Today was an exhausting day at work.  Part of me is wishing that the guy filling in for my boss on her vacation was my boss.  Things that have been left unaddressed for weeks he’s handled in a few hours.  I’m not sure he wants the mantle of responsibility but he’s certainly doing a good job.

I got home from work with storm clouds looming.  Lately it’s been pouring rain scant minutes after I drive into the yard.  I arrived home to find Drew busy clearing out the garage in preparation for the demolition this weekend.  He’d already moved out the wood and typical garage items – lawnmower, snow-blower  and such – and I found him crawling into the attic storage space when I drove in.  Apparently the secret to being a pack rat is to store everything in the ceiling of your garage and then move when it’s full.  We found boxes with flyers in them from 1986 and more wood and boxes than you can shake a stick at.  Drew hauled it all down and set aside as much as he could for the garbage and recycling.  It was garbage and recycling day today and, true to form, the city of Edmonton garbage removal crew didn’t arrive.  So, instead of a few boxes of cardboard set aside for recycling, we had dozens.  Drew brought the wood over to the neighbours with firepits.  Most of them are now well and truly stocked for the summer.

We toddled over to L and J’s for burgers on the BBQ – all the while keeping an eye on the sky for the pending storm.  Just as we finished eating, the storm broke.  Thunder rolled and lightening crashed.  E, V and K from across the alley arrived just as we were moving into the L and J’s garage to shelter from the storm.  With the garage door rolled up (so we could watch the storm) we babbled for hours talking about cars and men and silliness.

After the storm had broken we toddled out into the alley to say our goodbyes.  As we’re standing in the alley, we watched a peace officer chasing a young man down the alley, calling after him to stop and to “get down on the ground and put you hands behind your head.”  The young man turned around and began taunting him, screaming “you’ll never catch me”.  He darted forward and lunged at the officer.  This gained him a face full of pepper spray (to which he showed no reaction). Apparently, he hadn’t seen what the peace officer and police officers immediately following him had – the wall of people standing across the alley watching it all unfold.  Drew braced for impact.  When the young man turned around, he screamed again that “no one is gonna catch me” short seconds before Drew tackled him.  Drew waited while the peace officer and police officers arrived; turning him over when they wandered into the neighbours back yard.  The alley filled with police cars, paddy wagons and an ambulance.  Statements delivered and witness statement paperwork in hand, we finished the journey across the back alley to the house.

Apparently no one had told the young man this neighbourhood doesn’t tolerate criminals.  It’s taken a long time to clean it up – years before we moved in it was a den of iniquity – and the residents have worked hard to make the neighbourhood safe for families again.

I wonder if any of this will make it into the local paper in the morning?  No media was present and it was just another day at the office for the hard working men and women of the EPS.

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