A Young Man's Fancy

Ok, so this past Monday morning, not the previous Monday where he was mowed down by a hit-and-run driver who the police are doing nothing to apprehend, but THIS past Monday, my son Thing 1 walks into my office and plops down on the sofa while I'm busy working at reading various message boards and blogs and ignoring the pile of paperwork that is taking over my desk.  So he sits there for a few minutes, saying nothing and it finally occurs to me that he's not sitting there to provide companionship in the minutes before he leaves for school.  I realize that he wants to talk to me, his mommy.  The majority of talks in our family take place in my office, for some reason.  I think it's the sofa.  Even Thing 1's cronies head straight to the sofa when they want to talk or ask advice while I sit in my desk chair, feeling all therapist-like.  I need to get a clipboard and pad of paper to have on hand for these moments.  "Tell me how you FEEL."

Anyway, I swivel my chair around to face him and say, "You look like there's something you want to talk about" and he has this self-conscious grin on his face and nods.  And I'm expecting something about how he needs even more $$$ for school or something but what he tells me just about knocks me over with a feather.

"Mom" he says, "I want you to know that as of Saturday, I'm officially seeing someone" and he sits there all nervous and I say, "Oh."  The last time Thing 1 had a "girlfriend" was in 6th grade and he's shown no further interest since then because he's been focused on his motorcycle racing career and a girlfriend would just be a distraction.

I ask him who because as far as I knew, the only girl that he's shown much interest in is the younger sister of his best friend who told him there is no way in hell he will allow Kevin to even go near his sister and it turned into a running joke and fun to watch Adam froth at the mouth at the thought of his little sister dating one of his friends.


Anyway.  I ask Kevin who he's seeing and once again, he manages to surprise me.  He's seeing a girl who pursued him to the point of stalking their Junior year and he got all freaked out by her "attentions" and blocked her number from his phone and let her know he WAS NOT INTERESTED and to please leave him alone.  That's his new girlfriend.  I guess she finally wore him down.  Once upon a time, I used the same ploy to pursue the object of my affections and I finally got him so I kind of like her already.


We have a mature, serious talk about his new relationship (do NOT make me a grandmother any time soon!) and then he has to leave for school.  As he's walking away, he stops and gives me a puzzled look and I, who know my son, say, "You're thrown off because I didn't react the way you expected, right?" and he's all "Yeah, I thought you'd get be all, "My little boy! and squeal and make a big deal out of it and embarrass me" and I'm all, "No, I'm saving that for when you bring her home to meet the family.  Duh."


Oh, and he says, "You're probably gonna run to the computer and blog about this as soon as I leave, aren't you?" and I'm all, "What?  No!  Are you kidding?" as I study my cuticles and look everywhere except at him.  


Please.  Does he not know me after 18 years?  OF COURSE I would blog about it.  But I did show restraint and waited several days instead of the minute he left for school.  And I also showed remarkable restraint by not running out the door after him when she picked him up last night.  Kevin said he's not ready to introduce us yet.  I have no idea why.


Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go find all the pictures of him taken during the period when he was "Naked Boy" and would run around the house wearing nothing but a red cape.

She'll want to see them.  It'll be a bonding moment for us.

The tires are flat on the Wheels of Justice

It's funny, the other day, June over at ByeByePie asked us, her faithful and devoted followers, for input on relieving the stress in our lives and what we did to relax. I am not a highly strung person, I'm not a stress case, I have no need of anti-anxiety medication because I'm just about the most easy going person you'll meet.


Although when Thing 1 born, shortly after his birth I noticed I was having terrible headaches and my jaw ached so I went to The Doctor and it was discovered that I was clenching my teeth in my sleep (what little sleep I got during the first 2 years of Thing 1's life) due to the stress and shock of being a new parent to a VERY colicky baby.  So he prescribed Xanax to be taken at bedtime to help me have a relaxed and restful sleep.  I took it and boy, did I sleep the sleep of the dead.  Not only did I sleep through the night all relaxed and uninterrupted, I slept through my crying infant, my alarm, the back up alarm and the numerous phone calls from my job when I did not show up for work.  I finally emerged from my drug-induced sleep around 11:00am.  Good times.  I rarely take anything stronger than ibuprofen these days.


But in the last week, my stress level AND blood pressure have been at dangerously high levels.  Why?  Let's blame the Long Beach Police Department, shall we?


As I mentioned in my last post, Thing 1 had been the victim of a hit and run driver and after a week of calling the LBPD every day and getting nowhere, I finally make contact with the detective in charge of the case and what he told me nearly made me pop my cork.


