Checking In and Catching Up

 

So, what’s happening?? Geez, take a few days off and everyone goes mental. Yes, I’m OK, yes, Paul’s OK, I’ve been reading and chilling and watching Top Chef and exploring Sims 2 “Freetime” and “Apartment Life”, because I hadn’t installed those until after I got my computer back this last time, so they are like all “new” to me. And I’ve been sewing sleepers and dresses and quilts for everyone and making my list for the big Joann’s “Black Friday” sale. 

Is everyone glad that Barack Obama was elected? I was. But now I’m kind of getting that “let down”, anticlimactic whole thing, because Saturday Night Live will never be funny again without Tina Fey as Sarah Palin. I was kind of secretly hoping McCain would win, just so we could see that train wreck played out on SNL for the next 8 years. 

Is everyone tuning in to the new season of Top Chef? God, I wish I could make food like that. The show is very inspiring, but hell, I can’t even afford to buy hamburger anymore, let alone get into making balsamic reductions and chutney’s. The price of food around here is outrageous. And Paul bitching about the food bill doesn’t make it any easier. I mean, the man hasn’t stepped foot inside a Price Chopper for 10 years, so he hands me $50 at the end of the week and says “Here – go grocery shopping – make sure and get dog food, soda, Gatorade, Little Debbie cakes, coffee, and stock up on anything that’s on sale, okay?” Yeah, I’ll do that. Let me get into my time machine and head back to 1986. 

Every single thing I normally buy has gone up at least 50 cents per item. And when you buy 35 things each week, that’s an extra $15 on top of what I was spending, which by Paul’s standards was already inexplicable. I swear to God he thinks I have like some secret “money I stole from Paul from the grocery money” fund that I’m just hoarding away somewhere. But it’s getting to the point where it’s cheaper for us to go to McDonald’s and eat off the dollar menu every night. I can’t make a hamburger for a dollar. 

In other news – I got some pictures of my baby boy in the Halloween costume I made him – isn’t he adorable? Cutest kid ever. His sister’s okay, too.  

 

 

 

So, I’ve been doing nothing but sewing, knitting and playing Sims2. I have a bunch of little dresses I’m just finishing, and some little sacques for one of the readers here – who sent me a DONATION for the big Joann’s after Thanksgiving Sale. I can’t WAIT for that. I’m already making lists of everything I want to get. They *usually* have this embroidery thread set on sale for half price on that day, and I’ve wanted that damned set for 2 years now, but I always pass it up. I think this year I MIGHT actually get it. It’s like $60, but that’s half price and it comes in a case and it has ALL the embroidery thread colors that I use. I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not. I’m still debating. 

Oh – and I got in a fight with the lady down the street. Damned bitch, I’ll choke her ass. She’s “new” around here. Her boyfriend has lived here forever with his fat assed kid, who’s a troublemaker form the get go. One of those kids that you just *know* is going to be a serial killer. He’s sneaky and mean and nasty and has a big smart assed mouth, but you can’t blame the kid – his father treats him like shit. I’ve never heard the guy speak to his kid in anything under a scream. He beats on the kid all the time, too, right in the driveway for all the world to see he’ll pick up the garden hose or a skateboard or whatever and start beating the damned kid with it. 

Now, the father *had* a wife who wasn’t the kid’s mother. She lived here with her own 2 kids when we first moved here. And the little fat kid wasn’t so bad, then. But after about 6 months of screaming and fighting and yelling and arguing between the wife and the guy – she left. And took her two kids with her, leaving the fat little kid behind to deal with the father and take all the arguing and screaming the guy gives out. 

So, in the past few months the guy has a new girlfriend – and already there’s signs of “deja vu”. She’ll come over in the middle of the night and honk her horn for an hour trying to get the guy to respond, and he never does, so then she’ll stand out in the road yelling and screaming until he finally comes out and argues with her. It’s quite a show and quite a running piece of entertainment. Paul and I pop popcorn and pull chairs up to the bedroom window to watch. I mean, anyone with a brain would know “this will not end well.” 

But what does the guy do? He moves her in. Oh boy. *And* she has a kid of her own, a little girl. I hope she brought her earmuffs. 

