The Small Family     

Well, before I launch into my usual synopsis of weekly events, I’m going to take a moment to complain about something that just has me shaking my head. Remember when we grew up, and kids could play outside without necessarily having to be supervised every moment (once they reached a certain age, that is)? And teenagers could take the bus to the mall or whatever without worry? The world has changed so much in just 30 years (and for those of you older than me, I’m sure you’ve seen far more changes!), and although so many positive changes have been made, some changes are just downright disappointing. Add to the latter category the fact that neighborhoods just aren’t all that safe anymore.

So what prompted me to feel discouraged about this? Several events over the past few months, actually. We live in a very safe neighborhood. I think most people in the Sacramento area would agree that Roseville is, on the whole, a very safe, good place to live. There are many, many worse places to live, for sure. But lately, our safe neighborhood has been seeming decidedly less so. Let’s start a few months back. We have a park about three blocks away. It’s a wonderful park, and whenever I take Theo there, he can almost always find other kids to play with. I love it! And before we got our gym membership, I used to jog there most evenings. And then one day I saw signs posted all over the park, saying that a neighborhood girl had been assaulted by two men in the park. The details were vague, and despite my research I couldn’t find out much more than a few basic bits of info, but it was unsettling.

Fast-forward a couple months. Police action in our cul-de-sac. From what I could gather, it was a domestic violence issue. Lovely.

Fast-forward another month. I learn that the house next to the domestic-violence house (in our cul-de-sac) was being used for a drug operation by the young men who were renting it. Not entirely surprising, given the number of young people who would drive way too fast in our cul-de-sac, going to and from that house, but still…drugs were being sold a few hundred yards from my son’s bedroom. Lovely.

Fast-forward another couple weeks. I’m walking the dogs and Theo around the block in our complex, and I see one of our neighbors replacing his front door. The old front door is propped up next to him--with three very obvious fist-holes punched in it. Who punched in his door? I have no idea, but I can’t imagine the situation was a pleasant one.

Fast-forward another week or so. I have Theo in the small park located right in our complex (not the one down the street, where the girl was assaulted), and a man and woman who live in one of the houses backing up the little park are having an all-out screaming match. Okay, no one seems to be getting hurt there, but it’s not an overly pleasant situation to witness. (Chris and I are not screamers, so people who engage in screaming matches somewhat baffle me. I just don’t fight that way--never have. Nor does Chris.)

Fast-forward to last week. It was very hot, so I took Theo to a local shopping center that has a “spray-ground” for kids to play in. He had a ball running around in the sprinklers. And I was having fun watching him, although I was a bit nervous about a man who was lurking around the area. He started talking to a nanny who was there with two little girls, and overhearing their conversation, I was a bit uneasy. Something was just off about him, and it’s a little odd to see a grown man lurking around, intently watching little kids running through sprinklers. My “pervert radar” went up. The man then wandered over to me and started asking me questions about Theo, commenting what a “good-looking kid” he was, and what a gorgeous smile he has. Well, I do happen to agree…but something about his mannerisms made me uneasy. I thanked him politely and tried not to encourage any further conversation. Shortly thereafter, Theo bolted straight for the parking lot, so I ran after him and grabbed him before he could go running into the traffic. I figured that was as good a time as any to make our way home, so we started walking back to the car. And the next thing I knew, Mr. Creepy was with us, telling me, “I just had to tell you what a great job of parenting you did, chasing your son!” Well, thank you--but I think any parent knows to watch her kids near a parking lot and grab them if they head for it. The fact that he followed us just to tell me this seemed odd. He continued to follow us through the plaza, continually looking at Theo and grinning. I decided that if he was still following us when I got near the car, I would divert into Whole Foods and lose him in there. Luckily, he finally ducked into a coffee shop, after giving Theo one last look. I made sure he wasn’t following us and got Theo quickly into the car and home. Was kind of surprised to see a creep at this particular shopping center, as it’s very upscale. In fact, we can’t even come close to affording most of the shops in there, so I guess I naively assumed that I wouldn’t likely be followed by a rather unkempt, creepy man. Lesson learned.

Fast-forward to Thursday of this week. I had thought to go to the mall in the morning, as I’ve been stalking Lens Crafters to see when they’ll finally get a shipment of the eyeglass wipes we use. (I’ve been checking every Thursday morning, as they get shipments on Wednesday afternoons, apparently.) But my friend Janeane was able to come over for a play date with Emma and Jamie, so we didn’t go. This turned out to be a lucky break, as I usually go around 10 or 10:30, and on this particular Thursday, a disturbed young man (with the unfortunate name of Alexander Piggee, if you can believe it!) walked into the mall around 10am, went to the Game Stop store, claimed to have a gun, and ordered the employees out of the store. He then barricaded himself in the store and set it on fire.  The mall was evacuated, and armed police went in to escort Mr. Piggee out and arrest him. Turns out Mr. Piggee claimed to have some sort of explosive in a backpack he had left in Game Stop, so then firefighters couldn’t go in the mall to put out the fire. They sent the bomb squad in, but as they got close to the pack (which a Game Stop employee reported smelled “heavily chemical”), the fire broke out more strongly, so they had to leave.

