Easterobbers.

This weekend started weird and only got weirder as it went on.

With an exception...Friday afternoon I learned I will definitely be able to graduate with two degrees. For once I've done something good this semester. I might have to take summer school if my petition doesn't fly with the College of Liberal Arts, but I'm walking in May.

Friday night was an attempt to have fun downtown. It was okay. However, by the end of the night one of us (not me) was too intoxicated. It was a messy drunkenness. The four of us got back to Andrew/Lauren apartment complex. We thought Lauren was still downtown and we noticed a guy smoking a cigarette in front of her door. It was weird, but nothing against the law. Then we saw him walk into her apartment, even weirder. We got worried and called her, but it turned out she was already in there with another friend. Meanwhile, the night dragged on while we waited for this friend to calm down and return home.

The next day was wasted sleeping until the afternoon. Andrew and I decided to go to Lake Travis, but first we needed pizza. Then shaved ice. By the time we were leaving for the lake it was around 6PM. I thought we could at least see the sunset--looking on the positive side of things.

While we were on our way there my mom called me and informed me that my gerbil, Olive, who's been sick for a long time, finally died. My mom went upstairs and saw that there had been a bloodbath in the cage. Apparently a large tumor on Olive's stomach had exploded. Basically, my gerbil blew up. According to my mom it was very bloody and there was a hole in Olive's body. My sister, who was visiting my mom at the time, said it looked like Olive got run over. My mom threw the whole cage away because nothing could be salvaged. Olive was old and had already had a stroke. He hobbled around and couldn't really see or hear. It's probably better he finally died, but in such a terrible way, it's so sad. I know that if I'd been there I would have cried when I saw it. Now I'm just down to one hamster.

Back to the lake story. We'd taken Andrew's car. He started to notice that it felt like the clutch was going out. We didn't worry about it too much. However, we got to big hill and it started slowing down. I know very little about cars and at that point even I could tell something was so wrong. It died on the hill. Luckily his AAA saved us. We got towed back to his apartment.

Now it's Saturday night. Nothing is going on. It felt like a Monday night. Then we realized it was Easter weekend. We ate left over pizza, rode around on a skateboard, looked up funny pictures of Hillary and Obama and tried to think of something to do. We were going to make a fire in my backyard so we walked to my house. At my house we ate pita and hummus and watched part of Saturday Night Live while I read some funny excerpts from my journals from high school. Finally we decided we had to leave for some energy. We drank coffee at Epoch. Mine tasted like Spain. Then we went back to Andrew's again to see Lauren. She went to bed and we had to leave again because there was nothing to do. We went to the store to buy crayons but it was closed because of Easter. We finally bought 64 colors at CVS, went to my house and drew on big pieces of paper until I crashed from the extreme caffeine buzz.

Today we had plans to try to go back to Lake Travis in my slightly more dependable car. We made biscuits in the kitchen. Maybe they were Easter biscuits; they were Grands. Wow. Yum. My roommate left right before we did to go eat Easter with her family. We left at about 2:15PM and got out of control trying to find a place to enjoy Lake Travis. By 3PM we finally found something and my phone started ringing. I noticed it was my other roommate but since I was driving I let it go to voicemail. I listened to the voicemail on speakerphone and as soon as I heard it I pulled over. It just said to "call back right away." Scott's tone of voice scared me. It wasn't messing around. I KNEW something was wrong. I tried to remember if I turned off the oven (YES)...if I locked the front door (YES). When I called him he said someone kicked in our back door and that I needed to come home right away. I asked if stuff had been taken and he said "Oh yeah." Expletives all over the place. I immediately thought of my laptop. Life without a computer is not worth living for me. I called my parents, whimpered and whined, swore some more. Started imagining what they could have taken. I have a few valuable things, but for the most part my room is a collection of different things that only have value to me. Artifacts from my life. A bunch of clothes. A few electronics. A hamster. There's not much some thieves could want. I worried anyway.

When I got back I felt like I got out of the car before it even stopped. Scott said he hadn't been in my room. I ran up there and saw my shining, white laptop. I hugged and kissed it. All my stuff was spared! I live tucked away in the attic and I guess they hadn't made it up there. It was a selfish Easter miracle for me, but I still had to think about the rest of the house and my poor roommates. They mostly took stuff from our living/dining room and the extra bedroom that's like an office. Scott had thousands stolen, mostly videogame stuff, DVDs, music stuff and his expensive toolbox of tools. My other roommate had her laptop stolen. The police came over and dusted for fingerprints and got all our information. Someone had already called the police about suspicious activity...that suspicious activity had been in our backyard. Apparently they his the stuff in our backyard which attaches to a little road/alley. Then they got a car and loaded it all in. This is when the neighbor saw them. It was a couple of Hispanic males in a crappy car. I talked to the neighbor later and he said they looked like "scary ex-cons" with shaved heads. It makes me shiver.

The scariest part of this whole thing is that someone was paying attention to our habits or watching us. Then, that people were in our home. Scary people that we don't know. I walk around my house now thinking of all the easy ways someone could come in, though now we're going to fix all of those things so no one comes in again. I don't want to be alone in the backyard. I don't want to be home alone at all. And they had to do it on Easter. And in broad daylight. When the police were over at our house a neighbor came by and mentioned that the house next door is a halfway house. Another thing we didn't know. There's no link between that house and the robbery, that we suspect, but now I guess we understand our neighbors a little better. Initially I wanted to move out because I didn't think I could sleep at night knowing someone was in the house without our permission, but now I guess I can deal with it. As long as someone else is there.

Lock your doors. Hide your stuff. Be suspicious.

I'm just saying.