the deep moans round with many voices

Things done at work today:

1. Arrived a few minutes late on account of having to shovel the front steps and sweep snow off the Camry, and was promptly tossed into a muddle of "figure out which of these people are currently parked in/near these specific parts of the parking lot, and then contact them to make them move their cars so we can remove snow and unearth the actual parking spaces and painted lines again," which was unfun.

2. Staged a studio, took photos, took video, and un-staged it again because the new tenant is theoretically arriving to pick up their keys tomorrow.

3. Staged a mini-studio and took photos. Then promptly gave two separate people tours of that mini-studio, which, while good (yay prospective tenants!) was also kind of frustrating because it delayed my lunch break by a whole hour.

4. Did not get to take video of the mini-studio because Mr. Geniality got waylaid by Company Owner (who is currently in Ithaca) and by the time he was free we'd lost good daylight. :(

5. Miscellaneous photo editing. Miscellaneous emails. Miscellaneous floor plan editing. Miscellaneous ad updates.

6. Scheduled a tour for Saturday afternoon.

7. Arranged for "this area is under camera surveillance" signs to be posted in building lobbies, which may hopefully help prevent a repeat of the December incident where two assholes broke into one building by incessantly pushing intercom buttons until somebody buzzed them in and then stole the contents of a dozen packages... in clear view of the lobby security camera. *headdesk* (They got arrested a couple days later for an unrelated theft, also committed in clear view of cameras. I believe one or two of our tenants pressed charges.)

...

I am feeling tired and out of sorts. I think I may eat some chocolate and go to bed early.

So at about 7:50 pm a tall, skinny guy wearing a green and black hoodie pulled way down over his forehead, a black turtleneck pulled up over his nose, and his sleeves pulled down over his hands walked into the smoke shop and stood at the counter. I went to ask what I could do for him and he mumbled something about twenties.

I figured he was trying to make a bad joke about it being cold outside, since he was all bundled up, but I couldn't really understand what he'd said and I guess I looked at him funny. He kept hunching and ducking his head down so I couldn't see any skin between his turtleneck and his hood, and he held his right hand up at the edge of the counter with a small flashlight just poking out from the end of his sleeve.

He said something about twenties again.

At this point I remembered that we'd been robbed a few months ago, put that together with the way this guy seemed to be desperately avoiding both our security cameras and my gaze, and said, "Are you... robbing me?"

He said, in a relatively high voice and generic northeastern American accent, "Just the twenties from the register," and kept standing there with his stupid little flashlight resting on the counter. His left hand was down at his side and seemed to be empty, and he wasn't looming at me -- if anything, his body language and vocal tone were apologetic rather than threatening. And a six-inch flashlight does not count as a weapon.

Which is probably why my reaction was not to open the register, but instead to take a sliding step to the left and slowly start to reach down toward the telephone, to see how he'd react.

At which point the would-be robber must have lost his nerve, because he turned and walked out of the store. He turned left and headed east on State St., but I have no idea what happened once he passed beyond the edge of our display window.

Meanwhile I'd dialed 911, and the police showed up within two minutes. They took my report and description, such as it was, and waited while I tried and failed to get our security system to display the recording of the event -- I have the code, but even though PM showed me how to enter the commands, I couldn't make it display anything but real-time feeds. They will send an officer tomorrow morning to get the recording from PM, who is opening. I also called PM and told her what had happened so she won't be caught by surprise.

Then, since it was 8:30 by the time the police had left, I started closing procedures -- putting away newspapers, dumping coffee pots, counting cigarettes and lottery tickets, etc. -- and locked the doors at 9pm, as always. And now I am home and eating dinner.

...

That was definitely one of the stranger evenings of my life.

I arrived at the police station at about 8:35am, was told to go upstairs and wait for Investigator H, and duly met him at about 8:40am. He is a pleasant man about my height, white and maybe thirty-five to forty-five years old. (I am terrible at judging people's ages.)

He went over what I remembered from the burglary, including a few questions like how far was I from the burglar when I saw him (about eight feet), did either of us say anything (I said something to the effect of, "What are you doing in my house?!"), could I verify that my window screen had been in my window that evening (yes, of course), could I swear that the hat had not been in the yard (it hadn't been there the day before, but I couldn't say about the evening or night), and a couple other things of that nature.

Then we went next door to Ithaca City Court, which is a very 1960s institutional-style building right on the edge of Six Mile Creek as it flows toward the Cayuga Inlet. There is a security checkpoint at the entrance, complete with baggage scanner and one of those free-standing faux doorways you walk through. The courtroom we went to was on the second floor; bathrooms were on the third floor. (The third floor, incidentally, was missing a lot of ceiling tiles, because the building is currently in the middle of a rennovation project.) Investigator H wanted me to observe court proceedings and make note of anything that struck me and/or anyone I recognized.

