ciroccoj | blah day

Not looking forward to the summer with the little people. Daniel has gotten into saying "I'm BORED" whenever there's five minutes without thrilling activity, and Justin is just... Justin. Loud, rough, and destructive. Somehow I have to try to entertain one while keeping the other from destroying our entire home. Full-time, for four months.

Somehow I've got to get out and meet other parents, or I'll go nuts. Being around other parents always puts your own parental troubles into perspective, and gives you insight into your children's strengths and weaknesses, as well as your own. As well as giving you plenty of ideas about how to deal with day-to-day life. Trying to do it in a vacuum... not good.

So I finally get the little darlings to bed and think, OK, time to go work on my case comment. Which I'm actually kind of enthused about, now that I've done all the research. And what do I do instead?

therealjae's challenge, of course. Because that's good for 25% of my CRIM mark, right? After all, it's Law & Order, so that's related to law, right?

Anyway. Here's my sad little

Well, DUH.

Yeah, I know. Real eloquent, Lennie. But seriously, that's been my opinion on the subject since yesterday night. My daughter Julia says that whenever she's amazed at just how dense her old man can get.

I'm kind of amazed myself, actually. I mean... four years. I never clued in to what are pretty obvious clues, now that I think about it. And I'm a detective, have been for years. You'd think that would mean something. You'd be wrong.

Duh.

He never talked about his personal life, so I thought he was just kinda private. I knew he was single, so I teased him about it and implied he probably had an active nightlife. I mean, I partnered with Mike Logan. Do that for a couple years, and you're bound to think it's a law of nature that a young single guy in New York probably spends most of his off-hours bedding every available female around. It didn't occur to me to think there could be any other reason for that privacy.

There were other clues too, now that I think about it. A comment here, a look there. Unusual ease with some situations, unusual discomfort in others.

I dropped by his place unexpectedly last night, even though I know he doesn't like that - he's given me the Ed-annoyed look the two other times I've done it in the last four years. But it couldn't be helped. I was literally in his neighbourhood when I realized that our new vic's oh-so-forgiving ex-wife had been lying through her teeth that morning. She told us she'd seen him Thursday at nine, in his office. His e-mail account showed he'd been logged in from home at that time. God, I can't believe I even know what any of that means. I guess my last two partners and Julia have somehow managed to jam something of technology into my head.

So I got all excited and dropped by to see if Ed wanted to go pick up the ex for questioning.

If his answering machine has one of those time-stamp things, and Ed remembers that I looked a little off when he came out of the washroom (I'm sure I did), he's plenty bright enough to figure out that I heard the message that came in. I wonder if he'll say anything. Something tells me he won't.

The toilet flushed as the call came in, so I know Ed didn't hear the message himself. Didn't hear a man's voice on his machine, saying words that, if you were really, really naïve, you could interpret another way - I mean, I've heard black guys use that term of endearment with each other when I knew it didn't meant anything. But the tone really couldn't be mistaken for anything other than what it was.

"Ed, it's me. I'm... I'm sorry, babe. You were right, I had no right to... look, I'm really sorry. Gimme a call, please. I-I really wanna work this out."

This is your fault,

tobiascharity, I'm not totally sure why. But something you said got it started.

Don't know if I'll post to the challenge page, because I'm not sure it's fit for (semi) public consumption, but I just had to get it out of my head. If only Promises were this easy to get rid of.

Suggestions (like a title) or any beta-stuff would go over real well. Wait - does that qualify as feedback-begging? Let me run it through the AOL-translator first:

SUG3STIONS (LIEK A TITLE) OR ANY BTA-STUF WUD GO OVER R3AL W3L!!!!111

I like that site way, way too much.