No Escape

I over estimated in thinking I’d have no contact with the folks for another two weeks.

Ran into The Baker and another resident at the market.

Baker said, “I just noticed they have gluten-free cupcakes in the Bakery section. If I bought you some, could you eat them?”

The Baker is just the nicest, sweetest, most thoughtful person you’d ever meet, always wanting to do something for someone, but I had to let her down.

“No, because it’s not just the gluten. It’s the high fructose corn syrup, baking powder, which has corn starch in it, regular butter and regular sugar”.

These things I know because I’ve learned the hard way – trial, error, cooking something with everything I think wouldn’t set off a gut reaction, only to get sick, go back and read what was in every ingredient until I pin-pointed the problem, which generally is some version of soy, corn, wheat and put the product on my never again list.

The Baker then said, “Well, what if you gave me some recipes?”

I can do that, but I probably won’t because she has no idea how many ingredients she’ll have to stockpile that she normally doesn’t use.

Next on The Baker’s mind was, “Everyone’s talking about seeing police on the complex this morning, wondering what it was about.”

Believe it or not, I knew the answer.

“That was a welfare check on my elusive downstairs neighbor”.

Shortly after 10:00 this morning, I heard voices underneath my patio. Looked out and observed Complex Manager and both maintenance guys.

Few seconds later, they were joined by two police officers.

The group then walked to the door of the unit beneath me, where the weird resident lives. The resident who is never seen because she comes in late, leaves early for work, doesn’t talk to us the few times we’ve seen her taking out trash or heading to her car, except to tell me, when I welcomed her to the quad, “I don’t like people!” (with considerable emphasis added). She evidently also doesn’t like sunlight either, because she never opens her patio doors to let in fresh air, and keeps all her blinds shut tight.

At any rate, Community Manager knocked on the resident’s door.

No one answering, she opened and let the officers in to take a look.

The officers came out smiling.

Complex Manager looked relieved.

I really think they thought she might be dead in there.

She’s not old, probably barely over the required 55 years of age, so I don’t know what prompted the Welfare Check, but she's fine. I hear her coming in most nights, lately with male company.

Returning to the complex from the market, more contact with residents was made when I walked through the corridor, heading to the mailbox, and noticed something new had been added.

A fairly new resident has opened a nail salon.

Moving on up.

THEN, the resident I’ve only once or twice mentioned in this blog as Casino Lady, because she used to work at one, approached me about that pervert who jumped the fence, tried to corner me at the mailbox area and exposed himself.

She thought what I’d originally thought, that inasmuch as management had him on video, they should post a photo of him, from waist up of course, so residents will know who to be on the lookout for, and tells me she's taken it upon herself to request management do just that.

Management told her it's not legal for them to do so.

Not satisfied with that, she went to the police department with the issue and was told the police department could not release a photo from the video either, but management can do so with the victim’s consent.

She said, “I plan to bring this up at tomorrow’s Residents/Management meeting” and wanted to know if I, as the victim, would consent to the pervert’s photo being posted.

I don’t like that word, victim, but “Hell yeah! Post him everywhere.”

That guy so rattled me that I’m still overly nervous and jumpy. I want him caught. Besides, knowing they are being taped, and photos will be posted, might deter others from the multi-family complex next door from jumping the fence, for whatever purpose.

I wasn’t planning to attend tomorrow’s meeting, but now I'm there.