Mendolonium

As I was recovering from childbirth, nursing a baby a dozen times a day, potty training a two and half year old, and trying to figure out where to send a five year old to school I thought:  my life is simply not complicated enough, what I need is an unprecedented natural disaster to add a little excitement to my day.  Well, Mother Nature obliged and this happened:

That would be most of our 72 year old redwood tree lying directly over our bedroom; you know, the room we sleep in with our newborn nestled between us.  Wednesday night saw what I have seen the local newspapers call simply, “Wind 2011″.  A few days of strong winter winds (Santa Anas) are typical here in Southern California.  In fact, 10 years ago, one such set of winds capsized the boat that Jeff was in thirteen miles offshore, resulting in him and his research colleagues narrowly escaping death in the frigid waters before being rescued by the coast guard.  The winds this past Wednesday night started innocently enough.  As the winds picked up throughout the evening Jeff made multiple trips outside; first to put away a few of the boys’ toys, then to turn over our patio furniture and secure it against the house, then to turn over the garbage cans so that they wouldn’t take off.  By the time Jeff came inside the final time, I didn’t think it was safe for him to be outside.  The winds were coming in fiercely from the north, the side of the house with our bedroom and living room with a large bay window of untempered glass.  We nervously hung out on the south side of the house making occasional forays to look out the windows and see trees convulsing violently in the wind.  And then there was a boom and the house shook.  Jeff jumped up and through the haze of blowing branches saw a huge trunk of our redwood tree lying on our house.  This was a new problem for us and we weren’t initially sure what to do.  We then heard the wind rolling the tree trunk around the roof of our house; a very disturbing sound.  I started by calling the police non-emergency line which was busy.  Then I moved on to 911 which transferred me to the fire department.  The dispatcher asked me if we were all ok and whether or not we could leave the house.  I told him that we could leave, but that it certainly didn’t seem safe to go outside!  He told us that as long as the tree wasn’t actually in the house or the house was on fire, then we should stay in and they would get to us as soon as they could.  Minutes went by, then an hour, and through the power of our neighborhood facebook page, I realized that the fire department would probably not be coming as people began posting pictures of trees that had actually come through their roof!  The police department sent out emails and text messages asking residents to stay home and off the streets.  Most of the streets in Pasadena were now blocked by downed trees and power lines, while transformers were sparking all around us.  We could hear sirens and realized as bad as a tree on our house was, others had it worse and we didn’t have a choice but to wait and hope that our roof would hold.  Much of Pasadena and all of the neighboring cities of Altadena and Sierra Madre were without power.  We called our insurance company and started a claim; they had already declared Los Angeles Country a “catastrophe” area after receiving more than 1000 claim calls in an hour.  Given that we still, for the moment, had a roof we were told that it would be days before our damage could be assessed, to take care of what needed to be fixed, and save our receipts.  There wasn’t anything more we could do at 1:00 am, but there was no way I was going to sleep with a tree poised over my head so Jeff moved our mattress into our windowless dining room and we hunkered down with Baby Girl.  I think I literally hovered over her tiny body all night trying to shield her from anything that might invade our house.  In the wee hours of the morning the wind died down and we finally slept marveling as we awoke at how quiet the world could be without the fury of the wind.  Seeing the devastation in the morning light was surreal; our lawn was green, not with grass, but with redwood needles.  In a stroke of amazing luck I called a tree service company  just as they opened and they said they would come by with a crane.  They warned that they wouldn’t have time to do much else, but would remove the tree from our house.  The schools were all closed and normally we would have stayed home given such a disaster, but in case of very bad timing we had a long arranged court date at 8:30 am sharp to finalize Theodore’s name change.  It was comical, getting three kids up and dressed properly for court, traipsing out to our car via our side door (the front door was blocked with debris), me in high heels stepping around huge branches.  The drive to the courthouse, only two miles away, was slow going.  The major streets in many spots had only one lane open with cars in each direction taking turns around huge downed trees.  Streetlights and traffic signals lay broken.  There were pieces of roof everywhere.  In the end, we made it to court and Henry William officially became Theodore Gregory.   When we arrived home, the redwood on our roof was gone and our front walk was even cleared and swept clean.

Besides the wind apocalypse it hasn’t been an easy week.  While not truly colicky, Baby Girl is going through some significant newborn fussiness.  Theodore is sick with some evil daycare germ and actually threw up on his baby sister (and me) today.  And Thomas is just plain moody and difficult.  But one of the most wonderful things about being a 33 year old mother of three children, rather than a 28 year old first time parent, is that nothing much phases us anymore.  As long as our family is safe and healthy, everything really is ok.  I was a little shaky the night after the wind storm, vividly envisioning what could have happened if that tree had crashed through our bedroom with us in it.  But the fact is, that it didn’t.  Our 72 year old house is, apparently, made of pretty strong stuff; as is my love for our perfect Baby Girl.

