Scary stuff

Today I nearly shat myself during a 10-mile run. And no, it wasn't the typical runner's dilemma (coffee + exercise = big D). It was because of a giant spider hanging off a fence. The thing was HUGE. Seriously. The size of a large couch pillow. I'm not kidding. Bigger than a chihuahua, with fangs, red eyes and long brown hair hanging off its eight double-jointed legs.

It was, of course, a Halloween decoration.

Still, that didn't stop me from yelping and nearly soiling my already disgusting running shorts (note to self: wash those soon).

OTHER STUFF

• Today was relaxing. I did the thing where you submerge in the bath, listen to the ambient water noise and feel your hair fan out. 

• Andy and I think it'd be funny if we drive all the Car2Gos in West Seattle to the same location, so it looks like they're having a party. It'd be an expensive project, but worth it for art's sake. 

• About to finish the second season of Broad City. I'm a fan. Kind of makes me want to live in New York, but that ship has already sailed considering I'm an old lady who's returned to Seattle to live, breed, work and die. 

• Someone walked by our window just as I was posing for this:

Whoops

Now, go take on the day. (Remember that? Where mah Dr. Laura fans at?)

Margaret

P.S. Wait, did I bury the lead? Yes, I went for a 10 MILE RUN. Hence, the pizza.

P.P.S. As if my pizza consumption is linked to my exercise levels. You know me better than that.

Life milestone: getting rear-ended

I got rear-ended today! Driving my Dad's truck, yielding at a yield sign, when—BAM.

"Call Me Maybe" was on the radio, which made the whole thing even more startling. You just don't expect to be rear-ended while listening to Carly Rae Jepsen.

Until today, I'd never been in a car accident when I was the one driving. I haven't even been pulled over by a cop before. So this was exciting. A major life milestone.

My first thought after being hit was: Oh my god. Who is it that's always in the wrong in a rear-end collision? I know it's always one of the people. Which person is it!?!

Then I remembered, with about 65% confidence, that it's always the person who does the rear-ending. I regained my composure and pulled over to the side of the road.

HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHA.

"Hiiiii" I said to the lady/man (wasn't sure at first). Her/his white Nisson Sentra looked like it was just about to sneeze, nose all scrunched up, ahh ahhh ahhh—but no final "achoo". A permanent state of sneezy nose tickle.

"You okay?" he/she asked. Still not 100% clear from the voice, but I was leaning toward woman.

"Yeah, I'm fine. You?"

"Yeah."

"Welllll....since you rear-ended me, I think that means it's your fault?"

I held my breath.

"Yeah, that's right."

Ah, thank goodness. I had remembered correctly. Also, there was no damage to my Dad's truck. This was the best rear-ending I could have asked for. We exchanged insurance information just in case. She (definitely, after a closer look) drove away in her crumpled car and that was the end of that.

Sincerely,

Whiplashed In Kenmore

The ghost of Facebooking past

When I first met Andy I remember him boasting, "I've never once untagged myself in a Facebook photo, no matter how unflattering."

I must admit, it was that bold chat that lured me in. I mean, what a way to live your life! Leaving all the bad-angle, double chin, lazy eye, fat arm snaps out on display for the world to see.

Unlike Andy, I've untagged myself a few times. I don't untag anymore, but I did back in the day. Still, I've left enough cringetastic gems in there to keep things interesting.

Today I took a stroll down Facebook memory lane and I came across one particularly hilarious photo. It's not the photo so much that's funny, but the stuff around it. There were three elements that made me guffaw. I've circled them in red.

Speaking of Facebook, did you hear that you can now select a person to take control of your account when you die? I'm currently accepting applications. I can't choose Andy because he will definitely use it as an opportunity to prank me posthumously. He'll change my status to "greetings from the grave" or something.

Whichever candidate I choose, your first job is to turn my all my Facebook activity over the years into a hardback book to be preserved in The Library of Congress until the end of time. Your second job is to delete my account so that it can't be used as a shrine (kind of like with Osama).


