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I slept badly at times, up too late, up too early, and too many strange dreams between.

In a couple weeks I'll do the taxes and that will be over with. I never ever want to owe this much money again.

The other day in the theater I saw the preview fo Kingdom of Heaven. Ahh the Crusades. It looks beautiful. Jeremy Irons has a voice that could melt steel.

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Every now and then something on the internet makes me want to crawl through the cable and smack someone. Most especially people on forums who ask dumbass questions and use four hundred emoticons for each post.

I really just need to get dressed and go to work before I get cranky.

sometimes I get so angry that I cry

My mother has a new neighbor, with a loud and vicious dog. On friday night, the dog escaped from its yard. My mother caught it in her front yard.

The dog was killing my oldest cat, Hazel. It wasn't just a situation where the dog was chasing the cat and caught up to it. It was savaging her, and trying to drag her off like a piece of prey. There was blood dripping down everywhere, and my cat was crying. She was crying.

My mother beat the dog down with a flashlight to get it to let go of Hazel. She hit it over and over in the face and on the head. Then it came back to try and get the cat again. My mother caught it on a slip leash and jammed it into a crate.

One would think, that if one saw their dog in a crate on a neighbor's porch, that one might ask the nieghbor what was going on. No. This son of a bitch tried to steal his dog back while my mother phoned the sheriff's department.

No one will do anything about it. Not the sheriff, nor animal control. Because she lives just outside the city and so close to a county line, no one wants jurisdiction. So they sent the dog home to that ratfucking neighbor. "Oh gee, sorry." That was all he said.

Hazel died. She was hurt so badly that nothing on earth could save her. Hazel was about fifteen years old, and a small calico. She never liked to be inside, and would only come in if the weather was very bad. We made a little house for her on the porch, and in the winter we plugged a heating pad in to keep her warm. She had green eyes, and a serious face.

She was so small, with little white paws. Hazel was the last of my childhood pets. She didn't deserve to die this way. Not torn up and savaged, not in agony and blood. What did she ever do to deserve such a cruelty?

My mother is a better person than I am. She told me that she had a moment, holding the slip leash tight on the dog's throat. She thought, "I could just keep pulling and the dog would die." But she couldn't bring herself to do it. I don't know if I could have stopped myself.

update on the vicious dog

The dog got out of its yard this afternoon. Apparently there is also a second dog at the home. So they were both running wild, threatening the pets and children of the streets.

My mother went next door and pounded on the door, but there was no answer. So she called the animal control officer, who just happened to be up the street looking for a bat in the middle school. The officer came down and captured both dogs. They are in dog lockup tonight, and you can bet it will cost that ratfucker neighbor a good chunk of change to get them out.

The unincorporated area of Travis county doesn't have many animal regulations. That's an issue being taken up with the legislators and citizens this year. I can only hope they do start registering dangerous dogs, and tracking the history of animals that harm people or other animals.

I feel a huge sense of relief that my mother's other cats are safe tonight.

It was like that moment when Galadriel refuses the One Ring. My mother says she has passed the test.