And they brought their dog – a Rott. Oh – and see the OTHER part of “neighbors from hell?” The guy and his fat assed kid already had a dog – a German Shepherd that I know I’ve mentioned here before because it barks ALL FUCKING DAY AND NIGHT. I feel almost as bad for the dog as I do the kid, really. Because the dog is tied on a 6 foot chain to a tree every single hour of every single day. Winter or summer. No matter how hot, no matter how cold. That dog is tied to the tree. Barking. It never has food or water unless the old lady next door goes over and gives it food or water. It’s a shame.

But there was hope – the German Shepherd broke free. About the middle of summer, the dog was gone. Just gone. No one knew where. The lady next door kept asking Paul and I “Where’s their dog?” But we didn’t know, and you can’t ask the kid anything, because he’ll either lie to you or tell you to fuck off.  

Finally, about 3 weeks after the dog first went missing, the kid went up and down the street asking everyone “Have you seen my dog?” Kind of late, but I guess it was better than nothing. 

Then this past weekend, the new girlfriend moves in with her little girl and her dog. Her dog has one of those small wire mesh kennel things that it stays in. It’s too small for the dog, and I hope they bring the dog in when it gets really cold, but at least the dog doesn’t bark all day. But the really funny part of it was, when the girlfriend moves in, that same weekend, doesn’t the German Shepherd show back up! Surprise Surprise. The old lady next door asked the fat kid “Where did you find the dog?” And the kid said we were like two towns over and we were driving along the road and there she was by the side of the road, so we stopped and got her.” And if you believe that…………

So, the guy and his new girlfriend decide to just put the two dogs in the same kennel – and then they both leave for the day, and the German Shepherd gets out of the pen and starts terrorizing the neighborhood. This is NOT a friendly dog. This dog has been abused and mistreated and neglected since they GOT the dog, tied to a tree 24/7, and she’s aggressive. You come near her and she’ll bare her teeth and lunge at you. And she likes our yard – so every time she breaks free (which she’s done a few times) – she heads straight to our yard. 

And you know, I have dogs, too. Dogs that need to go out during the day. And they can’t when this fucking dog is in my driveway snarling and growling and barking if I try to come out. So The first day that they left the dog and went to work, the dog got out of the kennel and I’m trapped in my house. Can’t leave because this fucking dog is growling at me and baring it’s teeth. And I’m pissed. 

That afternoon, I see the little fat kid in the street and figure, “well, he’s home, he has to have gotten the dog and put it back in the kennel”, so I go to take Milo out I open the door and the kid yells to me “My dog is in your yard!” So I say “Well, come fucking get it!” And he says “I can’t she won’t come to me.” Yeah, no shit. Figure the odds that the dog that you fucking ignore and don’t feed and keep on a fucking chain tied to a tree isn’t so fucking anxious for you to come and capture her to put her back there. 

So now I’m pissed. I’m STILL trapped in the fucking house, and little fat ass can’t capture his fucking dog. So I yell back “Well, come and try to get your damned dog, fat ass. I can’t be trapped in my house all fucking day.” It’s at this point that the new girlfriend comes outside. I guess to act maternal to the kid or some such shit. She says to the kid “What’s wrong, HONEY?” And the kid says “I’m telling her not to come out.” She looks over at me and I say “Look, you need to get control of your dog – the fucking thing can’t be allowed to just terrorize the entire fucking neighborhood. If I bring my little dog out that dog is likely to fucking attack it.” So she looks at me, and this is the part that REALLY got me going, she looks at me and says “Well, how STUPID do you have to BE? DON’T COME OUT THEN.”

Oh. No. She. Did. Not.

So, you can imagine how all THIS ended. Yeah, pretty much with me marching down the street to tell the slut what I thought of her, her dog, and the fat ass kid, and with her ending up going back into the house because she probably didn’t REALLY think I would take my bathrobe clad ass down the street to confront her in the first place, and me telling her that if that dog wasn’t back under her control by the time my husband got home, that she wouldn’t have to WORRY about the dog, because Paul would kill the fucker.

And the dog was loose for 4 days. Before the old lady next door finally caught it.

And no it does no use to call animal control, because unless the dog is deemed worthy of being sold for big bucks out of the shelter, they don’t want the dog, they don’t want anything to do with the dog, and they don’t give a flying fuck if a pack of wild dingos are stalking the streets. Unless they think they can SELL the dingos, then they’ll come and get them. And calling the cops will get you nowhere, either. They don’t do “dogs at large”. Unless the dog bites you. 

So now I guess I am feuding with the new girlfriend. Luckily, I know she won’t be around long. Good thing, too, because I’ll choke that “How dumb do you have to BE???” Bitch.