The Real Housewives of Denver County

I quit my job last week. Initially, I did this to take another job, but after a long discussion with Mike and some serious soul-searching, I turned the other company down. It didn’t feel right, and I am in a position right now to take some time to build on my freelance writing career. I will also be going back to school in the Fall. So, I am suddenly spending a lot of time in my house.

Normally, our house is empty all day. Blue and Fletch (dog and cat respectively) typically rule the roost while Mike and I are at work. When we are home on the weekends, we usually sleep late, and then take the dog hiking, and hang out with friends, and do all the other weekend things that keep us from noticing anything odd.

However, for the past week or so I have been getting up early, making coffee, and then working quietly at the computer in the living room for the better part of the day. What I have noticed is that there is some pretty weird shit that goes down around here while no one is watching.

Monday morning, I was sitting at the computer researching some freelance jobs when I heard two people having sex through the window right next to my desk. They were both engaging in a rhythmic moan reminiscent of bad porn. Immediately, I got up to look out the window, but as soon as I pulled back the curtains the moaning stopped. I started freaking out a little thinking that maybe they were watching me through the window and having sex at the same time. Yuck. I knew I was not that much of a turn-on in my thick glasses, dirty ponytail, and men’s pajamas, so I imagined that these were fetish people who get off on the unshowered, homely look. As I was thinking about this, I also realized that the noise was coming from the house next door which has been a vacant remodeling project for the entire year and half we have been living here. Were the construction people getting it on in the empty house? I do not need to know these things.

I went back to working on the computer and was at it for about ten minutes when the moaning started again. Seriously, people! It is 7:30 in the morning. Have you no shame?!?

I quietly opened the front door and crept out on to the porch. The moaning, seemingly coming from the upstairs window of the vacant house, continued right up until I let the storm door slip out of my hand and close with a bang. The sound stopped abruptly, and that is when I saw them. Two birds sitting on the upstairs windowsill of the house next door. Mourning doves. Their feathers were all puffed out, and they looked completely guilty. I was the only witness to their Bambi-style twitterpation, and they were angry that I had the nerve to interrupt them. I’m sure they weren’t doing anything wrong, but still, how can birds sound like that? I thought they were supposed to sound like they were mourning, not doing it! I felt so dirty. I can’t believe people keep those things as pets.

On Tuesday, I took Blue to the dog park in the morning for an hour or so, and when I got back my neighbor from across the street was outside working in her yard so we chatted for awhile in front of her house. After a few minutes, my tired dog fell asleep in the grass, waiting patiently for me to take him inside and feed him. The mailman came walking up the street, but stopped short when he saw Blue. “Is he under control?” he asked, slowly backing away.

I kind of laughed a little and looked down at my lazy dog who had barely lifted his head. “Uh, yeah,” I said with trace amounts of sarcasm, “he seems to be pretty under control”

The mailman gave me a dirty look and walked up our steps to deposit the mail through the slot in the front door, then wandered down the street to the next house. I laughed with my neighbor, “How cliche’, a mailman afraid of dogs.”

Today, whilst sitting at the computer again, I heard the mailman begin his ascent to the front porch. Blue immediately jumped up on the couch by the window and began barking in the most ferocious manner I have ever heard any dog bark. This is the same dog whom I let my niece and nephew climb all over, the same dog who licks babies, and snuggles up to sleep with my cat. He was barking bloody murder. He was dead serious. He was scaring the crap out of me and probably anyone else within a two-mile radius. Then, as the mailman lifted the little trapdoor to the mail slot, Blue sprung from the sofa, and jumped up to rip the mail out of his hand. I was sitting there at the desk staring at this completely aghast, speechless. The storm door closed. After shaking it back and forth in his jaws a few times, Blue dropped my Glamour magazine on the floor, and then he climbed back on the couch and was asleep within seconds. His work for the day was done. I went back to work, but not before writing myself a reminder to leave the mailman a hefty tip this Christmas.

