I’d be hard pressed to come up with another story that approximates the level of conflict, intrigue and drama as the one I just wrote. So it’s possible that my follow-up can really only be a disappointment. Perhaps the one thing working to my advantage is that the conclusion of the Jeanette story was a disappointment for so many people. I’ve gotten great emails expressing outrage and sadness. I love that people have cared so much.

The morning after finishing the last installment of the story, I was awakened at 3 AM to sirens, flashing lights and police helicopters swirling above my neighborhood. Periodically, an announcement would blare out from the darkened sky telling us to stay in our homes, that suspects were at large. This continued, unbelievably, for just over four hours. The police had to swap out their “airships” three times because the onboard fuel only lasts two hours. With nothing else to do, I reached for my iPhone and followed Venice311 on Twitter to get live updates from the LA Police Scanner.

It seems as though three guys broke into a local Best Buy, loaded a U-Haul with stolen electronics and were chased by the cops to my neighborhood where they ditched the U-Haul and started running. Police established a perimeter, tracked the thugs by heat from the airship above, brought in K-9 units and after four hours they had all the guys in custody.

Go LAPD!

Unfortunately, when the sleep-deprived neighborhood clued into the details, pretty much everyone was stunned to discover that they’d been kept awake since 3 AM for a truckload of electronics. My neighbor shook her head over the fence and said, “That’s it? I’m sorry to say but with all that activity, you’d at least hope someone had been killed.”

Another neighbor who’d finished reading the last Jeanette blog and was incensed by the thought that no one was punished for the crime called to say, “It wasn’t lost on me that they sent out the helicopters and police dogs for stolen electronics and nothing for Jeanette.”

Yes. We continue to wonder if it was simply a different time and if today the police spend more money and energy in hot pursuit. Those stories don’t just make good television; they’re also great PR for the police as they ignite our collective sense of right and wrong, and fuel our addiction to the heightened drama of reality television. Jeanette also wonders if the police have a pattern, then or now, of ignoring crimes where women are the victims. I don’t want to be cynical but I think it’s okay to ask the questions.

In the meantime, we’re in a hot pursuit of our own as Jeanette inquires about getting her hands on the case files. Of course I’ll update that story when there’s something to be updated.

For now, I’m chasing down the next story, which will be much more of a meditation than a drama. I wrote an earlier post about it. I’ve long wanted to write about my experiences walking across an ancient pilgrimage route through Spain, but I’ve shied away from it because it’s much more of an internal journey than an external one. The last time I wrote a big tome about an internal journey, I couldn’t seem to get it published because it wasn’t easy to categorize or sell.

Well, now I have blog, and I get to say what gets published.

Onward ho.