Man, I turn my back for five minutes and all hell breaks loose.
Well, not really, but still, much has happened in the past 24 hours. First and foremost we closed on the house. I would have put an exclamation point on that sentence, but I'm too exhausted. The stress surrounding this whole process has left me weak and ineffectual (more than usual, even). And we still have to actually move in, which happens Monday. I did hire movers, but we're packing everything, throwing stuff out, and of course spackling everything that isn't moving under its own power.
The closing was actually pretty interesting, watching three lawyers and a title closer throwing papers at each other, babbling into cell phones, running to fax machines and copiers, checking each others' math, making small barbed statements about each others' work, and finally, regaling us with an anecdote about the family dog's inflamed anal gland. If I was already tired before the closing started, I was totally comatose by the time we left. Yay, we own a house. Yay. I'm sure I'll be more excited once we're moved in and I have some time to rest.
So while we're dealing with the house yesterday, Arthur Wood was getting hauled away in handcuffs. Apparently Broken Angel received and Order to Vacate, and of course they did not vacate. So the cops showed up and put handcuffs on a 75 year old man. You know, in case he got violent. Reportedly, the Woods are staying with their son somewhere in Park Slope until the issues get resolved. That sucks for many reasons, among them the notion that we won't get to see Arthur before we move. Jeannie has always been friendly with him, living around the corner since 2000. If the worst happens and they're never allowed back inside Broken Angel, we might never see him again.
One brighter note: the woman who was attacked the other night seems to have found the perpetrator. As noted before, he dropped his cell phone, from which a fingerprint was taken. She went down to look at some mugshots and ID'd the guy, and the fingerprint matched the man she picked out. Now apparently the way it works is they're keeping an eye on the guy for the time being while they swear out a warrant to arrest him. Who knows what will happen now, but at least the system seems to be working so far.
Speaking of which, here's a couple of sites that allow you to map sexual offenders. Their locations are all a matter of public record, so I guess there's nothing really wrong with this, but it does skeeve me out a bit for a couple of reasons. One is the Big-Brotherness of it, but the other is damn, there are a lot of sexual offenders out there! There are many in the Clinton Hill area, and many more in Bushwick, where we'll be moving in a few days. Part of me is glad to have the info, but another part of me would like to have remained just a little bit more ignorant in this regard.