There is a man who lives on the corner of my block who has a Chow Chow named Killer. I know this because when I was running out to my car to get my gym bag, he was walking up the street with his mangy-looking dog, and he said “Come on, Killer” and sped up.

Suddenly, I realized that the entire block smelled like a Snoop Dogg concert.

Sure enough, I looked at Killer’s master one more time only to see him smoking a joint in broad daylight. I’m sure it was for medicinal purposes only.

In addition to the strange goings on at home, I have been learning a lot about the things that happen out in the world while everyone else is at the office. Did you know that Home Depot opens at six AM? I took Mike to the airport early one morning only to drive by and see Home Depot packed. I was floored and decided that it was a perfect opportunity to buy some flowers for the yard. You would have thought I was invading some special club. There were no women in sight, and the place was full of contractors and construction workers (not that there aren’t females in this profession, there just weren’t any this time) making large lumber purchases, or buying six toilets at once. They were all kind of giving me a look that said I wasn’t allowed in there until later, when I wouldn’t be in their way. These guys have Home Depot all to themselves every weekday morning, and they didn’t want some civilian lady messing it all up, telling all the other soccer moms that they can go to Home Depot whenever they want to buy their flowers and gardening tools. Who knew?

I was in and out of my normally-packed grocery store in about four minutes flat on Wednesday at 2:30. There was not a soul in there except for a couple of old ladies at the pharmacy.

Post office? Empty.

Dry Cleaners? No line.

PetsMart? Blue and I had it all to ourselves.

I had no idea what I’d been missing out on working the nine-to-five grind shift all these years. In the wise words of Disney’s critically-acclaimed Aladdin, there is truly a whole new world out there. I can’t wait to pick the next place to go.

I can see Mike reading this right now thinking: You’d better be drumming up some more work here, woman. I’m not your sugar-daddy.

I’m on it, honey. I’m on it. As soon as I get back from the mall.

Fletch Lives

I have a cat. While I realize that this is not some big, amazing life accomplishment, most people are still surprised to hear it simply because I babble on about what a genius my dog is all the time. Yes, it’s probably true that I choose favorites, and am still more of a dog-person, but I do have a cat, and I even had him first, and he leads a very luxurious life full of food and lounging, just like any other happy cat. His name is Fletch, and he is actually pretty cute. He is also possessed by Satan.

When I moved into my very first apartment, the first one where I lived alone with no annoying roommates, my little sister gave me a housewarming gift disguised as a tiny kitten with black and white fur, a bright pink nose, and bright yellow eyes. At the time, there were no dogs allowed in my building, and I wanted to adopt something, and Fletch was a very affectionate and well-behaved cat. This was a time in my life when I wasn’t as well-behaved, living my roaring twenties to the fullest, but Fletch never judged. We lived very well together.

The first sign that something was amiss was when I was sent to LA for a week-long sales conference. I had Fletch for about a year when I got laid off from a writing job after the stock market crashed. I ended up selling insurance for a year, (also known as my least favorite job ever) and my company sent me to an intensive sales training seminar where I would be forced to schmooze with a bunch of sales-y jerks whom I loathed. My best friend volunteered to stop by my apartment every couple of days while I was gone to check on Fletch and get my mail and all of the things that good friends do while another good friend is out of town. The thing about my best friend is that she is allergic to cats. So while she spoke to Fletch on her visits, the actual physical contact was pretty much nil. I figured he would be OK, after all, cats are very independent and self-sufficient.

I returned from California with a headful of useless knowledge, a severe aversion to men in expensive suits, and the desire to sink into my couch with my sweet little cat and watch cheesy 80’s movies until I felt my personality regain consciousness. Little did I know the Stephen King tale that lurked behind my apartment door.

I walked in and dropped my suitcase by the door. “Hi, Fletchy!!” I cooed in the high-pitched voice that I reserve only for animals and select babies.

