Neighbor woes

The day was pretty much a complete waste.  I was still awake at 6 a.m. mostly from the pain, but also because I had slept for an hour before Tom got home.  Then, before he made it home I woke up in a panic.  I don't know why but I've been doing that with alarming frequency of late.  I just wake up abruptly and with a sense of urgency about it.  After that it's hard to get back to sleep.  I may start taking valerian root for a while to see if that helps.

So I did manage to clean the kitchen but little else.  Zach is going to bring the laundry up for me as my poor arthritic knee is bothering me, too.  After I fold the clothes (and he puts them away) I'm going back to bed.  To knit, of course.  I made good progress on the frolicking deer hat and the size looks a lot closer to fitting Tom's head.

I've also been puttering on the bathroom curtain but I'm getting bored again and want a small project I can finish.  I might go back to the mittens I was working on in the spring.  It will be easy to pick up again and it's small and manageable.

I let Professor outside this afternoon when I got up and he started frenzied barking and the leash was pulled as tight as it could go.  I raced outside in spite of still being in my pajamas (and sporting only one breast) and my hair not brushed yet to find my young neighbor, the one who has his friends park in front of the fire hydrant and on the sidewalk, with a ROTTWEILLER on a heavy chain who is lunging at my Chihuahua/Pomeranian mix with murder in his eyes.  Neither he nor his female friend were attempting to control the dog, but were laughing at my really idiotic dog who thinks he can take on a ROTTWEILLER.  The reason that's in all caps is because the next house down live two Rottweillers who he does interact with from time to time but they are just big marshmellows and are, in fact, afraid of Professor.  This ROTTWEILLER wanted him for lunch.

It pissed me off considering we have done everything we can to be nice neighbors, like not going out in the back yard or mowing or letting the pets out when he has his frequent back yard parties.  With no fence to separate our yards the proximity is...well...close and it's like intruding on his party.  We also don't make a fuss about the atrocious parking of his friends.  We also make an effort to grab Professor the moment he starts barking so he doesn't disturb any of our neighbors.  And believe me, we're the only ones who try to control the barking.  On any given night the dogs on our block sound like a Greek Chorus.  It's hard to keep Professor from joining in, but we do make a very serious effort, to the point of stopping what we're doing, racing to shush him and hold him in a sitting position since he won't bark while he's sitting.  To let that dog lunge and bark at Professor while laughing about it just struck me as a bit mean.  What if he had broken that chain?  I've seen a big dog kill a small dog before.  It's quick and bloody.

And I was the one who apologized.

I told Zach to mow tomorrow regardless if he's having another party or not.  We were going to mow today but between that ROTTWEILLER and the horseshoes being thrown, it didn't seem like a good idea.  I just hope that dog was visiting and isn't a permanent resident.  Zach told me the dog went ape-shit over the cat, too, the other day, to the degree we had to calm the cat down.  The cat is leash-trained so he never strays outside the yard.

I wish we had a fence.  That would also help with the bad mowing on his part.  We try to mow first so we can establish the property line, which is really wonky...it's more like a parallelogram rather than a square or rectangle but he insists on squaring it out, which gives him less room in the back yard but takes over a good deal of our front yard.  I may plant some bushes next spring to separate out the property.

Well, I've whined enough.  It's time to make up the bed and get to knitting.  Maybe that will calm me down.

TTFN