We have a friend, who used to be the bar manager at our local watering hole, who is now a cop with Rochester. He also patrols our area and once in a while, when he gets his break for lunch, he comes to our place to eat. He is just so happy to eat with normal silverware, watch a little TV and for once not eat in his patrol car.
The first time this happened, the next day, all our neighbors were oh-so-eager to talk to us. "Hey, how are things going?" "Everything going okay?" While our immediate neighbors know what D does for a living, we still figured that those who live more than two houses away were quite intrigued that a patrol car was in front of our house for, oh, about 29 minutes.
"Lunch 'hour'" has evolved since then, to grilling out, salads, soda, and 3-5 officers. Our dogs love it. And to be honest, having a few patrol cars parked in front of our house is better than any home security system we could buy. It truly says "don't f*ck with this house". Today it was burgers, hot dogs, chicken kabobs, spinach salad and cole slaw, and three officers.
(Actually, all this stuff was prepared yesterday because that's when D told me they were coming. Our friend said they would come over Sunday. Dave thought Saturday was Sunday. Thankfully cops don't mind leftover, reheated kabobs (I did grill fresh hotdogs and burgers though).)
While D and the po-po talked about their latest busts and while I really have nothing to contribute to the conversation, I still enjoy cooking "for the boys". Especially on a holiday weekend when people in the 'hood, where I live, tend to get a little rowdy and, thus, the cops a little busy. It's the first holiday since school was released for the summer, and even on our evening walks with the dogs we hear the rowdiness at many houses at night. RPD has gotten a lot of sh*t lately with the Emily Good saga (to which there is more of a story than what has been presented via the media). Although I'm not a cop, I've been in their position - having to search people while working security checkpoints in Iraq. I'll reserve my opinion of the outcome and potential implosion of a pending lawsuit, but I will say thing...I don't blame the cop one bit for being uncomfortable.
Tomorrow, D and I are participating in one of the local 4th of July 5ks. While I was supposed to get a 5 mile run in today, I really was not feeling up for it, which was my own fault. I am a bit dehydrated, and I promised myself that starting tomorrow, I'll commit to my "Advanced Marathon" training plan in earnest. I don't have a marathon on my radar, but I'm simply doing the plan to have some sort of schedule and to increase my base mileage.
I haven't been a total slacker - I did a VERY hard and VERY hilly 36-mile bike ride Monday, and a tempo run and a 9-miler this week. The bike ride killed my running week in general - I need to cut these shorter.
So, I don't feel too bad about skipping a day here and there. :) Although my excuse of "I just ran Sehgahunda" is getting a bit old, I'm sure!
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