*The title to this post is in reference to the “Holy shit bees!” in last week’s post.  And yes, the tree service company,  told us that the Holy shit bees were, amazingly, still in the tree (surviving 100 mile per hour winds and a fall!) section that fell on our roof.

A couple of weeks ago as Jeff and I sat snacking and discussing our “favorite” topic of conversation – schools – we heard the Pasadena police helicopter begin to buzz overhead.  I know that the helicopter serves a purpose, but I have to admit that I loathe it – I find it impossible to relax or feel safe when it drones overhead like an overgrown mosquito – the sound of the blades signaling that there is yet another criminal to pursue.  There has been a dramatic increase in crime in and around our neighborhood over the past year and it is now common to hear the helicopter circling over our house three or four times a day – annoying enough during the “short” stints of a few minutes of searching and deeply troubling when it flies above for hours – seeking but never finding its prey.  That evening a couple of weeks ago was such a night and after two hours of listening to the helicopter, checking to make sure the house was tightly locked and the alarm system armed, Jeff and I were both noticeably anxious and jumpy wondering what had transpired.

The next morning we found out the grisly details:  a young man had been shot and killed about one third of a mile from our house.  This murder followed three other shootings within half a mile of our house since January of this year.  Then there was also the armed robbery two blocks from the park on the same day of the murder and the armed robbery the week before at the park.  The week after the murder there was a stabbing on the train.  And let us not forget the burglary of our own house in January and the burglaries of dozens of other houses in the neighborhood over the past year.  The phone number to the police department is now programed into my cell phone on speed dial and I have called at least a half a dozen times this year about suspicious cars, drug deals, and kids at the park drinking and bragging about the houses they have broken into.

I distinctly recall one hot July day when Thomas was about eight months old.  Thomas was  particularly fussy and refusing to sleep and so we took him out on a late night walk.  We walked and walked in the refreshingly cool air.  Thomas didn’t fall asleep but the night refreshed us all and Jeff and I chatted happily while Thomas calmly looked around in the stroller.  We didn’t get home until after midnight.  I can’t even count the number of times we’ve taken the train to the farmers market or out to dinner and walked back home well after dark.

We won’t be doing either of those things any more.  We just don’t feel that our neighborhood is safe anymore.

We’ve been thinking about moving, applying for and interviewing for jobs out of state for a couple of years now.  And although we have both had job offers, in the end we decided that we wouldn’t be happier in those particular locations.  Now our equation for happiness has another consideration.  I don’t think that I can be fully happy living somewhere that I don’t feel safe going out after dark.  I don’t think that I can be happy hearing the helicopter overhead two, three, or four times a day.  I don’t think I can be happy when my son asks me when we leave the house, “Mama did you set the alarm, I don’t want any bad guys to get in while we’re gone.”

We don’t know exactly what to do, but we know that we can’t stay here indefinitely anymore.  In the words of one of my neighborhood friends, we need an exit strategy.  So with heavy hearts we have formulated Plan A and Plan B.  Plan A is looking at a few areas to target an intensive job search (right now Portland, Omaha, and Northern VA are under consideration with some Wisconsin and New England possibilities).  However, there is absolutely no guarantee (especially in this shitty economy) of actually finding good job(s) in those areas.  So Plan B is to consider selling our house sometime in the next year and then move to a nearby city with low crime and better schools (assuming we actually find a city with what we believe are better schools – we will be taking tours this fall).  It isn’t clear whether we would buy or rent a house under Plan B.  Both of us are still quite firm in our belief that the housing market has a great deal further to fall, yet renting might send me over the edge of sanity.  Both buying or renting a house in a safer, better school district would cost us considerably more than what we are paying now.  We could afford it – if I worked more and the kids spent more time at daycare – not something any of us want; hence the reason Plan A is our first choice.

In the end, we may be forced by circumstances to choose none of the above and simply stay here.  If it wasn’t for the crime and school issues staying here wouldn’t be keeping me up at night.  I like our house and despite the prevailing American cultural notion of “bigger is better” I am mostly content with the idea of raising three children in a two bedroom house.  In the words of one of our other neighbors who grew up in a rather ghetto area of Los Angeles – this level of crime (and worse) is a way of life in most of the world.  Maybe this is the new normal and we just have to deal with it.