Because of the potential explosives, no firefighters were allowed in the mall--they decided the mall’s sprinkler system would have to put out the fire. And they thought it had--by 1pm, Mr. Piggee was on his way to jail, and it seemed the worst was over. At 2pm, I put Theo down for his nap, and I looked out my window (two miles from the mall) to see huge clouds of black smoke coming up from the direction of the mall. And it didn’t stop for quite a while. Turns out that the fire either reignited or perhaps more than one fire was set, and because firefighters couldn’t go in and the sprinklers couldn’t handle it, the fire got out of control. The roof caved in on one wing of the mall. Firefighters tried to extinguish the fire from above the building, and they eventually succeeded. But not after reportedly “tens of millions of dollars” worth of damage was done…and jobs were at least temporarily lost for many people who work at the mall. It’s suspected that parts of the mall will reopen in perhaps a month, but the damaged wing, which includes a couple major stores (JC Penney and Macy’s), will be closed for months. The entire mall needs extensive cleanup, and likely the inventory is ruined from water damage (hours of the sprinklers going off) and smoke damage.

As I told Chris, the whole thing just makes me sick. First of all, that mall is always full of mothers and children--in large part because there are two very nice play areas for kids there. I guess Mr. Piggee didn’t care a bit about the fact that he could be endangering the lives of a lot of people--many of them young mothers and children. Second, the loss of jobs (at least temporarily) is terrible--particularly around the holiday season. As if jobless rates aren’t high enough around here! I feel terrible for the people who work at that mall to support their families. When I was young, mall employees were often teenagers, but I’ve noticed at the Galleria that a lot of employees are in their forties or thereabouts. My guess is that many of them have lost other jobs in the poor economy and have gone into retail work because it’s a paycheck. And in his moments of selfishness, Mr. Piggee took that away from them. I assume they’ll get their jobs back when the mall is rebuilt, but still--this is no time for people to be unnecessarily out of work.

So I’m just rather disgusted with the state of our community these days. As I said, Roseville is, on the whole, a very nice, safe place to live. But it just goes to show that even in “nice, safe” places, there is ugliness. And it makes me sad that our world has gone that way.

But on to happier topics. Although our community is a little depressing these days, our little bubble here in the Small household is lovely and bright. The week wasn’t without its challenges (Theo is still being a bit of a potty-mouth, although that has improved significantly over the past week), but overall we had a pleasant week. One of the highlights was having Janeane, Emma, and Jamie come over on Thursday for a visit. Little Jamie (age 13 months) survived a fall halfway down our stairs and pulling a table over on himself with little more than an angry squawk before he pulled himself back up and ran away in an angry huff. Tough guy! And Emma and Theo had a ball playing for a few hours. At one point they decided to go up to Theo’s room, and it was rather quiet--always a sign that an investigation is needed. I poked my head in, expecting to see utter chaos, but no--they were playing quietly together. What sort of world is this, where two quiet young children doesn’t equal mischief?? They made me laugh, though--they’re becoming partners in crime. At one point they came back downstairs to ask me to put more music on for them, and Janeane told Emma that they needed to go soon. Emma protested, so Janeane said, “Five more minutes.” Attempting to negotiate, Emma said, “Four minutes!” Janeane laughed and told her that five minutes was actually the better deal for her, and Theo chimed in with, “Seven minutes!!” Well…okay…who can resist that?! Seven minutes it was….

Theo and I had our usual Thursday evening date at the “ice cweam store,” which we enjoyed, and he has been asking ever since whether it’s an “ice cweam store” day. Ah, wouldn't it be lovely if every day was "ice cweam" day?? But no, we shall wait until Thursday again. We're hoping to lure Grandma Diane to come with us one of these weeks. Speaking of Thursday dates, this week Chris had a test in class, and I have to give him public kudos for his 97% on his test! On his last test he got 102%, so I'd say the fellow has a pretty good head for accounting! Very proud of him. :-) He's planning to sign up for the follow-up course for the spring semester.

Another highlight of our week was Grandpa Tom and Grandma Kathy visiting on Friday and Saturday. It turned out to be a rainy weekend around here, so we couldn’t get out and do much, but Theo thoroughly enjoyed bombarding Grandma Kathy with a zillion books to read and drawing pictures with her. Zoe the fierce guard dog barked for the first half hour but then decided these people were okay with her…fierce creature….

Speaking of Ms. Z, she’s getting spayed on Wednesday, so please think good doggie thoughts for her! Should be an easy process, as she’s still a very young dog, but still--major surgery for the poor little girl.

On Sunday we headed to the Railroad Museum, as it was still pouring rain. Theo had fun checking out the trains and playing with the train tables upstairs, as always, but today we had a fun extra--a ride on the “Spookomotive!” This is just the regular train ride that goes up and down the Sacramento River, only decked out for Halloween. It actually wasn’t overly festive, but still--we hadn’t ever done the ride before, so it was nice. Theo didn’t much care for sitting still on the train ride, but he managed.

And that wraps up our week! Hopefully next week I’ll have fun Halloween pictures to post. We had planned to do trick-or-treating at the Galleria, as the stores all hand out candy to dressed-up kids, but obviously that plan was foiled by one Mr. Piggee. The Fountains shopping center (home of the weirdo who was admiring Theo, but otherwise a nice place to walk around) is also doing trick-or-treating, so if the weather is decent, we’ll go there. If it’s not…well, I don’t know what we’ll do. Theo looks absolutely adorable in his Mickey Mouse costume, so if nothing else, I need to get some pictures of him in it. It’s just too cute for words!