What he told me was, basically, nothing.  Nada.  Zip.  Zilch.  The extent of their effort to apprehend the driver of the car has been, get this, sending a letter to the registered owner and await a reply.  Uh huh.  Like THAT'S going to happen.  Someone who leaves the scene of an accident where they mowed down a kid in a crosswalk isn't going to call the police and say, "Um yeah, I got a letter from you and what?  You want me to come down to headquarters?  Oh, sure, I'll be right there!"  And, it gets better, they will not release any information.  If we want any information, like the name and address of the car owner and the accident/police report, we have to pay for it.  And it will take about 3 weeks to receive the report.  If we don't fork over the "fee" we will have absolutely nothing.  Except a destroyed bicycle and a driver who is free to mow down even more unsuspecting people in crosswalks.


Oh! And when Kevin requested the report and pointed out that victims of crimes aren't required to pay the fee, he was told he wasn't a victim of a crime.  I believe my eyes bulged due to the sudden spike in blood pressure when Kevin reported that little tidbit and there was steam coming out of my ears.


It's so nice to know that Kevin is a victim of not only that maniac behind the wheel but also of the Long Beach Police Department.  And the police wonder why citizens get so angry and riot in the streets.


Hmmmm.

It's a Hit!

So, last Monday, September 13 at 1:38pm Pacific Standard Time, my phone rings.  RING RING!  It's my beautiful little boy (yeah, he's 18 but he's still my little boy).  Mom, he says, I need you to come down to right past the freeway."  Just as I'm thinking he's going to tell me he got a flat tire on his bike on his way home from school (I had told him he needed to put air in his rear tire) and doesn't want to push it the final 150 feet home, he says, "I JUST GOT HIT BY A CAR and the police are on their way."  And I'm all "WHAT THE EFF?!?!?" and he tells me he's the victim of a hit-and-run and I'm all "WHAT THE EFF?!?!?" and I don't know whether to run to the scene of the accident or drive and I elect to drive, although I probably would have got there faster by running (don't laugh; I actually CAN run).

So I turn the corner from our house and I see fire trucks and paramedics and police cars, all with lights a-flashing and I'm thinking to myself, "Cheezus Christ what's next with this kid?" what with his broken knee and then injuring his shoulder and now he gets HIT BY A CAR.

A car that decided not to stop for a) the Stop Sign and 2) the 6' tall blond teenager on the Schwinn beach cruiser that was in the middle of the crosswalk.  I mean, c'mon, it's not like Kevin is easy to overlook, especially when he's IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CROSSWALK fercryinoutloud.


So the lady in the car t-bones Kevin, he flies through the air and lands on the hood of her car.  He falls off the hood onto the pavement and yells, "WHAT THE EFF?!?!?" (Note:  neither of us actually said, "EFF;" we said the whole word).  The driver takes that opportunity to hit the accelerator, runs over the bike still laying in the street and takes off down the road like a bat outta hell, with the bike trapped under her car and being dragged like roadkill if roadkill was made out of metal and caused smoke and sparks to fly like something out of a fireworks display.  Kevin said it was really something seeing that happen.  Something BAD.


There was another car at the stop sign and when Kevin got hit, the passenger jumped out to assist Kevin while her husband took off after the culprit.  The bad news is, he didn't catch the driver; the good news is, he got the complete license plate AND retrieved the bike, which was about 1/2 mile away from the accident scene.  Looking like bicycle roadkill.

The handlebars were actually ground down to wafer-thin:

And one of the pedals was torn off and scorched:

At the time of the accident, the police asked Kevin if he would be able to identify the driver and he said, "considering I was sprawled on her hood, staring at her through the windshield, I'm pretty sure that won't be a problem."  And they asked him if he would want to press charges and that answer was pretty much a "No shit, Sherlock" although that's not a direct quote.


Luckily, our local police department has been right on top of the case.  Oh.  Wait.  Scratch that.  We have heard absolutely NOTHING despite my calling the department multiple times.  The only information we received was at the scene of the accident when the license number was ran through the system and indicated the car was registered to a business in Gardena, which is several miles north of Long Beach.  And that's all we know.  We've received no accident report, no calls for Kevin to come down and identify a suspect, no calls from the driver's insurance company, if they even have one.  For all we know, the driver, a middle-aged female, hightailed it to Canada to avoid arrest.

We don't want to have to call Larry H. Parker but it may be necessary if we don't get some answers here.


So that's what's going on in my neck of the woods.  And one of the reasons I haven't been entertaining my 3 followers with my views and outlooks on Life lately.  And because the creativity well just isn't producing and also too, I've been lazy.

I'll keep you posted.  And try to start producing my usual witty and profound views to keep you entertained and coming back for more.