Mysteries And Yarns From The Semi-Rural East (Bay)

Faced with “Yes, This is Why You Live in California” weather we fought the call of the Pacific and stuck to our posts here in the center of things – the 24/680, aka “The Numbers.”

Outwardly quiet, our immediate area of coverage has not been without its share of oddities and occasional examples of Antisocial Personality Disorder. Some of you may have encountered the angry young man flashing a pistol and promising all sorts of dire acts if he didn’t get his way on Highway 24 today. No one hurt but some motorists were rendered shaky as a 007 Martini as this pistolero made his way west. We’re told he may have loosed a couple of rounds around Oakland, scared a few more people, and prompted the closure of a stretch of highway as CHP officers combed the roadway for telltale shell casings.

Making our way around town but careful not to anger anyone we picked up word of a burglary in the Upper Happy Valley area of Lafayette, with police and those cool CSI folks you see all over television on the case. We’ve asked but haven’t heard anything back from the local gendarmes, and of course we’ll update the story or Flash our subscribers with an alert should additional details come to light.

UPDATE: In the face of repeated and insistent questioning from neighbors and without any information from police we can say the burglary appears to have been substantial and occurred at a home on Estates Drive. The residence may have been entered in an unusual manner. If as we heard it, there may be additional factors of interest in this instance.

While we were in Lafayette we also checked to see if some hand grenades discovered during the cleanup of a local garage were active or of the de-militarized variety, preferring to have the latter in our garage if you absolutely have to have some pineapples handy. No word from the Dudes in the Big Green Suits on that one, either, but we haven’t heard anything larger than an M1000 cook off around here lately so that’s a good sign. Be careful when you’re rummaging through Dad’s or Granddad’s footlocker – those guys brought back all kinds of stuff, some of it ‘splody.

Being notoriously Noise and Fragmentation Averse we steered clear of a certain Concord neighborhood where the residents are engaged in sonic warfare – one side blasting window-warping music of a certain type until a Local Codger we of course cannot support but who we totally understand unleashes a police siren in retaliation. Fun, eh?

We understand suburban songbirds are using more and longer high frequency songs, or increasing the frequency of their low frequency notes within a song, due to competition from we bipeds. We also couldn’t help but notice that orcas have sunk 3 boats in European waters recently, apparently in retaliation for a “critical moment of agony” we Homo stupidicans inflicted on a teaching member of their population. Consequences for long unpunished actions must be weighed, we feel, especially when dealing with a species better in the water than us, bigger, faster and with really big teeth.

And who wouldn’t be angry after years of capture, confinement in comparatively tiny habitats and prodding by hoomans tricking you into performing all sorts of unnatural acts in exchange for a moldy Mullet carcasse?

Speaking of unnatural acts we understand a couple of local geezers opted to absorb some of this available sunshine by climbing onto their roof – in itself no big deal – but then stripping off and going au naturel in order to maximize their vitamin D levels. Now, there was a time when we patronized certain beaches given to such a pastime and we were in sufficient shape that no one fell ill or ran for their car and, yes, it’s an enjoyable way to spend some time. But you may want to make sure the neighbors are on board if you decide to do it locally, and that they don’t have binoculars.

Have fun out there… ‘Burblandians.