When I was in seventh grade, our math teacher called our class “retarded” for performing poorly on a math test.  My mother had taught us never to make light of disabilities and to be grateful for what we had.  I told her about the use of the word “retarded” for our class and she became quite rightly pissed.  She was offended on behalf our class and on behalf of the kids in our school who really did have developmental challenges.  My mother avoids confrontation like the plague but she called up the teacher and demanded that he apologize.  And he did.

I was feeling rather defeated when I fired off a letter to police Chief Sanchez on Monday night regarding the Pasadena police department’s handling of our burglary.  But my mother taught me to stand up for what you believe in and so remembering her example I did what I believed was right and spoke out.  I also copied my letter to our city council district representative.  We’ve had a rash of burglaries in our neighborhood and while the police have been responding to them it seems that the connections between the crimes were not being made nor was our neighborhood being given any extra police attention.  Each burglary was the proverbial piece of straw – insignificant on its own but cumulatively adding up to a weightier and weightier problem.  And apparently, my letter was the straw that broke the camel’s back.  Less than twelve hours after I sent the letter I received a phone call from the police commander in charge of communications.  She began with an apology and stated that our call was not properly prioritized.  She explained that the dispatcher was new – still in a probationary period – and did not follow procedure when responding to our emergency.  She stated that the dispatcher would receive a note in her file and would be retrained and that perhaps the entire dispatch team needed an update of training.  We talked at length about what the stresses on the police department due to increased crime, in particular burglaries, coupled with reduced budgets mean for the future of public safety in Pasadena.  She was open and honest and told me that the department has been lucky enough to avoid any officer layoffs, however, twelve support personnel have been let go in the preceding months and morale was affected.  She and I both used the phrase “new reality” to describe what the future will look like.  I thanked her for her candor and was left brainstorming ways that we, as citizens, can do more to work with the police.  A few hours later I received a call from the police chief himself, Phil Sanchez.  He apologized again for the extreme delay in responding to our call and for the officers’ nonchalance in handing our incident.  He has authorized additional resources to be placed in our neighborhood immediately and stated that he shared my concerns that these crimes could escalate if not dealt with swiftly.  In closing, he offered to meet with our neighborhood to discuss our concerns.  I then received an email from our city councilman who offered to further coordinate a neighborhood information session with the police.  At our neighborhood association board meeting tonight I spoke about our experience and our city council district representative showed up in person with more details on the police attention which will now be focused on our neighborhood.  And if you life in the neighborhood and want to know more then please show up to the Santa Catalina Library Branch on Saturday February 12th at 10:30 am where the police chief, council members Gordo and McAustin, and neighbors will discuss the crime epidemic plaguing us.

I truly appreciate and am impressed by how responsive the police chief and the city government have been to my concerns.  That said, we have a long way to go.  On Sunday night another nearby home was burglarized and ransacked.  Just last night there was a girl casing the neighborhood, pretending to solicit door-to-door while jiggling on doorknobs to see if they were locked.  When a neighbor called the police after she attempted to open his door, the police had not shown up after 45 minutes.  Clearly the police need to prioritize calls, not only by traditional urgency, but by location.  The police are urging citizens to call for every, even slightly, suspicious activity and if they want such calls to be meaningful they need to respond quickly.  But tonight, instead of feeling defeated, I feel determined.  The police are paying attention now and so are the citizens of Bungalow Heaven.

Your feet are going to be on the ground,
Your head is there to move you around, so stand.

I was having a good day last Friday.  I transplanted blueberries, sowed a cover crop of buckwheat, and weeded all the raised beds.  I was happy.  I was going to cook a new curry for dinner, but instead decided to treat our family with a dinner out at our favorite pizza restaurant followed by frozen yogurt.  The kids smiled and laughed through dinner.  We were feeling pretty good about life and then we came home.  I don’t think I can bear to re-hash the story one more time, but I thought that you might want all the details so instead of re-telling again and again it I will post below the letter I sent to Pasadena’s police chief tonight:

