Yesterday, thieves visited our home and busted down the front door and stole the flat screen TV.  Then they went through our drawers and took whatever they wanted and left the clothes on the floor.  Then they went down to the in-law unit which is my husband's office and broke through that door and took two computers, a camera, a backpack, and who knows what else.  We are still sifting through the mess.  The doors are destroyed, so we have to get them replaced, and last night it was fun trying to sleep among the wreckage without a front door.

The police said robbery is flourishing now in the Oakland hills.  We thought our little house was safe up here in the pines.  We don't have much, really.  A few computers, a TV, two bicycles.  The TV is probably the most expensive item we own besides our double-paned windows.  Double-paned windows are good, the police said.  Thieves don't like them because they are hard to break and when they do, the blood gets all over, and voila, there's DNA.

It's an awful feeling, having your home violated.  I went through this once before, when I owned even less.  I was young, poor, trying to get through graduate school.  I came home from school and work to find my tiny house by the creek ransacked.  That time, the thieves took my bed apart, throwing the mattress into the kitchen.  They stole my best jewelry, which was one diamond pendant necklace my mother had given me when I graduated from college.

The poor stealing from the poor.

When people are frustrated, angry and hopeless, they will do anything.

Welcome to America.