Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Tired Thoughts

My son occasionally talks a little like Garth from Wayne's World. I have no idea why this is, and I'm trying to stop it because it sounds...ridiculous. His swimming instructor told the kiddo he had an "accent," so now the kiddo thinks he does. It's driving me a teensy bit crazy.

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Tonight at bedtime, the kiddo suddenly realized he was hungry. When I informed him that he should've notified me long before bedtime (and he did have dinner -- I'm not an ogre), he dissolved into tears and said in a tiny voice, "I'm your son..." Guess who ate oatmeal at about 8:15?

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My son is utterly heartbroken over his beloved pro baseball team's loss last night, and about the fact that the baseball season is pretty much over. Does it make me a bad person if I say that part of me is dancing for joy now? Thank goodness (!) we still have past games recorded on DVD for our infinite viewing pleasure.

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A neighbor's dog is howling mournfully and at length. Maybe they went on vacation and left the dog out. (This is what another neighbor suggested a few months ago when the dog howled for a few days straight.) If I knew for sure which neighbor it was, and their address, I'd call Animal Control and ask them to check for food, water and shelter. I've watched too many Animal Planet shows (Animal Cops, etc.) and can't stand to think of animals abandoned or mistreated. This is why I left a note on the windshield of a truck yesterday that was parked squarely in the sun and had a whimpering dog inside. And why I waited around for the owner for a while. And why I contacted mall security. And why I was glad when the security guard let me see the surveillance monitor, which revealed the truck's owner reading my note and then driving away. When I picked up my son from school, my car was intolerably hot after I left it for only about ten minutes in the sun. I can't imagine how hot the dog owner's truck was after more than twenty minutes. If you think I'm a little nuts, you might be right, but if you watched an Animal Control officer try to remove a dead Labrador Retriever from a hot car, you might understand.

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Speaking of calling authorities, last week I took out the trash at night and saw a figure in the field next door. Whoever it was had some equipment with blinking lights on it. Ordinarily I'd assume someone was photographing the moon or something, but I live near an environmental facility and the equipment was aimed in that direction, so I called the police. Turned out I was the second person to call. I watched intermittently out the window and saw the police eventually show up and question the guy as he was packing up to leave. I don't think they arrested him, so I suppose everything checked out okay. I hate to be the Gladys Kravitz of the neighborhood (although this time I had company), but I'd rather be safe than sorry.

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Recently I had about four or five inches chopped off my hair. The other day, the kiddo's school principal said it was very flattering and I was inordinately pleased by this.

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I met someone really interesting. A man. A married man. Who's into stuff that actually interests me. No, I'm not pursuing him, and he's not pursuing me. It's not like that at all. It was just eye-opening to talk to a man who was pleasant and engaging and interested in the same things that I like -- and who actually smiles. It was never that way with the kiddo's dad. More on this later.

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I'm really tired now, and a little bit sad. Must pry myself off the computer.