Just when I said it couldn't get any weirder... it did.  She's baaaa-aaaack!  What?  Who's back?

After a long and difficult weekend in San Diego (see Danse Macabre), Wendy and I went into LA on business yesterday - an excursion which begins in the early morning and often does not end until after midnight.  It was on the trip home that I got a call from the housesitter and was informed that Charlene - the mind-boggling wanna-be-burglar - had returned, and with reinforcements.  Jim was sitting on the front porch observing the aftermath of the flash flood which had struck no more than an hour previously, when a car pulled into what was left of our now-non-existent driveway(driveway? driveway?  What driveway?) .  As fate would have it, he could see the car, but the occupants could not see him.  Red & white pick-up, a man driving, woman in the passenger's seat.  The vehicle stopped, turned off its engine, and the occupants simply sat there for quite some time.

Believing them to be motorists stranded by the storm, Jim walked out to inquire what he might do for them, only to be confronted with a woman who introduced herself as Charlene, and began telling him how I had told her it would be okay for her to come back, and that she had promised to buy some things from me for $550.  She introduced the man in the driver's seat as her husband, then began walking toward the carport, telling Jim that "The stuff I'm going to buy is right over here."

Of course, I had told Jim the entire saga of Charlene's initial shennanigans, so he was well-informed that 1) I had told her I had NOTHING to sell he; and 2) the amount she had mentioned was $55 (not $550); and 3) she was not to come back on the property under any circumstances or she would be arrested.

Can't get any weirder, right?  Wrong.  When he informed her that there was nothing to be sold, she insisted he take down her phone numbers so that I could call her and set up a time for her to come back!!!!!  She gave two numbers - a landline and a cell phone.  Then, she and her male accomplise simply drove away, off into the mud puddle reflections of the setting sun in the aftermath of the worst flash flood this area has seen in 20 years.  I thought of coyote trickster and doorways left open by lightning tearing the air. I thought of the nagual's laughter echoing off the black velvet fabric of the abyss's nether-regions.

I was starting to think I was in a Monty Python skit (again).  But on a whim, I called the two phone numbers, expecting them to be entirely bogus.  To my surprise, the landline connected to a gentleman who lives less than a block from here.  When I inquired if Charlene was home, he hesitantly said she doesn't live there anymore, and volunteered in the same breath, rather apologetically, "The police had to put her out."  Needless to say, this came as no surprise.  I began talking to the gentleman, and further learned that she had been staying at his house, but had to be evicted forcibly when he discovered she had stolen several items from the house - mainly his clothing.  And his boots. 

The rabbit hole just seemed to be getting bigger with every moment I was on the phone with him.  Turns out, "Charlene" has some sort of psyche problem, and the man urged me to "Get a restraining order against her." 

Long story short, he was able to provide me with her real full name, and confirmed what I had already suspected - that she is apparently not plugged into this world with even a single prong, and yet she is walking around free as a bird, and at least as loonie as a koot. 

She has apparently targeted my house and/or myself, and frankly I am at something of a loss to know what to do.  The police will do nothing.  County Mental Health won't pick her up unless she is violent.  And essentially I am left wondering precisely why she has singled us out of all the other houses in the area.  There is little doubt that if Jim hadn't been here, they would have loaded up the pick-up until the springs gave way, and I would have come home to an empty house. 

The world is a nuthouse and the lunatics are invading my asylum.  The thief packs up my belongings, and gives me the phone number of her former victim, who knows her name, her history, and her rap sheet.  This cannot be real.  And yet...

Aside from that, I cannot help but wonder if this is yet one more sign that perhaps it is time to be moving on, letting go, surrendering to the inevitability of entropy.  I do not feel defeated or afraid - just rather perplexed by the whole strange affair.

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