So we live in a neighborhood that's rural enough to have unfettered dogs strolling about. I know all of these dogs by name - my favorite, Daisy, used to come "knock" on the back door until we let Gertie out. The sight of my cranky, elderly weiner beagle tackling an insanely happy yellow lab was always a lot of fun, particularly as it irritated my cat enough that she once took matters into her own hands and jumped into the middle of the fray, beating both startled dogs soundly about the ears before leaping onto the porch railing with a "so there!" look on her face.
Daisy still drops by from time to time, but you can sense her disappointment every time Gertie doesn't come out the door, and she doesn't stick around very long.
Last night I was taking my evening stroll and bumped into a couple of neighbors, who inquired about the identity of the large boxer mix that was standing a couple of yards down, barking at them. After I identified that dog, they said, "Well what about that pit bull?"
We don't have any free-roaming pit bulls in our neighborhood. Turns out that this one had showed up yesterday, and was following folks around when they were outside. I told my neighbors I didn't know of any pit bulls, and joked about putting the cat inside, then finished my walk.
Later, Hublet was taking out the trash, when he stuck his head in the door and said, "The cat's in, right? 'Cause that pit bull's out here."
I went outside, and sure enough, there was a fully-grown, un-neutered, solid white pit bull on my sidewalk. He was still wearing the invisible fence shock collar, but there was no other collar on him.
And boy, was he happy to see me! He was wagging and wiggling and trotted right over and sniffed my hand and let me pet his MASSIVELY MUSCLED HEAD. He looked a bit thin, and had drunk all the water I'd left out for the cat, so I got him another bowl to drink, and thought about trying to corral him. But he finished the water and ran off before I could do anything, and so I headed inside to post a "has anyone misplaced a pit bull?" message on the community message board. My neighbors had said something about animal control, so I didn't call them.
I don't have any experience with pit bulls beyond the horror stories you read in the paper, and I have to admit I was a bit nervous about having a stray wandering the neighborhood. Seeing him up close and personal, and looking at those jaws, didn't really do much to make me feel better, even though he was a friendly pooch. All I could think about was, "That dog could eat my face clean off with one medium-sized chomp."
And also? Who in their right mind would think that a teeny tiny shock collar and invisible fence was gonna work on an animal that size? He probably got startled by a firecracker, or a nearby dog was in heat, or maybe there was a really nifty squirrel nearby, and off he went.
I'm beginning to feel as though my home is some sort of hobo stop for wayward animals, strays or not. We have a steady stream of dog traffic on a daily basis, lived through the Random Great Dane incident of Aught five, the Random Cat Hitchhiker previous to that, and our cat followed Hublet home one day and just stuck around. Apparently Hublet has the Magical Cat Attractor Vibe, and dogs just like our yard, or something.
Ah, country living. As long as I don't end up with any random crowing-challenged roosters, like the neighbor behind us did, I guess I can deal.
Because it's Thursday, and we'll finally be free of swimming lessons after tonight, and my brain is otherwise fried and I have to go to a meeting with some of the most annoying people on the face of the earth this afternoon...
Have some Joss Whedon intarweb fun! Neil Patrick Harris! Cute 13 minute episodes with singing! And Nathan Fillion! And a pseudo-villain named "Moist!"
And also, because it's thematically in keeping with my day thus far: the fail blog.
This story about the prof who got busted for surfing porn and sending emails about his sexual fantasies to a friend totally creeps me out, but some of the comments creep me out more.
Look, there's a difference between idle fantasy of the "she's hot/he's hot" variety and sending long, drawn-out, "Dear Penthouse Forum, you'd never believe what happened to me last Tuesday" style emails to your friend about them.
Side question for the menfolk - is emailing your buddies about your sexual fantasies just an everyday occurrence, or does that strike you as decidedly odd? And creepy, but let's just stick with odd for now.
I thought women were supposed to be all about the oversharing, but I can pretty much guarantee that I would never terrify my friends and accquaintances that way. Ick.
But back to my main point, which is this: some of the commenters are all up in arms like this is some sort of witch hunt. Look, first of all, it is not cool to surf porn on university computers. Period. We've fired quite a few folks for that behavior, although the firings here have tended to skew toward the staff side, not the faculty side. It's not a quesion of intellectual freedom, or freedom of speech, people.
Secondly, because this is a bit more subjective, this dude's emails are just disturbing, and not in that "eek! Protect my puritan eyes!' kind of way, but in the "Hey little girl, want some Caaaaaannnndy?" kind of way. And to the commenter who left the flip quote about the damage of Victorian mores--uh, seriously? I thought the point was that the professor was so completely sexually UN-repressed that he felt no compunction about spending office hours indulging his proclivities. Victorian mores, in this case, could have helped him refrain from hitting the "send" button, and thus helped him keep his job.
