Surrounded...

This week, we had a little drama at the house. Around 2pm on Wednesday, just after putting Sophie down for her afternoon nap we heard a very loud rapping on the door.

I answered the door and was face to face with Atascadero's finest. The guy had one hand on his gun holster and another hand on a piece of paper. I say hello, he looks at me for a second and says:

"Are you John Gomez?"

John Gomez was the previous resident of the house that we were now renting. I had seen letters addressed to him.

"No!" I said, "He used to live here but moved July 16th".

The cop looked at me for a long second, then with a bit of disappointment in his voice replied "Do you know where he is?"

"No. Do you want the property management's office number?"

"No thanks." He turned and headed back to his car.

At that point a neighbor's car slowly drove by on our small street, and that's when I noticed the three police prowlers strategically parked in front of my house. Two other officers were positioned somewhere around the back of my house. The cops had us surrounded. Nomally, a car goes by once every 6 hours in front of my house, but of course one of my neighbors just happens to drive by at the exact time that my house resembled the Waco standoff.

What a great way to introduce ourselves to the neighborhood.

Written by Chris Johns

Reflections on our first week here

It's been a little over one week since we've arrived here in Atascadero. The move went fairly smoothly, our friends Corey and Jo Ann drove with us all the way up as well as helped pack and unpack us. They are two great friends that someone is lucky to find in a lifetime and we are going to miss being near them.

The cats made the trip relatively easily and enjoy having 3 floors of house to run up and down. There is a lot of strange wildlife for them to see from our new patio, and the kitties are definitely loving the view. Our back patio is a virtual squirrel superhighway. Large oak branches reach out over the entire patio creating a total canopy. Lily had a standoff with a fat Grey Squirrel the other day. I think the squirrel had about half a pound on her so I was glad when the squirrel eventually ran off.

It was over 100 degrees the first 3 days here, and our air conditioner was broken! While we waited for the repairman to eventually get here (our property management company is a little slow), we took some drives to Morro Bay where it was 58 degrees, a 40+ degree difference in only 25 minutes. Kinda nice to have the ability to escape the heat so easily.

The house is great except for the spiders. They are everywhere. We have two decks, and I found an infestation of spiders under both, so I gave them a good powerwashering and sprayed them with half a gallon of repellent. Fortunately, the spiders I saw were all of the daddy long legs variety, no black widows or brown recluse.

Every one we've met here so far has been eerily nice. I say eerily because one normally doesn't encounter this kind kindness and decency in general society except for church and Amway meetings. From the clerks at the grocery store, to the city council members at the local fundraiser, everyone has been so nice and welcoming. Kindness like this usually comes with some kind of catch, so we're waiting to find out what it is. Can people just be nice for no reason? Doesn't make sense.

More to come,
Written by Chris Johns