The cat meowed at the top of his little lungs as he ran towards me, then he rubbed furiously against my leg. I walked over to the sofa so that I could pick him up and snuggle him. He chose this moment to attack me. I’m not talking about a little bite or scratch; this cat attached himself to my bare arm with teeth and claws digging in. He kicked with his back legs into my soft flesh and let out a low guttural growl. In my shock and self-defense I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and yanked him off of my bloody arm. I tossed him to the ground where he landed gently on his feet, still staring me down. “What the hell is wrong with you, kitty?” I pleaded, wondering what sort of weird shit my best friend did to animals for kicks and if she was really the best friend I thought I knew.

I started to stand up from the couch when Fletch attacked again. He really seemed serious about killing me, and I was actually kind of scared. I was being attacked by a ten pound domesticated animal in my own apartment, in the middle of downtown Denver. The closest thing in my neighborhood to wild animals were a couple of questionable squirrels; so this just wasn’t making sense. I tossed him to the floor again and then got up and sprinted into my bedroom and shut the door. I was confused. When you are being attacked by your own cat, do you call 911, or the Humane Society? Or do you just have to find a shotgun and take care of things yourself, Old Yeller style?

I changed clothes, remembering to put on a huge sweatshirt to cover as much of my skin as possible, then I opened the door a crack and peeked out. No sign of Fletch. I rounded the corner, and there he was, curled in a little ball on the couch licking one paw, surely ridding his furry weapon of crime scene evidence. I approached him slowly, and he started to purr. I sat down on the opposite end of the couch, never taking my eyes from his. He stretched in that way that cats can stretch that makes them look like the most graceful creatures on earth. He walked over to me and I gritted my teeth, keeping my arms in front of my face so that the scarring would be minimal. I braced myself against an inevitable attack, but there wasn’t one. Instead, he climbed slowly into my lap, curled up, and went to sleep.

I have never really traveled that much for work, and so anytime that I have left Fletch since that fateful sales conference, it has only been for a day or two, and now there is the dog or Mike around to keep him company. The Pet Semetary incident of 7 years ago was, in fact, almost forgotten when Mike and I went to Europe for two weeks in October. For our trip, the dog went to my dad and step-mom's house where he is spoiled rotten and taken on approximately forty-three walks a day (my dad is convinced that dogs have no actual bladder and, therefore, need to be outside at all times in case they start leaking involuntarily) Fletch, however, did not luck out with a trip to Grandma and Grandpa’s house. Instead he stayed at our house. I enlisted two friends from work to each stop by every other day so that the cat would have a visitor every day. I told these friends that he would need extra love because he would be lonely. They accepted these duties without really understanding what might happen, and we left for Europe.

Two weeks later, back at the office, there had apparently been some gossip about me while I was gone. Basically, everyone seemed to believe a horrible rumor that I was housing a rabid cat who had attacked both of my friends and that they were scared to go back to my house. I pretended that I didn’t understand what anyone was talking about, then I slipped my cat-watching friends some Italian leather goods to keep them quiet.

My cat is a huge pain in the ass, and his tendency to attack is one of many little personality “quirks”, but he is normally a nice-ish cat, and I probably stretched the truth a little when I said he was possessed by Satan. He isn’t possessed, he just requires that certain rules are followed:

Do not, under any circumstances leave him alone for more than a day or two.

If you absolutely have to leave him alone, provide his caretakers with a couple of those leather arms that they use for training police dogs. Also, (see exhibit A) hide any furniture that you would like to still be intact when you return.














Oh, and whatever you do, don’t ever feed him after midnight.

