In Kazumi's Lair

*

Ah, my happiness.


*

The new job started this week. I have my own office, with a view and everything. Everyone is being very nice to me and treating me like a rock star. We had a swearing in ceremony this morning with the DA and all the staff and my old man and my brother were there. It was very nice. Sweet and they had all these flattering things to say about me and the other new guy they picked up, Terry.

I feel very good about the change. I'm leaving behind alot, but I don't regret it at all. The opportunity here is much greater, and I'm sure it won't be long before I'm back in the thick of things, working murders again and doing what I truly love.

In the meantime, I have plenty of time and privacy to work on my novel.

*

I wonder how they'll react to my artwork in the office?


*

You Will Be Free From Sorrow

*

Which are you?


*


You are both.


*

Train In The Three Difficulties

*

My apologies to everyone for being so long absent.


*

The big news for me is that I have left the Sheriff's Department. On Monday I start my new career with the District Attorney's Office as a DA investigator. For the past six months I've been going through the testing and application process. I was fortunate enough to take the top spot out of fifty or so applicants, and after the background, medical, and psychological exams I was offered the job.

What's it all mean?

Well, no more SWAT for Daddy. Also, no more shift work. No more of the regular cop stuff- handling calls, pushing a black and white, etc. So Yolie's happy about that.

As for me, it gives me the chance to stay in investigations for the rest of my career. Which is where my heart is. I start out in the basement, doing family support stuff, which is basically chasing down dead-beat dads for back child support. Which I can do with no problem. My goal is to work back into a murder cop, which will probably take me a couple of years. Maybe more. Maybe less.

My Dad just retired out of the DA's office as Chief Investigator last year. He was there for twenty-five years. So I'm following in his footsteps. He was a deeply loved and admired guy over there, so I'll be basking in the afterglow as Odom, Jr.

I am excited as can be.


*

When I promoted to Sergeant and left the bureau, I felt like I'd lost my bearings. For the last six months I've been sitting a desk, answering the phone and telling the dispatchers where to send the units, who can roll code, how many back-ups can go, who can join the pursuit, when the pursuit should be called off, making cops take the reports they don't want to take, handling citizen complaints, and doing man-friday chores for the Commander.

And calling every day I didn't eat my own gun as a victory.


*


Okay, what else.


At home, I've been working my ass off in the garden. Yolie and I built a meditation/yoga platform in the back corner, a 10x10 redwood deck that looks out over the whole garden. Today we bought a beautiful stone Buddha and set it under the arching branches of a low bush behind the platform in a secret little spot.

Also, tore the old trim off the shed/studio. Scraped and sanded and washed and primed and repainted and retrimmed and now my wife has the most beautiful little place.




Also, I found this watering trough on the side of the road and brought it home. It is now our Zen koi pond on the back deck.






lovely.


*

I miss you guys and I'm sorry I haven't even responded to your posts.


Hope this will make up for a little bit of that.


*


I am a blissed out little monkey.


*

Interlude No. 12

*

Beyond here be dragons...


*


Yesterday I got my wife really mad at me. She has asked and asked and asked me not to get involved in cop shit when I'm off duty, and I have done it again and again and again and she don't like it.


I don't like it either.


Yesterday it was a big old car wreck down the street from where we live. The sound of it drew me out of the backyard, and as I stepped out into the street I could tell it was bad.

Next thing you know, I'm running down the street.

No goodbye.

No "Hey, baby, I'm gonna go see if they need help."

No "Hey, baby, call 911. There's been an accident."

No, "Hey, baby, I'm gonna call 911, there's been an accident."


*

Just idiot me, running off.


*

So, I'm in the dog house now.


Deservedly so.


Like any idiot, I go in there trying to help the guy that got smashed, but then I see the other driver has run away and is hiding in the bushes by the river, so I go check out his truck and it's full of empties, etc. I end up detaining the guy until the real cops show up, and directing traffic cause it's in the middle of a blind curve at the bottom of a windy hill....

Last night I watched replays of it in my head and could see about a thousand different ways it could have got me killed and Yolie would have been at home not knowing where the fuck I was.

Sometimes I could just kick my own ass.

Like now.


*

Our daughter is home from her boarding school.


The fight is on.


It's on like Donkey Kong.

*

Man, I start out mad at her. Then she treats Yolie like shit and I want to take her to task for that, she freaks out, I lose it, etc.


So right now Yolie is:

A. Mad at me.

B. Heartbroken over Emily.

C. Mad at Emily.

D. Mad at me for getting mad at Emily.

E. Mad at me for being SUCH AN ASS! (My attribution, not hers.)

*



The nice thing about a crime in progress is that I can go in and unfuck it and take the bad guy to jail and everybody goes off happy. Or at least getting what they deserve.



This real life family shit. I swear to god.


*


I try to remind myself that this is all par for the course.


Still, I wish I was a little better behaved. I'm like a goddamn dog with a bone, man. You throw up some crime shit in front of me and I'm off. Oooh. Oooh! Ooooh!


*

Grow up already, would I?


*

Bat Girl

*

There are a handful of pictures of us together. Our faces side by side, touching. My face smiling, or serious. She always looks so happy, snuggled in close. Soaking me in.

*

That's when I was her Daddy.


*

Since turning forty I have been learning the art of accomodation. Really I am only getting the introductory course. Accomodation 101, freshman disappointment. I remember when she turned two and her mom and I used to miss that little fat baby she'd been. But we had that brilliant, vivid two year old and that almost wiped out the memory of the baby that came first. The same when she turned five, or seven, or nine. Eleven. Thirteen.

But this year its like some great tall-masted ship that's slipped her moorings and gone to sea in the middle of the night.


I'm standing on the end of the dock, a frayed line in my hand, bewildered, staring at the empty horizon.


*


She's going to be an incredible woman.


Just not soon enough for her.


*





Sometimes I just bust out sobbing for no reason at all.


*

In The Dinosaur Room

*

This was one of the glorious ones...


*

The sun rose and dragged a brilliant, clear blue sky up behind it. We spent the day digging in the wet dirt, weeding and planting in the garden. We went to Miner's Ace Hardware and bought sweetpea and morning glory and forget-me-not seeds, and a Spanish lavender plant. We bought Johnny-jump-ups and daisys and snapdragons and potting soil at the Cambria Nursery.

We ate garden burgers and chips on the back deck in the dappled shade under the Japanese Maple.

We got hot and bothered.

We went to All American Video and got "The Whale and The Squid" and "Capote."

*



I slept in our bed in the afternoon, exhausted and a little drunk.



*


Now Yolie is making her vegan cookies and some Brocoli-rabe and garlic pasta and positively glowing with beauty. My god, if I ever lost her you'd know about it. You'd read about it in the papers. You'd be able to see it from space. I must be something incredible because I know she loves me bad.


*


Oh, yeah. We cut about a hundred Calla lillys from the side yard and brought them into the house. They're standing up in vases in every room, white throated and green legged and yellow stamened and bold, sexy motherfuckers.


*

If I have to pay for this much pleasure I'll do it with a smile on my face.




*

I hope your day was every bit as sweet...



*