Wild and sordid things

I almost have too much to write about this morning. Recall that line from Ghostbusters? "Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together - mass hysteria." Welcome to my yesterday.

My neighbor Ed stopped me last night to ask me if I have a huge black cat.

"Why yes, I do. A huge black cat with no tail."

He narrowed his eyes. "And he hates people?"

"Well, I don't know about that. He's a nice cat to us."

"My daughter Holly said it was your cat and he won't let anyone pet him."

"Yes, that's possible. He's only been out for a couple of days, he'll warm up."

"He was setting the motion detectors off back of my house..."

"Oh..."

"And was in my garage..."

"Oh, sorry..."

"Well, it's alright, I mean, there's a raccoon and a skunk living together in my garage..."

"Um, really?" I bit my lip.

He nodded vigorously. "They used to live under the front porch but I put moth balls there."

Note to self: moth balls keep animals from living together in sin.

Photo credit: Jerry McCrea/The Star-Ledger

On a serious note, we had an incident at the high school yesterday. Rumors were flying about a gun having been brought into the school. Bus stop conversation revealed that that wasn't so - there was a report of suspicious activity in front of the school, the middle and high schools (share a campus) followed lock down procedure, and the building was searched by the police. Nothing was found, well, except that the procedure is flawed and needs to be reviewed.

It's scary. I jokingly complain about the attitude of some of the staff at Lauren's school, but these are the people who are charged with executing these plans in assuring our children's safety. I'm not feeling good about that. Perhaps I'm seeing the exception and not the rule, but they seem pretty dissatisfied with their jobs.

My friends tell me these days I have volunteer-itis. I wanted to be involved because from the sidelines it seems that a lot of things go on that don't make a lot of sense. I'm involved now and still things don't make sense. I felt we'd achieved a victory by drafting that the kids can't be punished by taking away their recess, but that's meaningless if they're not safe on the playground, y'know?

I have no answers today.