The Ugly Duckling and His Fearless Leader

When I met my dog, Blue, at a rescue four years ago, he was about the ugliest little excuse for a puppy I had ever seen. I had no idea what breeds were mixed up inside of him, and he had a runny nose and two different colored eyes. One of his ears flopped over while one stood at attention, his tail looked like a droopy, grey feather duster dragging on the ground behind him, and his coat was at least six different colors at once. When I saw him, he was sleeping in the middle of a large pile of puppies. As I crouched down to get a better look at all of the slumbering miniature dogs, he opened one eye, it was brown, and then he opened his other eye, this one the palest blue, and he stared right at me through the bars of the pen. Slowly he stretched, trod clumsily over his sleeping brothers and sisters, and waddled over to me with his crazy tail in a slow wag, sweeping dirt back and forth on the floor of the enclosure. He was cute because he was a baby, but that was about the only thing he had going for him. He licked my fingers, and I scratched his homely little head then kept walking around to find the puppy who would become my faithful companion.
As I wandered around, taking in the other much more regal and beautiful puppies, it occurred to me that the unsightly little dog I saw first would probably get the snub from everyone who walked by him. Who would want to bring home a puppy that looked like a Star Wars character? What would happen to him if no one adopted him? I cursed my conscience as I made my way back to his pen. As soon as he saw me, he determinedly crawled over the other puppies again, stepping on ears and tails as he made his way, and came right back up to me, not breaking eye contact for a second. He nudged his nose under my hand, forcing me to pet him and stealthily closing the sale. I waved the rescue volunteer over and said, “I’ll take this guy”
The volunteer eyed me, but she did not ask me if I was sure. I think she had been in the business long enough to know a sucker when she saw one and to know that this puppy’s chances at a good life just improved greatly. She picked him up and handed him to me, and we bonded. This was going to be my best friend for the next ten to twelve years, I had better get used to looking at him.

In what is a rare, small dose of good karma in my life, Blue turned out to be a beautiful dog. His other ear straightened up, his tail started to take on a curl that made it look like a fancy plume in a pirate’s hat, and his two different colored eyes, which were just plain strange on a puppy, are actually quite striking on a large dog. We cannot go for a walk without someone commenting on how gorgeous he is. Upon hearing this, Blue will turn around and look at me with a very slight hint of “ I told you so” in his eyes. We owe each other for many things.
In addition to being a looker, Blue is also a really good dog. I worked hard to train him when he was a puppy, and that, along with the fact that he caught on really quickly, paid off. I used elements of the Monks of New Skete training method, which involves never using any negative physical contact, becoming your dog's 'pack leader', and never punishing your dog for something which you do not catch him directly in the act of doing. It was all about positive reinforcement. Blue has not had an accident in the house since he was ten weeks old, and he quit chewing anything that didn’t belong to him by 6 months. He sits, lies down, and stays on command. He comes when he is called (unless there is a squirrel involved) and he walks right next to me when he is off the leash (this was Mike’s training, not mine…credit where it’s due and all). Blue climbs mountains with us, camps like a pro, plays well with other dogs for the most part, and is well-behaved at my dad’s house on holidays. He has his quirks, but overall, he is a great dog, and I love him as if he were my own baby.

Blue and I lived a very peaceful existence for two full years, and then along came the second love-of-my-life.
Mike has always been great with Blue. They play together like little kids, and because of the way they roughhouse and wrestle around, Mike has become Blue’s alpha-male. So, awesome for me, my boyfriend loves my dog, and not-so-awesome for me, I no longer have my (sellout) dog’s undivided attention and respect. The little ugly baby I rescued, now turns to Mike for guidance and play. When I get home from work, Blue wags his tail and licks my hand, and then wanders off to find the cat. When Mike comes home, my dog can barely contain his excitement. Blue hears his car pull up, runs for the door, wags his entire backside, and pants like he just might not make it. I am the food-provider and the cuddler; Mike is Blue’s dad, pack leader, and best friend. Sometimes life just isn’t fair.

Because of Mike’s paternal role in Blue’s life, and now that we are all living together, it is only logical that he should have some part in the raising of the dog. Taking his alpha-male status at face value, and even keeping the chest-beating to a minimum, Mike has decided to work on some of Blue’s little quirks, the ones that, over the years, I have just accepted.

