Wednesday 22 November - Almost got arrested! and ate Chex Mix

A very "Alice's Restaurant" sort of day; nearly got arrested with Davenport's answer to Officer Obie and all.

But first, some food news as this is a food blog.

Brekkie was a raisin bagel, some raspberries and coffee. And a dratted cinnamon doughnut. Damn those doughnuts - I cannot resist as I am my father's daughter. My Dad always kept stacks of day old doughnuts in a fridge in the basement - his special "treat" and I did used to nick them from him, even though we were not allowed in his fridge.

Yes, my parents were THAT dysfunctional that they had separate fridges.

Stopped off at the Hy-Vee on the way to Mom's and I got a bag of Chex Mix - I had been hankering after Chex Mix since I arrived and figured today would be a good day to indulge as I was going to be doing a lot of yard work.

My Dad used to make Chex Mix and I still think the original Chex Mix recipe is far superior to the ready made stuff, but then I don't have a proper oven here in Iowa and you need a proper oven for Chex Mix.
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The Original Chex Mix

6 tablespoons butter or margarine
2 tablespoons Lea & Perrins™ Worcestershire sauce
1 1/2 teaspoons seasoned salt
3/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
3 cups Corn Chex® cereal
3 cups Rice Chex® cereal
3 cups Wheat Chex® cereal
1 cup mixed nuts
1 cup bite-size pretzels
1 cup garlic-flavor bite-size bagel chips or regular-size bagel chips, broken into 1-inch pieces

Heat oven to 250°F. In ungreased large roasting pan, melt butter in oven. Stir in seasonings. Gradually stir in remaining ingredients until evenly coated.

Bake 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes. Spread on paper towels to cool, about 15 minutes. Store in airtight container.
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I would always spice it up a lot more than this, but it was the crispy butteriness that made it moreish.

Anyway, what I had was General Mills ready made Cheddar Chex Mix - no nuts, no bagel chips but little cheddar cheese crackers.

Anyway, I got stuck in on the house. First, I removed the screws from the panel over the side door and the garage. Ina had been swearing at them the day before as he was trying to remove them with a cheap 14 watt Chinese cordless drill and getting no where. He was railing on about how they had used plastic coated screws, 3 inches long and that the only way to get them out was to pry them off (and ruin the door frames). I told him that if he got me a Phillips head screw driver, I could get them out.

And I did - all I needed was a decent screwdriver and a pair of gloves for grip. They came out easily enough with a bit of elbow grease and were neither plastic coated nor excessively long.

Anyway, I then got on with raking leaves and bagging them up, cleaning gutters etc while Ian opened some windows to let the place air out a bit as it was extremely funky with mildew and mold inside.

After we had been there about 2 hours, a patrol car from the Davenport Police pulled up and two officers got out. I was sweeping the front porch at the time. One officer approached me and asked me "Do you have a reason to be here?"

A rather profound question, but I sidestepped to greater philosophical implications of his question and explained that it was my mother's house and that I was simply tidying up the lawn ahead of winter.

At this juncture, Ian appeared from inside the house and a second patrol car with two more officers pulled up. I just carried on with what I was doing and let Ian argue with the cops.

He explained that he was our mother's PoA and produced paperwork to prove it, but they were undeterred and as one was fond of repeating "What part of DO NOT ENTER do you not understand?" We were advised that we had no right to enter the house, even as representatives of our mother and that to do so would constitute criminal trespass and would land us in jail with a $340bond.

Eventually Ian requested a supervisor and that meant a 5th officer arrived. I carried on sweeping and raking, with the implied message "I have work to do - how about you?"

There was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing, trying to contact the guy on the City council who had ordered the house boarded up, contacting my brother in California who had spoken to this guy and gotten a verbal OK for us to be at the house, trying to contact the guy at the Fire Department who was responsible, trying to get some input for the City's lawyer etc. But as it was the day before Thanksgiving, no one seemed to be around.

Finally, the supervisor agreed to leave on officer "observing" us while he waited for an answer from someone who understood the law, as no one in the police force appeared to. So, the Officer Obie wannabe sat there, engine running, "observing" me rake leaves and Ian clean gutters for about 45 minutes. Finally, he got a call back from someone who said that we had no right to enter the house, even just to close the windows. He told us we had to re-apply the boards and leave and that if we entered the house, even just to close the windows, we would be arrested for criminal trespass.

So, we did as instructed and adjourned to the hotel. I made a salad of lettuce, tomatoes, broccoli slaw and some nice proper sized prawns I had bought to make up for the disappointing tinned ones.

While Ian railed on about the neighbour across the way ratting us out (Ms. Bell) and I ate my lunch looked up the relevant City ordnance. It is badly worded, but it says:

"No person shall enter any unoccupied dwelling, building or structure without permission in writing from the building officials or designee. Provided, however, entry may be made by the owner or the owner's authorized representative and entry may be made by the building officials or designee with the consent of the owner or through any remedy provided by law to secure entry."

I stress in particular that it states that "entry may be made by the owner or the owner's authorized representative". In other words, we had the right to enter.

It also states under
"Anyone violating the provisions of this chapter is guilty of a municipal infraction and shall, upon conviction, be fined thirty dollars for a first offense, one hundred dollars for a second offense, and two hundred dollars for every offense thereof for the same violation. Each day a violation is permitted to exist is considered a separate offense. In addition to other remedies, the city may institute any appropriate action or proceedings to prevent such unlawful act or to restrain, correct or abate such violation. "

That is, the violation of the code is punishable as a municipal infraction and subject to a $30 fine, not a bondable misdemeanor e.g. criminal trespass.

So, the cops don't know the law, the Fire Department don't know that law and we wasted a lot of time an had a lot of aggro because the people who should understand the law don't.

I fired off a couple of emails to the Davenport Chief of Police and the Head of the Fire Department asking them to explain why they did not know the law and had harassed us.

Ian rang a bunch of lawyers and couldn't really get anywhere as it was now after lunch on the day before Thanksgiving, but he went down to the City offices and went to see a couple of law offices while I decompressed at the hotel for a while.

It was nice to get some peace and quiet (and a shower to get the leaf muck off me).

For dinner, I had some more prawns, microwaved with some spring onions, garlic and a portion of marge I had swiped from the Super-8 breakfast room. Had the prawns over the remainder of the Uncle Ben's Wild and Long Grain Rice with some asparagus.

"You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant
You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant
Walk right in it's around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant..."

If you are unfamiliar with the Alice's Restaurant massacre saga, as sung by Arlo Guthrie, well - shame on you.

Arlo and his friends in Stockbridge, MA were caught dumping garbage. He had to pay a fine and pick up the garbage. Years later, when the arrest showed up on Arlo's record, he was, through the kind of asinine bureaucratic idiocy that only government can truly embrace, deemed unsuitable for military service. To paraphrase Arlo, they decided he wasn't fit to go to Vietnam and kill a bunch of people because he was a litterbug.

You can read the full saga here, if you want.

Alice's Restaurant

Nice to know that we managed to use up of 2% of the City Of Davenport police force because we were raking leaves and cleaning gutters and airing out an old ladies house.

Here is the Davenport Chief of Police, Michael R. Bladel, who has yet to answer my email to him:

Looks nice enough, doesn't he?