Ahhh, great.

This morning Butch and I get up, and I'm checking email while he is preparing for a day of roaming around town running errands and such. He walks out the back door to put a bag of laundry in his van to take home. He immediately walks back in and says, "I'll do that in a little while, since the cops are frisking somebody outside the garage." We thought, well, good, at least the cops are doing something to keep us all safe around here.

Well, I happen to then overhear at work a news promo about murders in Logan Square. I find out that last night around 2pm, a bicyclist was murdered about four short city blocks away from our place. That explains the cop presence this morning. Now, this guy was shot several hundred yards from where I've walked Kazak. In fact, this morning before I knew anything about it, I walked Kazak within several hundred yards of that spot. Plus, the shooting happened around 2am, I guess, which is right when me and Butch were returning home, roughly.

Now, I've had murders happen near my house growing up before. My uncle, murdered four blocks from my house. A kid murdered on the next block over and someone murdered right on the corner (albeit those two after I'd moved out). But this has me nervous a little bit--moreso than those other ones. I know why too...I explained to Gina that, although I'm not scared, I'm going to be jumpy now and further paranoid, which, granted isn't a bad thing. The difference is, with those other murders, it was MY neighborhood--I knew the 'hood, I knew that it was rare and I knew I was safe because I was in my element. This neighborhood is not yet my neighborhood. I am not yet 100 percent comfortable. I told Gina I'm more nervous about going home tonight, because I'll be pulling up at 3am or so, in a white sedan, which is the reported suspect car. Now, yes, I didn't do anything, but just the hassle of the whole thing would be a pain enough for me. Plus, on Monday mornings, I've had to park a block or more away from home and walk. That's not been a big deal to me in the past, but tonight you can guarantee I'll be on edge. Of course, eventually things will return to normal...not that they aren't now, but the lack of comfort in a new neighborhood sure is a strange thing to me, ya know? Plus, I'm a little stunned my mom hasn't called to warn me or check on me. I guess maybe they didn't put two and two together? I don't know.

Ah well...I had a good weekend otherwise, and short of laying it all out here for you, I'll just leave it at that. :) The circus was fun but the grand finale not so much (the cannonball dude was supposed to be on fire, but wasn't, so NO ONE saw him shoot out of the cannon in the dark), I stayed in on Friday night, and yesterday was Bob's turkey fry and then brief trip to Gameworks with Gina and Lisa. Both of those events after I spent the afternoon in Lisle at Benet Academy watching the St. Rita-Benet playoff football game with Tim, Butch and my cousins Will and Julie. Tim, Butch and I went to St. Rita, and Will and Julie went to Benet. Their father (my uncle) also went to St. Rita, but he stayed home because the weather was somewhat icky. I remembered my high school fight song and everything, and it was cool. St. Rita won what was a pretty good game, especially for Chicago Catholic League football. Usually in the past, that has been "three yards and a cloud of dust" strategy. But there was plenty of airing it out, so I was impressed. I told them that I was going to say no less than five times during the game, "Catholic League football: Catch the excitement!" But I only said it two or three times.

All in all, a great time was had...not that that wasn't expected.