the place to be...

I was debating on whether I would write this on my blog or not.  But I figured, you don't know who I'm talking about anyway (the names have been changed to protect the innocent) and this would be one of those strange stories that either I or Jerome would tell you when we saw you next, so what the heck.

Last Saturday we had a graduation party to attend in Livonia (Aino-Vil, as my co-worker calls it).  We were there for several hours and on our way home, we stopped by my brothers place in Commerce Township to visit.  We stayed for about 45 minutes and then headed home.

By the time we got home, it was very dark and as we approached the back door, we noticed a note taped on the glass of the storm door.  Jerome tried to read it in the dark and thought it was from an old acquaintance Jean-Marc (the baker).  I snipped at him to wait until we got into the house and turned on the lights to see who it was from (I do not understand his propensity to try to do everything in the dark, when it's so much easier just to turn on a frickin' light!).  Anyhoo...he finally read the note and it was from a girl that used to work with the previous owner at the library.  She also happened to be the ex-girlfriend of Jean-Marc (the baker).  She's come over to the house on a couple of occasions when we had a dinner party, but it has been about 3 or so years since she's been to the house.  The note said she had stopped by and said she liked the porch (above the garage); actually, I think she called it a shed.

Well, we were sorry we had missed her.

The next day I went up to the porch/deck/patio (still not really sure what to call it, so mostly we say "upstairs" - which is also confusing since we have an upstairs in the house) to continue painting the rafters.  That's when I noticed a purse and a scruffy looking rain jacket sitting on the couch.  I thought about the possibility of some teenagers using our deck in the middle of the night.  I walked over to check to see if anything was in the purse and it was empty.  I also came across a pencil sharpener on the table.  It was an odd find, but I quickly realized that these items must be (we'll call her) Lady R's.  So, I went on to Facebook (because I remember seeing her there as one of the previous owners friends) and sent her a message.

Later in the day, we were visited by our across-the-street neighbor, Al.  As he passed me and headed toward the garage to visit with Jerome, he asked if we were out yesterday evening.  I said yes, that we were at a graduation party.  He then told Jerome that we had a visitor that evening.  We said that we knew that Lady R had stopped by because she left a note.

He told us that he noticed her looking in the garage windows and then walking toward the steps that lead to the upper garden.  Then he didn't see her any longer.  He said he got curious and walked across the street (since he didn't see our car either). He found her on the couch on the deck and asked her who she was and if she lived in Romeo. She told him her name and said that she knows Jerome and also that she knows Terry (the previous owner). Al said that when she said she knew Terry, he thought uh-oh, is this a stripper that Terry knew? But soon came to the realization that Lady R was not a stripper...because of the obvious (flat as a pancake, as he put it). Anyway, he let her be and walked back home.

He came back about an hour later, as it was getting dark and wanted to be sure this person was not still there. However, she was - and she was sleeping on the couch. He woke her up and said to her that she seems like a nice girl but since we are not at home and he doesn't know her, he would ask her to leave before he needed to call the police.

He said she got up kinda slowly and finally left. He said that when he first noticed her, she was walking on the next door neighbors front lawn and then turned onto our driveway - she had walked there - and so she walked back (home?).

He jokingly asked if we were running a flop-house.  And as it turned out, we did have an overnight guest the night before.  One of our MINI friends who lives in Canada spent the night after having dinner with us at another MINI friends house.

We sort of had a puzzled feeling the rest of the day.  We hope she was alright because we know that she has some health issues.  That's about when I noticed that in the recycle bin there were a couple of other notes from the same notepad that Lady R left her note to us on.  I read them both; one said to remember to ask Chris out to dinner and the other had three different kinds of medication names, which happened to be seizure medications.

The next day was Monday.  It's my day off and I was doing my morning cleaning.  I was taking a vase of water from an already spent flower outside to throw onto some dehydrated plant when I noticed our "neighborhood watch" Al with his bike and sporting his bike helmet.  He was on the driveway, just parked his bike and was starting to walk toward the steps to go up to the deck!  I surprised him. He said OH! I didn't know you were home, I thought you were at work. There were some awkward pauses and then he said he was going up to the deck to see if I had anymore boarders.

I found this hysterical and I called Jerome once Al left.  Jerome (he's so quick witted) said I should have said to Al that he seems like a nice guy but he should leave before I need to call the police. LOL!

Anyway, we just had a good laugh about that. The deck must be the "place to be".