Bottom line: It's fine to be a creepy weirdo in your private life, but "tenure" doesn't equal "Let fly the work porn!"
Okay, it's mid-July. I say this in a tone of mild astonishment, as in, "What the HELL? Where has my summer gone?"
Yes, apparently I have had enough free time to sit on my posterior watching other people play video games on television, but for the most part this summer has been nothing but a blur. Last week, Hublet started a three-week course on writing here at the University, and The Boy wanted to go to vacation bible school at his buddy's church up the road, plus he had swim lessons, so our days looked something like this:
7:00 a.m. - Get up. Bathe, dress, make breakfast taco for Boy.
8:00 a.m. - Drop Boy at friend's house, where friend's mother kindly offered to tote him to bible school and look after him until Hublet could retreive him.
8:30 a.m. - Arrive at work. Oh, a giant PR crisis. Awesome.
5:30 p.m. - Traffic.
6:00 p.m. - Eat leftovers, make next evening's meal, wait for Hublet to return with Boy from swimming lessons.
7:00 - 9:00 p.m. - Deal with swimming lesson aftermath, re-feed hungry Boy, get him into bed.
9:00 p.m. - Exercise.
9:30 p.m. - 12:30 a.m. - Get everything ready for next day at work, including laundry, finishing up the kitchen cleanup, etc. Relax for an hour with a glass of wine.
Lather, rinse, repeat. Meanwhile Hublet was the designated pack mule, going to class, rushing home, retrieving Boy from friend's house, getting him fed and getting him to a 6:00 p.m. swim lesson.
Then on Friday, just for variety, The Boy's friend fell off the monkey bars at vacation bible school and broke his arm. And The Boy had a birthday party to attend in Raleigh. So Hublet drove to Raleigh for class, drove back home to retrieve Boy from his buddy's grandma's house (long story involving relatives, random kid shuffling, and ER visit for Boy's buddy), and then BACK to Raleigh to the Putt-Putt. I merely stayed in town from 8:30 a.m. until 9:00 p.m., when not even the consumption of a giant pixie stick could sustain The Boy's energy level.
This week, we're gonna do it all over again, and then we're going to drive 2 hours to grandma's house on Friday night!
However, we will have a kid-free week following this one, during which we will just flop limply onto the sofa and stare at each other, shell-shocked.
Oh, and we'll go see the new Batman movie. And then go to Carowinds to pick up The Boy the following Sunday.
Sigh.
How much longer until school starts?
Because do you know what I did last night?
Of course you don't, because you don't know where I live--and if you do know, and were hiding in the shrubbery, I would prefer that you didn't mention it, because that's just creepy.
But I digress from my main point, which is this:
I have become another lost couch potato with a rotting brain.
How? Well, it's simple. I actually stayed up past midnight last night to watch the Championship Gaming Series. On television. Yes, I sat in my chair and watched other people playing video games ON TELEVISION.
And I was actually invested in whether or not Mystik would beat Pheonix in their epic Dead or Alive battle.
I do not own Dead or Alive. I do not own the console the game was being played on. I do not know these people from Adam. And yet, on a Monday night in July in the year 2008, I sat on my butt in a chair and watched random chicks play a video game.
Weep for me.
I am off to do the Fourth of July thing, which will consist of the same stuff we do every year: watch our tiny town parade, catch a movie, enjoy a burger on the grill, wander up the street and ooh and ahh over our fireworks display, relax with a nice cocktail, and watch (hopefully) cheesy re-enactments of historical events on the History Channel until the wee hours.
It might not seem like much, but I really, REALLY love our July Fourth celebration.
Oh, and might I add that I agree with this guy - can we maybe lay off the relentless END OF DAYS AMERICA IS DOOOOOOOOMMMMMMEEEEDDDD OMGWTFBBQ!!! for a day or two?
Seriously, people. I only have the best interests of the authors in mind - can you imagine how exhausting it must be to spend all of your time contemplating the end of all your time? Everyone needs a vacation now and then, even the doomsayers.
In Durham. It has to be the water. Because how else can one smallish Southern city contain city officials like a school board that regularly devolves into fistfights, the entirety of stupidity, laziness and corruption that marked the lacrosse case, and now this:
"Allegations that a local Democratic official and her husband were involved in satanic rituals that included shackling people to beds, caging them and depriving them of food and water have horrified county party leaders."
Okay, maybe an alternate explanation could be that the devil made them do it...
Best quote in the entire piece, though, is right here:
"McCullough would not release details of the allegations, but he added, 'I don't want to leave the impression this is a widespread thing.'"
To which I can only reply a) I should hope not, and b) it's an election year and it's still early. Just wait.
