Mocking Birds and Jail Birds

Mocking birds...they mock. They can sound like chickadees, blue jays, wrens.
And this morning the new sound I heard was the sound of a door alarm. Our door alarm.

Mocking birds. Yep, they mock. As I sat this morning, windows open, I realized I was wondering why our door alarm was going off. Pretty funny how it got my attention. Then I realized it was just a bird.

Jail birds...did you know that both of our burglars are sitting their lousy asses in jail? Yep. I even went to the bond hearing of the sex offender (bond denied due to the charge against him with a possibility of bond in 3 weeks). Let me tell you, he was scary. The hearing was held via closed circuit TV from the jail, so I didn't have to be in the same room with him, and he was STILL scary looking (and acting).

The preliminary hearing for the other jail bird (who's bond was already denied previously) is coming up on May 5th. He's been sitting in jail since March 19th with no option for bonding out. I plan on going to his hearing too. Hopefully he'll either be denied bond, or it will be so high he won't be able to afford it.

Funny Thing

So last night we put the kids to bed and I started my nightly couch sitting routine (trying to watch the bunch of nothing that was on TV last night, and starting to play cards on the computer). Bryan was sitting on the other couch, forcing the issue of watching the military channel because "there's nothing else on" (and sadly he was right).

As I sat, with the laptop open and on my lap - cause you know, I'm getting ready to play something, anything other than having to watch whatever it is that Bryan has chosen to watch - and I heard the "bing"on my iPhone, notifying me that I had an email. I chose to go see what the email was on the laptop. And in this day of identity theft, imagine my surprise when this comes from Apple:
"How to reset your Apple password" was the subject. The body of the email read like this:

"To reset your Apple ID password, simply click the link below. That will take you to a web page where you can create a new password.
This link will expire in three hours."

Since I haven't been to my Apple account in a few days, I got a bit nervous until it dawned on me that this must mean that Legare was trying to download a new App to his iPod Touch. While he was supposed to be going to sleep! So I called him to the den to ask him.

Luckily he didn't lie and was honest about trying to enter (multiple times) what he thought my password might be so that he could get a new App. We laughed about how iTunes ratted him out and how he should always come ask me first.

I'm glad he was being honest. I rewarded him for this by not being mad. And Bryan and I got a big kick, and good laugh, out him him being "outed" by the electronic gadgets.

WHAT IF....

What if I had been awake at 4:30 several weeks ago?
What if I had been sitting on the couch when those thugs decided to come into my house, or upstairs?
What if I had heard that noise on that night?
What if I had found myself face-to-face with them as I came down the hall, or got up to see about a noise?

What if my dog hadn't woken up, what would they have taken then?
What if they had looked into the kitchen and seen my laptop on the table?
What if then they had looked into the den and seen the others?

What if they had come down the hall to our bedrooms?
What if I had just not been so tired when I heard Willis walk down the hall?
What if I had decided to listen, or follow Willis down the hall?

What if they had vandalized things - like cutting up the tv or couch downstairs?
What if they had taken Legare's book bag as a carry off bag (would he have been ok after that)?

What if the sex offender had decided to offend again?

What if they had seen my keys hanging on the post downstairs?
What if they had seen Bryan's that were in his unlocked car that was sitting in the driveway?
What if I had left my purse and phone in my unlocked car?
What if they had the gun they stole from across the street when they got here?
What if they had shot my dog when she came down the hall?
What if worse then that had happened?
What if I had just woken up and had a chance to see them, or tackle them?
What if we had all been woken up scared and terrified in the middle of the night?
What if my kids were now scarred for life over this?

What if "they" come back to look at "the scene of the crime" and decide to go for one more load of stuff?
What if that's why the neighbor's dog is barking?

What if they don't catch this guy?
What if the other one gets off?
What if he can make bail (when the time comes)?
What if I keep having the "what if" dreams?
What if making bail makes the "what ifs" worse?
What if the "what ifs"don't go away soon?