One of Blue’s said quirks is his innate ability to sense that there is food within his reach on the counter, and that there is no one around to stop him from stealing it. He has stolen a number of things from the counter while I have been gone. He once pulled an entire pan of lasagna down and ate all of it, approximately three pounds of Italian goodness, leaving the empty pan on the sofa looking as if it had just come out of the dishwasher. Other than a slightly distended belly, and skipping his dinner that night, the feast didn’t even faze my dog.
While somewhat irritating, I think that this is pretty normal dog behavior, and since I am aware of the problem, I have tried to modify my own behavior. I try to never leave anything within his reach, and, in turn, he has nothing to steal, plus my kitchen is much cleaner. But of course, whenever the human element is present, there is always room for error.
Friday night we were in a hurry. We had a busy weekend ahead of us, and we still needed to put up the Christmas tree. I was going to make chili on Saturday, so I pulled some frozen hamburger out of the freezer to defrost. I normally would have put it on top of the refrigerator, but I was doing too many things at once and forgot. So there it was, a pound and a half of frozen hamburger just sitting there for the taking. Insult to injury, Mike, who was also in a hurry because I was ordering him to be in a hurry, left a package of tortillas on the counter. We were already a couple of miles down the road to meet our friends when it hit me. “I left the hamburger on the counter. Crap.”
“Do you really think he’ll steal frozen hamburger? I mean since it’s frozen, he might not even be interested in it, right?,” Mike asked, not even remembering that he had left the tortillas out, too.
“Maybe not,” I rationalized right along with him “it should be ok.”

I knew that this was a complete farce and that Blue would indeed steal the hamburger, but we were already late, and I so I talked myself out of going back.
Two hours later, when we got home, Blue had, of course handily disposed of the hamburger and the tortillas, the empty packages strewn across the floor of the guest bedroom, evidence of the crime that had taken place. Time of hamburger death, between the hours of 7 and 9 pm. The guestroom is where Blue always takes his stolen treasures. I think that, because we don’t go in there that often, he thinks that the trash leftover from his little foray into thievery will go unnoticed.
I pictured Blue sprawled out on the floor in the guest room making little burritos with the tortillas and frozen meat, a dog- friendly version of the Food Network. He would say to his audience of Collies and Schnauzers, "Now you can defrost yours at home, but I prefer it frozen, fresh off the counter." I smiled at my mental movie, while Mike looked frustrated. “Aren’t you even going to yell at him?” he asked, incredulous.
I explained for the twelfth time that the training method I’d chosen to use with Blue instructed using angry words with your dog only if you catch him in the actual act of whatever horrible deed he may decide to commit. Dogs don’t have the cognitive ability to remember that the crime they committed an hour ago is the cause of the punishment they are receiving now; it wasn’t fair to punish him when we didn’t catch him misbehaving.
Mike was not really satisfied with this explanation because he knows, like I do, that Blue is fully aware when he has done something wrong. When we came home, he wagged his tail tentatively, but didn’t move from his perch on the back of the couch (another quirk). When I walked into the kitchen and saw the missing meat, I went straight to the guestroom to look for evidence. Blue took this opportunity to run right past me and out through his dog door. He hung out in the yard for a few minutes until he was sure that our lack of cognitive ability would prevent us from remembering that he was the prime suspect, and then he put just his head and front legs inside through the door and stood like that for a minute or two to make sure the coast was clear. Although I couldn’t see it, I’m sure his tail was wagging to and fro outside the house. He was toying with us.

The next day, as we were driving down the highway to a friend’s birthday party, Mike put his foot down; he does not like to be toyed with. “We really need to do something about Blue stealing food from the counter”, he said with authority.
I asked him what exactly he was proposing. I love my dog, but I am definitely open for good training possibilities, especially since Blue is usually pretty receptive. Besides, Mike is all “Dog Whisperer” now that he is Blue’s chosen one; maybe he had a plan. Mike began to wax intellectual about the finer points of dog rearing when a picture suddenly came into my head. Remember that Public Service Announcement from the 80’s about marijuana? I think everyone knows it. The dad in the commercial catches his son smoking pot and is yelling at him, “Where did you learn how to do this??!! WHERE???” And the kid is kind of cowering away from him, and then he gets brave for a second and says “I learned it by watching you, Dad. I learned it by watching YOU!!”
It was all very dramatic.