I recognized several people both among the lawyers and among their clients -- this is because a lot of people in town come in to the smoke shop for one reason or another -- but while there were three men who could have been my burglar, I couldn't tell you whether any one of them actually was. Investigator H said that was about what he'd expected, since I saw him so briefly in bad light fifteen months ago, but not to worry, this would not have any effect on the case. (I do not know if the suspect was, in fact, in court today; Investigator H wouldn't tell me one way or the other.)

I did not get to meet the DA, but I saw his back extensively while he and his aide sat at a table to represent the People in each case. The defense side involved at least ten different lawyers, some representing only one case, some handling three or four. There was frequent rearranging of the order in which cases came before the judge, as various clients turned out not to have arrived on time, which is apparently par for the course.

The case load involved a few drug cases, a bunch of traffic violations (some involving alcohol, some not), an assault case, a couple theft cases (one of which was also a drug case), and the odd case of a young man who apparently followed a female college student into an apartment complex, destroyed some packages with her name on them, and maybe snatched and broke her phone? He was representing himself and basically stonewalled the judge every time she asked him a question. It was an incredible display of idiocy on his part, because the judge clearly wanted to find some explanation for what had been going through his head so she could parole him instead of sending him to jail, but he just wouldn't help himself.

It was all interesting to watch, though I confess it made me feel rather cynical about the general level of common sense in my fellow human beings.

---------------

After leaving court, I did several useful things:

1. Got a haircut

2. Met RE at the smoke shop to get back the $10 I lent him on Monday

3. Ate lunch

4. Repotted my poor rootbound schefflera (aka my dwarf umbrella tree), potted some baby spider plants that had grown roots, and cut some more spider plant babies to put in water for a couple months

5. Read interviews with Ithaca's four remaining mayoral candidates (Democrat, Republican, One Ithaca party, and Independence Party/Democrat) in preparation for Tuesday's election

I feel unusually productive. :-)

I am currently drinking tea and eating toasted Eggo waffles by way of breakfast. In ten minutes, I will head into town in the general direction of the police station to do... something. Neither Investigator H nor the DA (who called me again yesterday afternoon) will tell me any details, since they don't want to prejudice me or something. Which makes me suspect my burglar may physically be there.

Also the DA may be there; he said he might get to meet me.

I am not cut out for this!

*frantically drinks more tea*

1. Alas, I was unable to buy a headband with cat ears. Because I have no car, I only get out to the grocery store (and the mall next door) once a week, generally on Saturdays... and by Saturday, the only cat ears left were the metal-studded ones that were part of a dominatrix-kitty getup. Which, no. I am sure it would look fine on many people, but not my thing, especially not at work.

There were some cat-shaped domino masks, but I wear glasses (have done since I was six years old) and a domino mask over glasses is just asking for trouble.

So I wore an orange shirt by way of holiday spirit. Initially I attempted to wrap some green yarn around my neck and shoulders and claim I was a pumpkin, but I was deservedly mocked by my coworkers, and the yarn itched something awful anyway, so I gave up on that pretty fast.

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2. Vicky called me on Sunday just as I was about to head off to work and was therefore unable to really talk. We have made a phone date for Thursday evening, to catch up on general life stuff and also hopefully have her nag me into taking one or two concrete steps toward going back to college.

For this, I blame my mom. She asked me when she visited if there was anything she could do to help with that process, and I said, "Honestly, no, but Vicky maybe could," because that sort of thing is different coming from a sibling than from a parent. (Which is a weird reason to support multi-child families, but there you are. *wry*)

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3. So back in July 2010, I was burgled in the wee hours of the morning. Today I got a call at work from the local DA, who passed me off to Investigator H, who had news and questions about my case -- which, to be honest, I had forgotten they were working on at all.

The upshot is that the DNA from the black baseball cap which was found in my backyard, and which we assume belonged to the burglar since A) it did not belong to anyone living in my house, and B) there is no reason for any innocent passerby to be in that part of the yard, was eventually entered into the state DNA database under something to the effect of "John Doe, associated with burglary, details blah blah blah."

That was in February. Sometime between February and now, a man entangled with the legal system for some other reason was required by New York law to submit DNA for evidence. And it came up as a match to my burglar. Also, the man is apparently a physical match for the (admittedly horribly vague) description I gave the police at the time.

Investigator H wanted to know if I could pick the burglar out of a line-up, to which I said no, because honestly, I saw him for less than five seconds in bad light. So Investigator H said they wouldn't bother with that, since it would only confuse the issue. He also asked how close the baseball cap had been to the window the burglar had used for forced entry, to which I said, "Within fifty feet," because it was fifteen months ago and I can't be more precise.

Anyway, we shall see if anything comes of this.

Side note: Investigator H was extremely pleased to learn that not only am I still living in Ithaca and using the same phone numbers, I am, in fact, still living in the apartment in question. Ithaca is a highly transient town -- I suspect most university towns are -- which makes prosecuting cases like this very difficult, since by the time any evidence turns up, the victim may well have left town altogether. I am trying to imagine if I'd been burgled during the years I was moving every twelve months (from 2000 to 2006, I had seven legal addresses) and the logistics give me a headache.