clouds in a big clear sky

Out the window of our highest room, the library, this morning.
I could have taken the photo from the yard, but to show that we can see that from inside the house seemed cooler. Kirby was asleep up there, so I very quietly opened the venetian blinds. Yeah. That's never quiet. But he courteously pretended to still be asleep (or maybe slept through it).

Marty wasn't home this morning, so we figured he stayed somewhere, and we speculated this and that. After a couple of hours I called him. He's at my friend Jon's house, housesitting. Oh yeah! I had forgotten, and he had never told Keith-the-dad. He wasn't in trouble, we were just curious. We're short cars; he has one. There was an aspect of practicality, too.

Tomorrow/Monday, Marty finishes his 15 hours of community service. He's working in the Red Cross office. Last week he cleaned the yard and trimmed bushes or something, and inventoried all their furniture. The reason Marty was sentenced to do community service is that he was playing on steel slides in a city park late at night. He knew there was a closing time on the parks. He knew they could've run when the police car pulled up (as one of the four people who were there suggested). But he didn't. And they were the third group he'd had to run off from that park the same evening, so he ticketed them all. Because they went to different judges, one had to pay $51 court costs. One had to take a class to improve her character and pay for it ($100), and two got community service (with the option to take the class, or to pay costs or fees and do five hours of roadside weeds and trash). They both chose the 15 hours and no fees.

So Marty is some kind of criminal, who left a party where there was liquor and music to go to a quiet, dark park to play on the slides. I can't be very ashamed of a criminal like that. They weren't drinking or using drugs or making out. They were playing on the slides. Three of them were 18 and one was 21. And Marty was very responsible about showing up to court dressed nicely and all that. It's all a learning experience.

But the best part was when he was first talking about having chosen the Red Cross office over doing 15 hours of data entry for another The American Cancer Society (as Brett chose), he was totally cheery about it. He said "Maybe I'll meet the girl of my dreams, or maybe I'll discover I like working for the Red Cross."