It occurred to me that Mike was just like this hypocritical, pot-smoking dad, except for that he doesn’t smoke pot, and he has a dog instead of a stoned teenager, and he is also thankfully minus that 70’s-porn-style mustache. But basically, the concept was the same. Mike had the audacity to be upset about Blue stealing food from the counter, when it is an activity that he himself engages in on a daily basis. I pictured Mike coming home from work while I’m making dinner and stealing from whatever pan or bowl I am using while I swat violently at his hand. He does this every single night. When we are on our way out the door to go to dinner, he will suddenly decide that he is too hungry to wait and he will go get a snack, even while I am yelling at him that we are on our way to an actual restaurant where they will give him some food (this is how the tortillas ended up on the counter in the first place.) If we make cookies, Mike has his fingers in the raw dough constantly even though I beg him to stop. When the recipe says it yields three dozen, I know that, at my house, it yields two. I have hidden things I don’t want him to eat in the very back of the freezer or pantry many times. He finds all of these items within mere minutes, a human dog, sniffing out frozen hamburger. Sadly, the Monks of New Skete training method does not work on him. I catch Mike in the act of stealing all the time, and I try the loud handclap and firm command that they recommend, but it just doesn’t work, even with his highly developed reasoning and language cognition skills.
So I have decided not to pursue any corrective actions where Blue’s counter clearing behavior is involved. I am going to put Mike in charge of that part of raising our dog. If my genius plan works, and if reverse psychology is still effective, they should both be cured any day now. Now where did I put those cookies?

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner...

The mayor stopped by my house a couple of weeks ago. The actual mayor of Denver.

Let me preface this by saying that I am sort of obsessed with Mayor Hickenlooper. Not only do I find his politics inspiring, but I also think he is just plain cool. Remember his dorky little self-deprecating campaign commercials where he was riding around on the scooter? I mean, what other “normal” politician does that? And what other large city has a mayor who owns a bar? Plus his wife is a writer, so I feel that he understands my creative plight, and that if he were to get to know me, he would really like me, too. In summary, I think our mayor is the best. He is trying to help the homeless and save the environment and make Denver a great place to live, and I just really like him. In fact, I’m not shy; I’ll say it. I LOVE MAYOR HICKENLOOPER!

I suppose I should also preface the story with the fact that this night in particular was Halloween. And the mayor lives in my neighborhood. Oh, and he has a son who is about 6 or so. And also, uh, he didn’t really stop by to see me, but instead to bring his son trick-or-treating. But still, he did stop by.

After having lived in an apartment for the past seven years, this was the first time that I have had my very own house, and therefore my very own trick-or-treaters vying for their chances to take my candy. I was so excited to hand it out that I rushed home from work and carefully prepared my stash. I made sure to purchase the good stuff, too, none of the crappy candy that kids hate. I was going to do this right so that these kids would be talking about me for years. There were Snickers, and Skittles, and Mike and Ikes, and KitKats, and Reeses Peanut Butter Cups. Oh yes, only the best for my very first trick or treaters.

The first group of kids came to the door. They rang the bell, and instantly my crazy dog decided that he was not down with little goblins and Power Rangers hanging out on our doorstep. As I opened the door, he started with his low growl and then crescendoed into his loudest, most ferocious bark. Blue is about the sweetest dog in the world, and he is usually a huge wuss. However, this night, he was determined to protect me from the throngs of 8-year-olds who were plotting to steal the chocolate that he would otherwise pilfer from the bowl while I slept, in turn, adding a trip to the vet to that week’s to-do list. He wasn’t going to give it up that easily.

When the next group of kids came to the door, I figured Blue would get the hang of it and calm down. Instead, he bared his teeth and started growling and barking again. This time, one of the kids on the porch burst into tears and turned and ran without even getting any candy. I could see that my suddenly certifiable Australian Shepherd was making damn sure that this would be my first and last year of catering to the trick-or-treaters of Denver. I could be giving out laptop computers next year, and they still wouldn’t risk ringing the bell. My dog was ruining Halloween, but I had an idea.

