed to fix ours up to sell ... all the while continually St. Louis neighborhoods for a potential fit, and fine tuning our list of "must haves," by visiting open houses for a few more months. Then list ours next spring and THEN find our perfect dream home in the Shrewsbury/Webster/Kirkwood area. Right? That's how it'll go, RIGHT?!?

In any case, we are NOT supposed to find something now. Someone took that order down wrong.

Anyone who knows me knows I love my street and wish I didn't have to move from it. I've said before, if I could wake up tomorrow and have a much bigger mortgage and a second story ... or an add-on master bedroom/bath where part of our backyard/patio are now ... I would be a very happy camper. But I also know there's lots of nice neighborhoods and I shouldn't be so attached to this one just because i'ts familiar.

I just, well, am, and so when this house came up (which I'd always threatened to Mike that I'd want to snap up the minute it went on) I was like, OH! Course, I was always half kidding, because I figured it'd be kinda dated and "okay but not great" inside like the outside. But now of course (like so many Sunday open house "browsers" have fallen into the trap before me) I am thinking, I sure wish we could do this house.

It would just be, er, challenging financially to take on a bigger payment, just yet. We'll be in a much better position by next May once our ginormous (for us) car payment ends. And semi-better even after December when my GE Penance Payments end. (Sidebar: The story is that GE kept paying me for a couple checks after I left. Because despite bringing good things to life, they are apparently idiots. I convinced myself (against my goody goody nature) that I was justified to, well, keep it. Because they also sca-REWED me on my incentive comp when I left and basically didn't pay me according to our gentleman's agreement of a comp plan that never got nailed down. (Hint: Don't ever do that. Make people write things down.) So natch, once they realized they overpaid me, we all had a difference of opinion, with their opinion being I owe them every penny and mine being I sure don't want to pay them but can't remotely think about hiring a lawyer to fight something I am probably on paper in the wrong about anyway.)

And so we've paying basically the value of an extra ginormous car payment since spring, through December.

Oh little house across the street. I wish no ill on you or yours. But maybe you will CHOOSE to sit stagnant on the market, for at least a few months ... the owners are just downsizing because all the boys are in college now so they're not necessarily in dire straits.

Maybe they will be hit by a giant wave of nostalgia and wrestle with the idea of really selling it, their sons' boyhood home (well, kind of, they moved their in high school. NONETHELESS!) and turn down all the reasonable offers that come in. Right up until the moment they realize, crap, we must sell this albatross. And to who better than that lovely young couple across the street, who really do look a little cramped but like they'd take great care of our former home ... and who clearly could use about, oh, a $30,000 discount. "Krisantha (yes that's their agent's real name), write up the papers!"