The Mayor and the Crazy Cat Lady

Today is the first day that I will be responsible for closing up at the Lincoln Home, so I don't have to go to work until 11:00. It's nice to have a little break in the morning, but I won't get to leave work until 7:30 p.m. Over the weekend, we transitioned to our "extended hours" schedule which will last until Labor Day. The park will be open from 8:30 a.m. until 7:00 p.m., and since I am one of only six people who have keys to all of the buildings, I will be responsible for closing one night each week. Considering the presence of all the psycho people who wander the streets of Springfield, I was a little nervous to think that I might be the only person there until 7:30. But I found out yesterday that one of the law enforcement rangers will be there with me--so that is good.

But anyway, after the excitement of the tornado a couple of weeks ago, I failed to write about one other item of interest: our crazy cat lady neighbor. Remember a couple of months ago when I wrote about our neighbor who ran for mayor of Athens and only received six votes (when the winner and runner-up both received over 200 votes)? Well, Greg and I now jokingly refer to said neighbor (just between ourselves) as "the Mayor." The crazy cat lady is the Mayor's wife. They are quite the neighbors. Their house is totally scary, and their kids are really rude. The Mayor and the crazy cat lady are always outside yelling at their kids, and the Athens Police show up at their home quite frequently.

So it was the day of the tornado, and Greg and I having just seen on the Weather Channel that we were under a tornado warning, packed up the animal children and ran out to the car (we were going to head over to the safety of the funeral home basement). I had just gotten into the car with the children when the Mayor's wife came storming over into our yard. (She definitely seemed intoxicated.) She walked up to Greg and screamed, "You guys stole our cat!!!!" That caught us both off guard. He said, "No, we have our own cat." She shrieked: "No you don't! You stole Bob our cat!! I demand to see the cat in your car!" Greg was trying to get her to leave so that we could leave, but she was acting really crazy. So he took Lily out of the car and said, "Look--is this your cat?" She said, "No, that's not Bob." But then she was still freaking out, and her kids came over and were acting really ridiculous, and Greg told them that they really needed to leave us alone. So we got in the car and drove to the funeral home. As if the tornado wasn't already enough to worry about!

Later that day Greg was able to talk to one of the police officers and tell them about the incident. The police lady asked who it was, and when Greg told her she just rolled her eyes and said, "Well, that doesn't surprise me." She told us that we can call the police anytime the Mayor and his crazy cat lady wife bother us.

Speaking of tornadoes, I took this picture from our car when we were driving home the other day after taking Mom to the airport in St. Louis. We were just south of Litchfield, Illinois, and there were some serious thunderstorms blowing in. I was sure that this was a tornado forming, but it ended up being what they call a "teaser." It's just rain that looks like it's turning into a tornado. On Tuesday while I was at work, something kind of funny happened. The church right next to our bus parking lot has a food pantry. A number of us rangers were sitting out by the bus lot waiting for the school kids to arrive, and we were watching some of the happenings over at the food pantry. A red convertible Camero pulled up, and the couple inside who looked like they had come into some hard times, got out and started loading food items into their trunk. There was definitely something wrong with that picture--a red Camero? Maybe if you drive a Camero you don't have enough money to buy things like food? It was kind of strange. In fact, the whole Springfield area (including Athens) is kind of strange and funny.