TW: Shooting, gun death.

In the spirit of 2020 I must tell you that this past weekend, I conspired to have a sleepover with my youngest kid and one of her best friends. We planned to set up two tents in our back yard (social distance! Outdoor air circulation!) have the friend come over after dinner, never come in the house, and spend the night talking to their hearts’ content. I would bring them each a croissant baked in the oven, only touched by tongs, and they would eat them outside.

PS: These croissants from Trader Joes. Not an ad, just in case you live in the boonies like us and sometimes crave a fresh baked item.

We were scheduled for Thursday evening. Our town woke up Thursday morning to an active shooter lock-down and manhunt for a guy who’d allegedly killed a man and shot a police officer. Which I guess is just a microcosm of 2020; both the horror at a grand scale and fears for personal safety, but also trying to get some zoom meetings done over screaming police sirens and circling helicopters, all while furtively scrolling twitter for breaking news. Because if you cancel a zoom meeting every time some bad shit is happening in 2020, you’re never going to get anything done.

Also very 2020, I could/could not believe this actual US representative immediately came out with this statement as events were unfolding and while I’m pretty sure nobody had solid, sourced information on  the shooter’s motivations*

which was super not helpful in my search feed while trying to find out if I could leave my house. Thanks, asshole.

In what will probably be my kid’s childhood memories same as I think of TAB cola and getting to stay up late to watch the series finale of M*A*S*H, the shooter died in a blaze of gunfire, injuring several deputies in a field we drove by the next day and that the kids remarked upon (OH, look! It’s the place from the news!) and therefore Social Distancing Sleepover was back on.

It was kind of nervous to let the kids sleep outside and on their own, but our bedroom faced their campsite, so we left the windows open. These two kids are tremendous talkers, and care not for sleep, so I also reminded them to keep it to whispers after 10:00, because with the weather all the neighbors probably had their windows open.

But of course, there were outbursts of wild giggling and moments of loud talk past ten which made me sleep uneasily, nervous the neighbors would get annoyed. Sure enough, I woke a little past midnight to the children talking too loud in concerned tones and an adult woman answering them, the first words I understood being, “I’ll talk to your mother in the morning.”

I cringed, figuring the neighbors were filing an official complaint with my daughter and her friend now, me in the AM. It made sense; it had woken me as well. I was so irritated and sad and guilty and raw from the stress of the shooting earlier that day, I didn’t go down to smooth things over. Honestly, I’d told the kids already to keep it down once that evening and on several previous sleepovers when they’d woken me with their late night cackling, and so I figured I’d let them stew in it.

A few minutes later, a tentative knock at the bedroom door. Probably the kids, confessing they were in trouble.

But when I opened the door, it was just my daughter. “{Friend}’s gone,” she said.

And it was every Polly Klaas Elizabeth Smart nightmare and I ran screaming down the stairs to call the police, until my kid clarified the friend had gotten scared, called her mom, and gone home. That was the woman’s voice I’d heard outside. The neighbors weren’t even pissed, it had just been the mother collecting the daughter.

I still didn’t believe it entirely and dialed the friend’s mother, who confirmed she had the daughter safe. And then we all went to bed because if 2020 has taught me anything, it’s that no matter what happens, you kind of just accept, and cry if you need to, and when appropriate, go the fuck back to bed.

*His claim did not make sense to me for the location of attack either; at least in our town, all the protests were peaceful and sure as shit nobody was carrying a sign saying that or it would have made the news.

#

In other news, I had a very weird spider interaction yesterday. If it continues, I guess I will have to blog about it, as it seems weirdly meaningful in some bendy-reality way. Real time twitter commentary starts around here

A weighty spider just fell off my head, tumbled through my eyelashes, bounced down my cheek and disappeared into my lap. I don’t even mind spiders BUT THAT WAS A BIT MUCH.

— Anne Nahm (@AnneNahm) June 12, 2020

Ok this is gets weird. Spider is now following me around the house.

— Anne Nahm (@AnneNahm) June 13, 2020

but the updates are half unthreaded as I live a messy, complicated life. Also hit some kind of twitter milestone and was accused of fat shaming the spider. Maybe they have a point? Am trying to be more aware of my biases.

Finally, if you like Shirley Jackson, and gothic horror, and Elizabeth Moss, AND you have Hulu, SHIRLEY is worth checking out: