Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Welcome to the desert! Watch out for exploding garages!

Well, this neighborhood is yucky. Two weeks ago, I would've said it was fine. But last week we had some new neighbors move into a house accross the street. These people moved into a house who's garage caught on fire (an unfortunately common occurence in the desert) several months ago. Well, last week they were moving stuff into their garage, and they were blaring music out of their parked car. It wouldn't have been so bad, but it was pimp n' ho music, and it was so loud (how loud was it?) I could hear every word through my walls. So on my way out, I parked my car in front of their driveway (not in it, in front of it) and told them to turn it down. Well, they didn't like that very much. The lady's two young daughters (oldest being around twelve) started calling me horrible names, and the mom joined in. I threatened to call the cops on them, which shut them up for about two seconds, then they continued to call me names. As I drove off I tried to flash them the backwards peace sign, but I was so flustered I kept putting up the wrong fingers. It looked like I was counting to three to them, very forcefully. So I don't talk to them, I don't look at them, and if they're outside I either stay inside or leave altogether. But at least the music's stopped.
On Saturday, the mom got into a fight with a man I'm assuming is her boyfriend. It was a tussle. She was chasing him around the yard, they were shouting, and the crowning moment was when she threw some big, heavy piece of metal at his head (it missed). Ooh, she also punched her daughter in the face when she tried to stop them. Well, my mom called the cops (and I was just waiting for my tires to get slashed, later) and about four cars showed up to their house in a matter of minutes. The mom received some kind of citation, and the boyfriend left shortly after the cops did. Nothing else has happened with them, since.
Saturday evening, it sounded like someone was setting off fire crackers. At one point in the evening, it sounded like a major rocket exploded about twenty feet above our houses. It was so loud (how loud was it?) that it shook our house a little and set off my car alarm. The police started driving around our street after that.
Yesterday evening, I was driving home from job-hunting. As I turned on our street, I noticed that it was block off by cars. They were all normal sedan-type cars, but there was one ugly cadillac-type car in the center, primered and battered. They were blocking off the street about three houses from mine. As I made to turn my car around, I saw in the driveway of the house (on our side of the street). There were a bunch of people, sitting in the driveway in a circle with their hands behind their backs. A few police officers were standing above them. There's nothing in the papers about it, which kind of surprises me. That could mean that this stuff happens all the time, or it could mean that we can expect more of this crap to happen, as it may be part of an unfinished investigation.
I can hardly wait.