The Other (almost) Shoot!

I've been meaning to update ya'll on my crazy gun story, but this week has just been nuts with no end in sight. I'm getting ready to move so that means digging through all of my stuff to figure out what would come with me, what needs to go into storage, what I can sell (& where to sell it) & what needs to be donated (& where to donate). Did you know those storage places are booked solid? I need a heated unit for the antique piano that I've had in my family for generations & have called just about everywhere in the city with nothing available. I'm on a bunch of waiting lists though so hopefully one will open up soon. The piano isn't worth anything moneywise, but since my parents paid to have it shipped out here, I can't just sell it. I grew up playing it & so did my grandmother. Old, clunky, impossible to tune & with chipped keys, I still want to hang onto it. Storage it goes!

I have a weird hang up when it comes to donating my stuff too. I'm a bit of a packrat, especially when it comes to books & anything I could ever possibly use to shoot with. Shoes, dresses, lingerie, blankets, funky background material...if it could somehow at some point be used in a photo shoot, I can't get rid of it. This means I have a lot of stuff that I *have* to get over & get rid of. But where to donate? I don't want to dump it all at Goodwill, so I'm making this process even more complicated by making separate piles of:

• "good" stuff (clothes that are still cool enough to be fashionable etc.) that will go to the youth emergency shelter

• "bad" stuff that goes to Goodwill

• newer stuff that I could possibly sell if I had a big moving/garage sale

• light + valuable stuff that I could sell on eBay without insane shipping prices

On top of this, I'm painting, cleaning, re-grouting my bathtub, trying to find someone to install baseboards AND doing my tax stuff which has been piled into the oh so helpful categories of "2005" or "2006", with a bit of crossover to boot. Have I mentioned how much I would love to hire a bookkeeper? Maybe a cute blonde with a pencil skirt & tight sweater who would let her glasses slide down her nose as she added everything up & organized my life for me...mmmmmm.



Anyways, on to the story! The night of the Stanley Cup finals I had a date to drown my sorrows in some late night drive-thru grub. We hit McDonalds & parked at a school so my dogs could run around. It was a really nice night despite losing the Cup & we walked over to the school bleachers to snack on fries & enjoy the cool breeze. Just as it started feeling a little too cold, I noticed a cop car with lights blazing across the field. Since there were bound to be tons of drunken hockey fans out & about, I knew cops would be in full force & figured we'd better head back to the car just in case the cops did see us & ended up giving me a ticket for having the dogs running around without their leashes or something stupid. Back to the car!

I was just getting my seatbelt on when the cop car drove slowly past the entrance to the parking lot. I started the engine & was starting to drive out when the cop switched on his lights & reversed hard, pulling into the parking lot at full speed. I stopped & put the car in park just as two cops jumped out of their car & started screaming at us to, "Put your hands up! Put your fucking hands up!!!"

I was startled, but laughing because it was so obvious that we were not the people they were looking for. The cops started doing that slow crouching walk thing towards my car with these huge rifles pointed at us. That made me stop laughing, but having never ever been even pulled over for a speeding ticket, I'm new to dealing with cops. I took my hands down for a second just to turn off the engine (which apparently was not smart). My date had his hands out the window & was speaking loudly to the cops, letting them know that we had two small dogs in the backseat. He was worried the dogs would jump up or bark or something - enough for a trigger happy cop with a rifle pointed at our heads to see a perceived threat & shoot. Kiero jumped into my lap & the cop got close enough to see that we didn't have anyone but a pug hiding in the back & they took off, after apologizing for scaring the shit out of us, of course.

Apparently there had been shots fired in the area & the vehicle make was very similar to mine. I haven't seen anything in the paper about it, so I'm still not sure what happened, but it was very bizarre considering this is a quiet residential neighborhood. And pretty exciting for my first police experience!

I feel so suburban whitebred even relaying this story as the only interaction I've ever had with a police officer. Even worse, I was totally thinking about blogging about it on the drive home. Yes, I am that lame. Feel free to rofl, lol or lmao at my expense. *grin*