Well, that got morbid fast.

Love,
Margaret

Must put duct tape over my webcam

I watched the Edward Snowden documentary 'Citizenfour' last night with Andy.

When the Snowden stuff first leaked, I knew that I should be outraged, but it was so much easier to be apathetic. I knew that the stuff the government was doing was unjust, but ignoring it felt better than caring. If I cared about it, I might feel compelled to do something about it. And that never works. Protesting? Campaigning? Please. Haters gonna hate, bankers gonna bank and spies gonna spy, lie, spy, lie, spy. There's no stopping them and we're all doomed.

Plus, the sheer scope of surveillance, the high-tech tools involved and, I'll admit it, even the "but terrorism" argument, clouded the conversation for me. With the latest episode of 'Real Housewives' streaming the next tab over, the choice was easy: read nothing else about it and hope for the best.

But the documentary forced my head out of the sand. As the extent of the NSA's spying was revealed, I kept thinking about Watergate. What Nixon did was minuscule potatoes compared to the NSA and he was forced to resign just two years after the break-in. This June it will be two years since Snowden's big reveal—will there be any retribution for the government officials involved?

So, now I have this belated outrage and have no clue what to do about it. Is there something I can sign? Is there someone I can vote for? Would eating another oatmeal chocolate chip cookie help? Because if it would, I'm happy to do it. They're right here in this tupperware next to me, so it's no inconvenience at all. I'll eat as many as it takes.

Anyway, I'll conclude with two suggestions:

1. Watch the movie if/when it's screening in your city. 
It's so interesting that I actually said, aloud, during the middle of it, "This is interesting!"

2. Put duct tape over your webcam.
Do this if, like me, you like to use your laptop whilst sitting on the toilet before getting in the shower (naked as a jay bird). Nowhere in the film does it mention the NSA hacking into people's webcams, but now I'm paranoid.

Good luck comrades,
Margaret

Annabelle: Part 2

If you haven't already, read Part 1 before you read this.

---

"Annabelle?" I shouted again. I couldn't believe I'd remembered her name. I hadn't actually read it off the flyer, but my subconscious must have jotted it down just in case this hero-making moment presented itself. 

I looked back at my friends. 

"Justine, I think it's that lady. The one who's missing," I said in a loud whisper. She looked confused. It didn't register. "The one I told you about on the phone. The old lady!"

"Oh yeah. Oh my god!" Justine said, remembering our brief conversation a half hour earlier. 

The three of us ran up to the bushes, peering through the tangles of leaves and branches. 

We saw her. Frail. On all fours. Crawling through the mud. 

She wore a long, beige trench coat and had a pale blue kerchief tied around her head. As she moved, she dug her bony fingers into the soil, pulling her withered body forward through the sticker bushes.

"Annabelle," I said for a third time. 

She looked up at us, her cheeks hollow and wrinkles deep and dirty like a dry riverbed. Slivers of sunlight pierced through the branches, casting sharp, sinister shadows across her gaunt expression. 

"Hello," she croaked. 

*                      *                      *                      *

Image via Wikimedia Commons

There was no way this 90-year-old, 90-pound woman would make it up those stairs. So, we split up. Justine and I would go get neighbour-man. Connie would stay with Annabelle. Poor Connie—always getting the raw deal. Explaining to the neighbour that, as a matter of fact, I did know where his missing mother-in-law was—that would be awkward. But sitting in a forest cabana with the Wrinkled Witch of West Kenmore? That was worse. 

As expected, pulling up in Justine's Ford Probe, pounding on neighbour-man's door and telling him that we'd found his wife's lost long mother was awkward. It had been less than an hour since he was on my porch asking me to keep an eye out for her. This just seemed too convenient—like I'd kidnapped her and kept her hidden until the 'Missing Mother-in-Law | Reward: $1million' flyers went up. 