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I am a fourteen year resident of Pasadena and eight year homeowner in Bungalow Heaven.  On the evening of Friday January 28, 2011 my husband, children, and I arrived home at approximately 8:30 pm.  Upon entering the house we smelled a strong scent of men’s cologne and saw items out of place in our living room.  I was holding my 22 month old son in my arms and my four year old son by the hand.  I immediately realized that someone has been in our home, fled to a neighbor’s house, and called the Pasadena police department.  I reported to dispatcher that I did not know if the perpetrator(s) were still in the house and I feared for our safety, particularly my husband’s as he had entered the house while I left with the children. The police dispatcher told me that officers would be out as soon as possible. While I was on the phone my husband briefly walked through the house, saw that it was ransacked, and joined us at the neighbor’s. I have called the Pasadena PD on multiple occasions in the past for issues ranging from kids drinking/smoking at the park to a prowler at our house.  I have always been impressed by the speed and professionalism of the Pasadena police department.  On the evening of the 28^th I was surprised as the minutes passed from my initial call and there was no police response.  After approximately 10 minutes I called the Pasadena PD again only to be told that it was a “busy” night and they would arrive at our house as soon as possible.  I reiterated to the dispatcher that I did not know if the perpetrators were still in our home or  in the general vicinity.  The dispatcher was unconcerned and told me that the perpetrators were almost certainly gone by now.  I responded by saying that clearly the only possible way to catch the perpetrators was for the police to actually show up and look for them.  After another 10 – 15 minutes passed (now over 20 minutes since my initial call) I again called the police department only to be given the same statement about it being a busy night.  Then again, 40 – 45 minutes, after my initial emergency call I called the Pasadena PD and asked to speak with a supervisor.  The supervisor told me that the officers assigned to our call were finishing up a domestic disturbance and would be on their way shortly.  She attempted to reassure me by stating that the perpetrators were almost certainly gone by now.  I was not at all reassured, rather very disturbed that the Pasadena PD had not attempted to catch these criminals during the critical period during or shortly after a burglary.  More than 45 minutes after my initial call two officers arrived on our street.  My husband and I spoke with them briefly at the neighbor’s house and then the officers went to investigate our home.  After clearing the house the officers asked my husband and I to return to show them where items had been taken from. The house was ransacked and after pointing out several missing items I asked about the state of our garage (detached).  The officers stated that they had not yet looked in the garage.  I was shocked and immediately felt unsafe – that the officers had not even bothered to fully investigate our backyard or looked in the garage whatsoever.  The officers, my husband, and I exited into the back yard where we saw one of our ladders had been propped up against a cinderblock wall fence we share with our neighbors.  Almost certainly, that had been the perpetrators escape route.  I asked whether or not the officers were going to check on the neighbor’s house and/or interview them about suspicious activity and they said that they had no intention of doing so.

In addition to the obvious trauma of having my property stolen, my home invaded and ransacked, and my older son terrified I am shocked and dismayed by the slow and perfunctory response of the Pasadena police department and the officers who handled our case on the evening of January 28^th.  If the police do not respond in a timely fashion that clearly sends a message to the perpetrators that they can commit these crimes with impunity.   I am also very concerned that a slow response emboldens criminals to commit more serious and violent crimes.  A 45 minute response time is completely unacceptable.  Furthermore, the officers handled a potentially dangerous situation for both themselves and for us with inappropriate casualness.  I would think that for their own safety the officers would want to fully clear a property (including the backyard and the garage) before conversing with the homeowners.  I also expect the officers to investigate all possible leads by interviewing neighbors (such as the neighbor whose yard was likely used as an escape route).

I realize that burglary is, unfortunately, a relatively common and increasing crime.  However, I expect the police department to realize that for the homeowner such an event is never routine – it is terrifying.  Rather than being reassured by the police response, I was further dismayed by it.  I expect the Pasadena police department to make reasonable efforts to apprehend burglary suspects and prevent future crime.  I look forward to your response.

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The letter, doesn’t convey everything that has transpired over the past few days.  The sick feeling in the pit of my stomach as I briskly walked across the street to our neighbor’s house after immediately realizing that things were WRONG inside our house.  The panic in Thomas’ question as he asked, while we waited for the police, if they had taken his beloved Sally.  The utter relief of having such wonderful neighbors who let us into their home until 12:30 am and gave us DVDs, diapers, snacks, water, and reassurance for the boys.  The absolute certainty that I could not spend the night in our house so we fled down south to our in-laws who happily put us up despite being exhausted and sick.  The almost crazed feeling of needing to make our house a fortress.   The realization that every single piece of jewelry that I own save what I was wearing and a pearl necklace were all gone.  The black pearl Jeff surprised me with.  The first ring he ever gave me.  The earrings made from my grandmother’s pearls.  The jewelry I wore at our wedding.  The finding of dirty fingerprints outside Thomas’ window and the horrifying realization that the perpetrator(s) came in and out through that window and must have walked on Thomas’ bed.  The hours of phone calls with the bank, the insurance company, the phone company, security companies, and door and window companies.  The knowing that the stolen camcorder contained a tape of Theo’s first steps.  The endless questions from Thomas about “The bad guys in our house”, “The police are going to send them to jail right?”, and “Why did they take all the money out of my jars?”  The wondering if I will ever be able to be at peace in this house again.

This isn’t one of my usual posts wherein I discuss a problem and then talk about how we can fix it.  I don’t have any answers.  I only have questions and fear and sadness.  And I don’t know if I will ever get over this.