Dec 13, 2007

This Doesn't Happen Everyday (from Robert)


So, while I was busy at work today typing away on my computer and taking phone calls, someone else was busy right below me – ROBBING A BANK!

I knew it wasn’t a good sign when I started seeing numerous flashing lights out of the corner of my eye and, turning my head, saw twenty people pressed up against the windows of the building across the street staring straight at my building. Shortly after seeing police cordon off the sidewalk below my office with their yellow tape, we heard from building management that the bank directly below our space, three floors down, had been robbed. Yet as clever as the thief might have thought he was walking out of a bank with a huge bag of dough that wasn’t his, he was outwitted when that dough bag exploded, squirting red tracking ink all over him and his unearned prize. Perhaps realizing he’d been foiled, he stashed the bag under a folding sandwich-board sign for the shoe store next door and took off (see man staring at red ink on sidewalk in photo above).

Staring straight down, I watched as investigators in latex gloves removed the fallen shoe store sign to uncover wads of hundred dollar bills that they started stuffing into brown paper evidence bags. For a while, bills were scattered on the sidewalk around a puddle of red ink. We’re told the bag was rigged and apparently kept in the bank in the event of a robbery.

In the midst of the ‘excitement,’ I started to wonder how something so classically huge could have happened right outside my window without me even noticing. A bag holding thousands of dollars exploded in a man's hands right below me, and I had no idea it was happening. Thinking back, I think I may have heard the shoe store sign get pushed down over the cash, and I also heard people yelling right after it happened, but I didn’t think anything of either noise. I work on the fourth floor of a downtown office building, so I hear things fall and people yelling daily. The only police sirens I don’t subconsciously block out are the motorcades coming from the White House, and I only hear those anymore because they involve about 20 sirens instead of just one or two. The only difference between the noises today versus any other day is that today’s were the result of a bank robbery as opposed to a delivery man dropping a fragile package or a homeless person yelling at the air in front of him.

After more thought, however, I was redeemed from feeling completely clueless in my office bubble. I remembered seeing a few minutes before the robbery took place a strange car stopping down the street, shifting into reverse, and backing back down the street, through an intersection, and coming to a stop about 50 feet from where the money was found. People drive bonkers in DC, but I’ve never seen anyone go in reverse through an intersection. The car then shifted back and forth a few times as if getting into position. Did I see the getaway car?? Who knows. But I went downstairs and told an investigator what I’d seen just in case. He seemed pretty interested and jotted everything down in a little flip-pad. A news report I just read says the robber was last seen going in the opposite direction of the car I saw, so it may have just been a weird car, but at least I noticed SOMETHING today. Now back to my typing and phone calls.


Nov 7, 2007

Up To Date

So Robert and my life...What to say what to say. One of my favorite questions I get is, "How are you doing?" or, "So, what's new with you?" Not because it is a bad question, but because even though I am asked it regularly, I still call people to talk without already having an answer prepared. Whenever I call family, and sometimes friends it is inevitably going to be asked and yet continually I am caught like a deer in headlights without an answer. "DOH!" (thank you Homer Simpson)

So, what's new with Robert and I? We don't have kids, and though that isn't new, it may stave off some quetions for those of you who are bound to ask if we are going to anytime soon...Not that we know of. We are continually working on the house. The questions that continually roll around in conversation often have to do with what colors we are going to paint the dining room, and when are we going to get pictures hung. Oh, well, life = work in progress.

This coming weekend 11/9-11/11 we are having friends stay with us from Ohio - YAY Courtnay & Steve! I am very excited about this, and I know that Robert is as well. It is interesting the people you meet and come to love when you get married. I found out that Steve was a student in the elementary school that my Uncle Henry was Principle of back in Ohio. That was a really cool moment when Robert and I found that out. So they are coming and will be our first non-family house guests (yes, ashlee, you are family.)

Oh, I also got into deep trouble with my brother over a Thanksgiving misunderstanding. That caused for some heartache and intense conversation in my life this week. But, I will never be dumb enough to try to make statements like, "Oh, my family doesn't care if I am there anyway." Okay, I am not sure if I EVER would have been dumb enough to say that, because I never believed it to be true, but after this week I won't ever forget that it's not true.

I would like to take this opportunity to make a declaration that God has given me the greatest husband to ever walk the face of the earth...except maybe Joseph. I mean, he stayed with the "It's God's baby, really hun it is," woman. Wow. Anyway that was my little shout out to the Husband and the Christmas season all in one paragraph. That was good.

So, here was my first contribution to the blogging world. Now that I have graced you with my presence, I must say

PEACE OUT