The man seemed surprised by our quick discovery, but said he and his wife would follow us in their car back to Connie's. 

Walking down all those steps with the two of them was agony. What were we supposed to talk about? "So, does the old bat escape often?" "Have you heard that the Kenmore Premix is going to be torn down and replaced with a movie theatre?" No—smalltalk didn't seem appropriate. We opted for silence. 

When we finally arrived at the bottom, Connie and Annabelle were sipping bottled waters and chatting. They'd become fast friends. But when Annabelle spotted her daughter and son-in-law, she flipped out. 

"No! No! Don't send me back there!" she pleaded with us. "I won't let that man tell me what to do! Don't make me go!"

With each refusal and accusation, the atmosphere got more and more uncomfortable. I remembered my Mom telling me that people with dementia often lash out and even lie about their loved ones. I decided to believe that was the case with Annabelle. What other choice did I have?

Over Annabelle's squawks, Connie suggested that she ask her neighbours if we could use their electric tram to get the frail old bird back up the hill. It was either that or we tie her to an inflatable pool lounger and drag her up the stairs. Annabelle's middle-aged carers weren't offering up any suggestions either. They just stood there being utterly unhelpful.

While we waited for Connie to call us on the cabana landline with the go-ahead, things got more awkward. Out of nowhere, neighbour-man looked at me and said, "Call 911 to let them know we found her!"

"What?"

"Call 911 and tell them that we found her. We filed a missing persons report earlier," he said. 

"Oh, ok," I said, too disarmed by his sudden command to question it. I pressed 9-1-1 on the keypad and started speaking to the operator. 

"Uhh. Hi, my name is Margaret and I found an old lady who is a missing person. So, yeah, umm, I just wanted to let you know we found her..." I trailed off. Did neighbour-man realise I was just a 19-year-old idiot? Why was he making me do this? And was calling 911 really necessary?

Eventually, as my "ummms" and "I'm not sures" became more frequent, neighbour-man gestured for me to hand him the phone. He started explaining things to the operator and I tuned him out. I had done what the situation had asked of me, and now I was finished. 

I hightailed it home. The whole thing was too weird. Too tense. I'd never liked meeting new people, and this just confirmed it. 

Annabelle: Part 1

It was a beautiful morning. Bright, warm sunlight filled the house. Through the window, between the tall evergreens, you could spot Lake Washington sparkling like sequins in the distance. 

I had just finished my freshman year in college and was back in Kenmore for the summer. My parents were out running errands and I had the house to myself. The plan was to spend all day on my friend Connie's dock—swimming, sunbathing, inhaling Otter Pops and pretending we were back in high school.

Image by Shindigs Girl via Flickr

I thew on my swimsuit and grimaced at what two semester's of daily Dominoes orders had done to my beach bod. Just as I was squeezing into my American Eagle shorts, there was a knock at the front door.

Normally I wouldn't have dreamt of answering it. Too risky. Whatever awaited me behind that slab of wood, it wasn't going to be good. A Jehovah's Witness, a kid selling coupon books, the stalker that I didn't know, but assumed, I had. 

But the summer spirit got to me. I scurried down the stairs and swung open the door. A man in his 50s—tall, white hair, with Costco jeans and a typical middle-aged man belly—stood in front of me. He explained that he was my neighbour from across the street. 

We'd spied on that house from our living room window, trying to figure out the family dynamic. For a while one of their grown children, with a blue pickup and a Siberian Husky, appeared to have moved back in. Occasionally they'd pull weeds in the front flowerbeds. Every December, they would put up a string of blue, icicle Christmas lights. Other than that, we didn't have a clue who they were.  

The man seemed nervous and like he was ashamed to be bothering me. He explained that his mother-in-law, who lived with them, had been missing since 3pm the previous day. He said she had dementia and had wandered off before, but never for this long. He gave me a flyer with her photo and told me to keep an eye out. 

