A Horrible Weekend with Perspective

What's that saying? "Sometimes the best laid plans of mice and men..."

In short, our weekend started out on the wrong note and only got worse.

• The discovery of a screw in a tire.

• Another discovery of a second screw in a different tire.

• Power outage saturday morning. No garage access. Locked out.

• No power = no cake baking = REALLY behind schedule.

• Unexpected phone call = Adam gone for a few hours = Adam behind schedule.

He did weed whack the patio (in the dark) in hopes we could salvage our planned first dinner date on the "finished" patio. It wasn't meant to be.

• Frosted cake leaking chocolate sauce. A Failed batch of fondant. Missing supplies. Adam running back and forth to the store. Etc. Etc.

Finally, at 8:30 pm we delivered the cake and said "forget it" to the patio dinner and everything else we needed to do that day. The house was a disaster area. So we stopped at Chipotle on our way home. We were both exhausted. And glad the horrible day was over.

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But it wasn’t.

While relaxing on our patio around 10 pm, a big powerful blasting horn sounded throughout the neighborhood. "What was that?" Adam asked.

"A train." I answered, while actually thinking 'duh. How can you not know what a train sounds like?'

Adam insisted it was not a train. A few seconds later another sound echoed from down the street.

Bang! Pause.

Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!

Now Adam really perked up. "That was gun fire!"

Again I'm thinking, No way, it had to be something else, like fire crackers or someone slapping their shoes together...really hard.

We both sat still and listened for screeching tires or screaming or something. Nothing. But then the sirens started.

We walked to the front of the house where a police car lit up the night, silently speeding to the end of the street. More sirens. More flashing lights. Neighbors walking outside.

Adam: "I gotta know what's going on!"

Me: "Are you kidding? You don't know where the shooter is. He could be on foot! He could be hiding behind our bushes. You can't leave me. If you go over there you might get stopped, they might think it was you!"

But he was going with or without me.

"Fine. I'll go with you, then maybe you won't get stopped." But mind you. I am not the rubber-necker type. I feel it is best to stay out of people's way in an emergency, especially when it is none of my business, or I can't be of help. Besides, once I did look at a horrible scene when I was warned not to, and I wish I hadn't. The image will never leave me. So, I stayed in the car and watched from a slight distance while Adam got out and talked to the neighbors who were gathered about on one another's lawns.

A girl sitting in her window, doing her homework saw the whole thing. Her Mom shared the story:

A dark colored Jeep with an air horn had pulled up to the house, and blasted the horn. He'd been there often. Blasting the same annoying horn. But this time, he was drunk. He pulled out a gun and shot it several times at a man in the yard, hitting him the abdomen and the hand.

Before arriving in our neighborhood, Jeep Driver had gotten drunk and told his girlfriend he was going to go kill this guy. The girlfriend had then called the man (her ex-husband) and warned him.

We arrived just as the ambulance was pulling away. We don't know the victim's status.

As I sat in the car watching, a car came recklessly barreling down the street, swerving, speeding, stopping, going, stopping—as if the driver were a little crazy and unable to make a decision. Mind you, a lot of people were around, I was incredulous . . . and then my panicked little mind thought it might be the shooter coming back for another round. Pounding heart. Big eyes.

With cops chasing down the car, the driver crossed the police line and finally stopped directly in front of the house. (I thought the cops were going to flatten her right there.) One cop slammed his hand down on the hood of her car. A woman jumped out and started screaming hysterically. A slumber party had been in session at the house and her daughter was inside.

The cops told her to pull herself together. Her little girl was alright.

Everyone else was alright.

And that was the end of it. People started dissipating, turning on their sprinklers and closing their doors. And as we went home a few thoughts went through my mind.

1. I can't believe a man could ever get so drunk that he'd commit murder and destroy his own life. It's just so STUPID. STUPID! (We don't drink, and I've never been drunk so I really, really can't "understand” "under the influence.")

2. I am glad it wasn't random or we'd be moving. And I mean moving FAR AWAY. And I mean OUT OF TEXAS. Tomorrow. Because I've pretty much had it with all the "happenings" here.

3. This day was awful but compared to whose day? More horrible for those families whose lives are forever changed. Perspective.