The weather was gorgeous, so I loaded up my arms with the huge orange bowl full of candy, my magazine, and a monster glass of wine and I went outside to sit on the porch and wait for the kids. Blue stared at me through the window as I flipped pages and sipped from my glass. He wore a look that said, “you will pay for this,” but I didn’t care; I was hell-bent on enjoying it.

The kids started to come in droves, and they were adorable. Chubby little pumpkins, a pair of identical-twin angels, a couple of those prostitute-y Bratz girls, a very believable Dracula, and even a little rap star with his own bling. I was loving it. My perfect neighbor from across the street came by with her daughter, world’s cutest two-year old dressed as a little, tiny, chubby-cheeked cow. We chatted for awhile, and then they headed back home.

Just as they were leaving, my favorite kid of night walked right up to me like he knew me. He was a Storm Trooper which, as a child of the 80’s, I totally appreciated. He said “trickertreeeeet” and I reached into the bowl and lifted a big handful of candy, about to drop it into his bag. He examined what was in my hand, then looked down into my bowl and said, “Actually, I’ll just pick my own” which he did. He deliberated, then selected two pieces and said “This will be fine, thank you” as if he were my boss reviewing a document I had just dropped on his desk.

I love kids who are so precocious like that. He was with a grown-up, a man dressed in all black, topped off with a witch’s hat. I looked up to see what genius had raised this adorable Storm Trooper. There, standing on my front steps, was the mayor, and in my infinite wisdom, with my internal editor completely starstruck, that is exactly what I said.

“Oh, the mayor is here,” I bleated out to no one in particular.

And I’m sure he was thinking no shit, lady, but instead he just smiled and said “Shhhhhhhh” because, with my highly intellectual and apparently somewhat loud words, I was giving away his presence to the entire population of the neighborhood.

That's when I saw him look directly at the biggest glass of wine in the world which just happened to be sitting next to my feet. I saw him look at it, and then he looked back at me and then immediately ushered his son back down the steps. I just stood there like the idiot that I was, devastated that I had just completely embarrassed myself in front of the man whom all of Denver would cheerfully elect President tomorrow if given the chance.

I’m sure that the mayor now thinks that I am the crazy lady of the neighborhood who gets drunk and tries to hang out with little kids for kicks. I’m sure that as soon as he was out of sight, he took away the candy I had given to his son and threw it in the bushes. I’m sure that he has probably placed me under some sort of government watch; if I look closely I bet I can see the undercover officers on stakeout in front of my house, blowing on their hot coffee, staring at my door, taking turns for bathroom breaks like on Law and Order. I’m sure of all of this.

Anyway, about twenty minutes later, I saw the mayor and his son again, this time walking up the other side of the street heading to my perfect neighbor’s perfect house. She opened the door wide, giving the mayor a glimpse of how the perfect residents of his city lived, gorgeous art, shiny hardwood floors, not a rabid dog in sight. She graciously introduced herself and made perfect small talk about the upcoming light rail projects and the Democratic National Convention coming in August. She did what I wanted to do, and she did it with style, and grace and without a gallon of cheap wine in her hand. I just sat there silently berating myself for being so inarticulate, and for wearing a ripped sweatshirt, and for not thinking to at least put my wine in an opaque plastic cup of some sort like all the other classy people would have done. I looked on as the mayor and my perfect neighbor chatted like old friends. Then it got even worse when the mayor turned around and caught me staring at him longingly over the top of my magazine. I was just innocently watching him and wishing that I weren’t such an idiot, but I am sure that, to him, my mournful gaze resembled borderline stalking. ARRRRRGGH! Why am I such a loser??

So, that was my Halloween experience. I finally met the mayor, and I acted like an enormous ass. I guess there is an upside, though, and that is that I will definitely get the chance to see my hero, the mayor, in person again. Unfortunately, it will be when he and his lovely wife pull up for their dinner date at my neighbor’s house next week. Why didn’t I think of that?