I assured him I would. 

*                      *                      *                      *

As I walked back upstairs, the flyer already crumpling in my hand, my phone started buzzing on the kitchen table.

"Hey Justine"

"Hey—have you left for Connie's yet?"

"No, I was just getting ready."

"Oh, well I'm leaving now if you want me to pick you up."

"Sure, that sounds great."

And that's where the conversation almost ended. Even though my encounter with the neighbour man hadn't left much of an impression on me, something compelled me to bring it up. 

"Alright I'll be there in, like—

"A weird thing just happened before you called."

"Huh?"

"Yeah, my neighbour from across the street came over and asked if I'd seen his mother-in-law who has Alzheimer's and has gone missing."

"Weird!"

"Yeah. So weird. Anyway, see you soon!"

"OK, bye"

*                      *                      *                      *

Connie greeted us in her driveway and, towels in hand, we started the trek down to the lake. Her house is technically 'on the lake', but you have to navigate your way down at least 300 steps until you're there. It's a good seven-minute walk. 

The meandering wooden staircase is surrounded by giant fir trees, blackberry bushes and your general, unruly Pacific Northwest greenery. Permanently in the shade, the stairs are damp and slippery. A couple years earlier, my flipflop hit a mossy patch and I fell hard. It left a bruise the size, shape and colour of an eggplant on my right thigh. 

On the journey down, we gossiped about high school people and kept our new, college lives tucked away like a secret lover. We'd done this walk so many times. We'd done this day—the lake, the gossiping, the Otter Pops—so many times. The familiarity was intoxicating. 

Finally, the trees began to open up. We passed the gazebo and walked down the final four steps to the grassy ground below. But as we crossed the lawn to the dock, Justine gasped. 

"Something's over there! I saw something move over there!" she said under her breath, pointing to the thick bushes. 

We paused. Whatever it was, it was now obscured by vegetation. We couldn't see anything, but we heard it moving about it in the bramble. It sounded big. Not a cat or even a raccoon. Bigger. 

My heart started to thump. A bear? A mountain lion? Unlikely, but not impossible. 

Justine and Connie ran back to the bottom of the stairs. I started to follow, but then it dawned on me. Suddenly, I knew exactly what I had to do. 

Turning back around, I cupped my hands around my mouth and shouted toward the bushes:

"Annabelle?"

Murder in Kenmore: Part 2

If you haven't already, read Part 1 first. 

*                      *                      *                      *

My knees buckled and I forgot how to run. My eyes darted left to the rabbit cage—the wooden mansion my dad had carefully constructed to give Binky and Dinky more humane living conditions. Maybe this wasn't really happening. Maybe I was dreaming, or perhaps it was some sort of elaborate prank. But the rabbit hutch sat empty. 

Unable to move, I screamed instead. 

"HELP! HELP! HELP! HELLLLP!!!!!!"

I kept screaming until my sister Char appeared from around the side of the house. I pointed. She saw. Now we were both screaming. She ran to get my mom as I stood watch over their lifeless bodies, which had the odourless scent of fresh death. 

Binky and Dinky were dead. They had both died, somehow. Was it old age? How old were they? Or was it some terrible illness—a bout of Rabbit Flu that they just couldn't overcome? 

I wasn't a dumb six-year-old, but the obvious truth simply didn't occur to me. Binky and Dinky didn't pass away gracefully in their sleep. They were murdered. They didn't die side by side on the soft grass. They were placed there. 

The Investigation

About an hour after the discovery, my dad's car screeched into the driveway. He threw open the front door and yelled, "Nobody touch ANYTHING!"

This. Was. His. Moment. 

Rich Kay had dreamed of a life as a private detective since he was a kid. From the fictional Sherlock Holmes to the real-life Pinkerton Detectives, he'd always been fascinated by the mystery-solving profession. Now was his chance to put his sleuthing skills to the test. 

