We were hostages in our own home, today!

We decided yesterday we'd have a date night tonight with dinner and a movie, something we hadn't done in a while.

Well, things went along fairly well until mid-day when we noticed a lot of police activity in the apartment complex across the street from us. It was hard to tell what was happening but there were a lot of police cars, unmarked cars and dozens of uniformed officers just standing around one of the buildings and parking lot. We hid inside and watched from behind our curtains.

After several hours, the SWAT team and other tactical units came on the scene. Dozens more police vehicles filled our street and blocked all access in and out of the community. We couldn't get out at all. Time for us to head off to dinner came and went and we were still blocked from leaving the community. Neighbors that had gone out early in this action were now stuck on the outside. Some parked several blocks away and walked in to their homes when they came home from work.

Finally, the officers came out of the building, congregated in our court and began taking off their armor. Someone finally gave us a hint of what was happening. It seems they thought a suspect from a murder in a neighboring community on Sunday was holed up in that building. Turns out, he wasn't. Kind of makes you wonder why it took at least 6 1/2 hours to figure that out!


We finally set off for dinner over 2 1/2 hours later than originally planned. We ended up waiting for 40 minutes for our table! (When we arrive before 6 there's almost never a wait.) We had a great meal and then waddled our full bellies across the street to the movies. At that point, we had to settle for whatever movie was starting near that time, not necessarily what we set out for. So, for our romantic date night, we saw Karate Kid!! (When you've been together as long as us, just being out together qualifies as romantic.)

It's a good movie but, like the other Karate Kid movies, there is a lot of violence (Hey, it is "karate".) Although I am a Jackie Chan fan, I'm still partial to the original with Pat Morito. Jaden Smith (Will and Jada's son) does do a fantastic job as the kid and shows the great depth of acting talent he has at such a young age. He's also adorable!! That kid'll certainly break some hearts along the way! While it won't be in the running for an Oscar, I do recommend it. I'll give it 4 out of 5 stars!!!

Hope you had a little calmer afternoon than I did!!