What if this happens again?
What if God hadn't protected us so?

I have played every "what if" scenario I can think of in my head since this happened. Sadly, there's hundreds more. I have decided that the best thing that could have happened if you get bruglarized, did happen. We slept through it. No one was hurt. Things of not much significance were taken. No one had to confront these guys. They didn't ransack the place.

And because of all of this, I say God is good! He is so many things to me, and on that night, He was my protector. What if I hadn't had Him?

HOLY SHIT

A Sex Offender (attempted lewd act on a female child under 16 - her age is listed as 8) was in my home. Gotta read what the story was in today's paper.

And here is his SLED Sex Offender registry page.

I HAD NOT Lost My Mind

It has been three weeks since I woke and found out we had been burglarized. I'm sorry that's all I've posted about lately, but it has really been the thing that has been on my mind.

I don't think I wrote about it initially, but the morning it all happened, after I found my purse safely on the counter upstairs, I went straight to the dining room to check on Bryan's mamma's silver. After seeing that the box was there (hhhmmm- I actually haven't opened it - another thing to do in the morning), I glanced up at the corner, glass door-front china cabinet and something missing caught my eye. Crystal. Not whole shelves of crystal, just several pieces from a top shelf and an odd open place on the bottom shelf. I brought it to Bryan's attention and he quickly removed the silver storage box. Then he (and a few other people over the course of a week or so) kept telling me that maybe I had misplaced the crystal, taken it somewhere, or had otherwise done something with it. Why would people who stole Wii's, xBoxes and their games want crystal?

After a week or so, I started thinking that maybe I had broken some and not remembered (though I was having to talk myself into this scenario), or that I had offered them up for some party that I hadn't remembered. I didn't really buy this scenario either, but what else could have happened? And if the crystal was missing, at the hands of these burglars, then this would mean that they had breached the sanctity of my living quarters and come upstairs. So I was starting to buy the "maybe an old housekeeper or her assistant had picked some stems over the course of their cleaning and I hadn't noticed" excuse. Because, let's face it, the other option was not one I wanted to deal with...bad people in my home.

But the housekeeper as thief didn't add up either...I haven't had a house keeper for over a year, and I had just hosted the "Cookie Swap turned Gift Exchange" in December, having brought out(and had) all of my crystal.

But for two weeks I still fretted over the crystal. And Friday, when the Detective made her third trip to my house to deliver some more recovered items, she let me know that the suspects had started getting blabby and brought up some crystal. At this point, she had not brought up to them anything about me missing some crystal. So Friday was the day she let me know that I had not been losing my mind. And I felt vindicated.

And then quickly, I felt violated all over again. The violated feeling had gone away with the first delivery of recovered items and then "poof", gone with delivery number three and the realization of intruders in the living quarters.

Other missing things surfaced this weekend. Not only had they taken my Vera Bradley bag that I used for my Bible Study tote, but they had take Julia's large and her small Vera duffel bags that were in the laundry room, under the laundry table. We realized this when we needed them to pack with this weekend. More violation.

So all in all, here's the rundown of crap they got from us....

One Wii Game Console (w/ cords) - RECOVERED
4 Wii Wands - RECOVERED
1 “Motion Plus” accessory (wand extender) - RECOVERED
4 Wii Nun chucks - RECOVERED
1 Wii Microphone

1 Xbox Game console (w/ power cord) - RECOVERED
4 controllers - only one recovered
1 Xbox IR remote control and receiver

Game Cube wireless remote receiver

Vera Bradley Bags – "Vera", "Large Duffel", "Small Duffel"
Crystal – Gorham Lady Anne
wine glasses – 3
goblets – 2
highball - 1

Wii Games (18 +) - 19 RECOVERED

Xbox Games (13+) - 10 RECOVERED

Game Cube Games (15+) - all but 6 RECOVERED (we had added to this list and I don't have the new count.)

I can't wait to see if there's a fourth trip of recovered items. I'll be sure to let you know.