His investigation of the crime scene, which, yes, involved a magnifying glass and a notepad, uncovered the following bizarre pieces of information:

• No sign of forced entry into the backyard or the rabbit cage
• No blood on either bunny
• Rabbits were placed side by side in a deliberate, perhaps ritualistic manner
• No rabbit hair in the kiddie pool (which we'd filled up a few days earlier and had left out in the yard)

From those clues he determined:

• The killer was human (a dog couldn't open the latch on the gate or the hutch, and the rabbits would have been torn to pieces)
• The cause of death was NOT drowning (no hairs in the pool, rabbits only wet with a bit of dew, but not soaked)
• The cause of death was NOT complications from injuries (no blood)
• The cause of death was likely one of the following: A) strangulation, B) poisoning or C) having their necks broken. After further examination, he settled on option C. 

In all his thoroughness, my dad wasn't able to bring any more closure to this case. He and my mom never called the police or spoke to any animal welfare officials. I phoned them last week to ask why, and my mom said, "I don't know. I guess we thought they wouldn't do anything. I suppose we just lived in the present."

I agreed with her at first. Rabbit murder isn't exactly the case of a lifetime. But then I thought about it some more. Imagine if those rabbits had been a golden retriever. Surely they would have called the police then?

The more I think about it, of course the cops would have at least taken a statement and made a note of the crime in case it matched with other suspicious activity in the area. If someone creeped into our yard, killed our rabbits with their bare hands and laid them out in the grass like lawn ornaments, what else could they possibly be capable of? 

The reality is, and thank goodness for it, none of us realised how troubling the incident really was at the time. 

The Suspects

This is where things get dicey. I'm hesitant to be too specific about possible suspects, as I don't want to falsely incriminate someone or be sued for libel by my former neighbours who most definitely read this wildly famous blog every day. 

So, with that in mind, here are generic descriptions of the main suspects:

1. Weird / Troublemaking neighbour boy. Three sources I've spoken with (OK, my mom, my dad and my friend who lived three houses down from us) have pinpointed this shady fellow as a prime suspect. I've been told that he may have had a crush on my sister Francie, he was possibly a drug addict and he lit fireworks off on non-fireworks days. 

2. Residents of the 'halfway house' kitty-corner from us. There's debate about whether the house was really a halfway house, but there's no question that the people living there were up to no good. From late-night knocks on the door asking for "coffee" to visits from their estranged children, who ended up playing at our house and begging my mom not to make them go back, there's no doubt that the house's three residents are all suspects.

3. Weird / Quiet neighbour boy. These were the days before school shootings, but we all now know that it's the quiet ones who often surprise you. At the time, we wouldn't have considered this shy high schooler a suspect, but looking back, he definitely knew about the rabbits and maybe he was a secret sociopath living next door. Who knows?

4. Of course, the final suspect has to be the person we'd never suspect. The family friend. The babysitter. The relative. The teacher. And these are just the known unknowns. There are even more unknown unknowns that will simply never reveal themselves. 

The Funeral

Max, Char, my mom and I stood over a small dirt grave. Anna and Francie were at summer camp. They'd been sent the news in a rambling letter that ended with "P.S. Binky and Dinky were murdered."

I remember Char sobbing as my dad carried them over, one in each hand. They were so long. That's all I could think about. They looked nothing like they did when they were alive. It was as if they'd been put in one of those medieval torture stretch machines and pulled like taffy.

In they went, one on top of the other. As my dad shovelled dirt over them, Char read a eulogy from a 3x5 card and we all said some quiet goodbyes. 

The next year we got two replacement rabbits for Christmas. Rudolph and Frosty. But it just wasn't the same.

Tschüss, 

Margaret

Murder in Kenmore: Part 1

Is it customary for six-years-olds to take the garbage out? That dreaded chore is what kicked the whole thing off—the twisted series of events that would become known as the 'Murder in Kenmore'. 

That day lives in the minds of all seven of us. Rich, Nancy, Max, Anna, Char, Francie, Margaret. We will carry it with us always. But now, for the first time, this true tale of crime, mystery and heartbreak will be recorded and preserved for future generations. 

Let's hope they can make more sense of it than we ever will. 

*                      *                      *                      *

I clutched the greasy plastic knot and heaved the bag over my scrawny, six-year-old shoulder. Teetering under the heavy load, I walked out the front door into the open-air carport of 6227 NE 154th Street. My bare feet hit the cold cement floor, toes recoiling like snails in a windstorm. Goosebumps rose from my wrists to my neck and cool air wafted through my baggy t-shirt. 

Emerging from under the covered area, I stepped into the low sunlight of a late-August morning. The driveway was wet from rain and the air smelled of damp leaves. Signs that summer would soon be a fading memory. 

Turning right into the side yard, I set the garbage sack down and stopped for a minute to catch my breath. I peered up at the basketball hoop, with its frayed rope and and rusty rim the colour of dried blood. Maybe I'll shoot some hoops later, I thought. Even six-year-olds like to start the day with a plan. 

Truthfully, garbage duty or not, I liked being outside on my own in the morning. The calm. The quiet. I was less than 30 feet from my front door, but I felt totally alone. When you have a big family, you need moments of solitude to feel vulnerable—to feel alive. 

I decided to drag the bag the rest of the way, pulling it across the gravel path toward the backyard gate. Sour juices leaked from pebble-sized tears and left an acrid brown trail in its wake. I reached up and fiddled with the gate lock. It was a tricky one. My raised arm always got sore trying to undo the latch. 

Finally, the wood door swung open. And I saw them.

It took me a minute to realise what I was looking at. Two small, white shapes resting parallel in the bright green grass. They looked like matching hand towels, fluff matted by the wet hands of dinner guests. 

But no. They had eyes. They had noses. They had perky lemon-shaped ears with delicate pink lining. 

They were our pet rabbits—Binky and Dinky. 

Perfectly still. Perfectly dead.

TO BE CONTINUED...

The universe is on crack and everyone is terrifying

Today I left the office (still self-employed, just freelancing in an office this week) and emerged into a world of pure chaos. Or at least it felt that way.

Fellow city dwellers, you'll know what I mean.

It's that same feeling you get when you leave a movie theatre and pop out into the mid-day sun. Everything and everyone is moving so quickly. The brightness is jarring. The sound of cars, deafening. A horn honk makes you jump out of your skin. You make eye contact with people and it seems like they know you—very Truman Show.

Old pic, but it works.

So, today I leave the office and narrowly avoid a steaming pile of dog poop. This sets the tone for my walk home. A fire engine squeals past. A homeless woman hollers something indistinct but no doubt aggressive. The traffic lights are about to change so I must scurry across in the nick of time.

A man stops in front of me and signals for me to remove my headphones. "Do you know how to get to Sesame Street?" he asks in a French/Italian/Spanish/Something accent. I respond with a "heh heh" chuckle, but his blank expression doesn't change.  "Oh, an actual Sesame Street? In Edinburgh?" I ask. He nods without any sense of irony. "Um....no, I don't. Sorry."

And I run.

Must get home to my pajamas, my laptop, the Real Housewives, a bowl of pretzels, a door that locks and windows that shut.


Ah, that's better.

---

Now, save your pity. I am not mentally ill. This doesn't happen to me every day. It's just that sometimes, if I let my guard down, the outside world can be super unsettling. If I'm not in the right frame of mind (tired, been working all day, etc.) a series of innocent events can feel like the universe is conspiring against me.

Can you relate?

Namaste,
Margaret

P.S. Having to say "namaste" is the WORST part of any yoga class.

P.P.S. I know I don't have to say it and that yoga is all about doing whatever's comfortable to you. But still.

P.P.P.S. My experience today made me think of this: