The guy the next city to the east who was attacked by dogs? He died in hospital. It's also reported that some of the high school kids who had to walk home from school past the house where the dogs were had taken to carrying baseball bats - there were two previous minor attacks on kids. Apparently the bats were to fend off the dogs if they came out. (And yeah, I suppose the kids could have walked a DIFFERENT route, but...)
My question: why were the dogs not taken away from the owner* after the first attack?
(*Not necessarily to be euthanized but I admit I would be very leery of adopting a dog that had previously attacked a kid).
The man who owned the dogs was on the teevee pleading how "sorry" he was, but....you know, you should be "sorry" and do something (like getting the dog training, or giving it to someone who lives far away from kids) the first time your dog SCARES a child, not after three attacks, one resulting in a death.
I dunno. Some days I wonder at how much time I spend feeling inadequate and "not good enough" and worrying if I'm really secretly a terrible person and then I hear stuff like this. Apparently there ARE some people who specifically train their dogs to attack, as a form of property-defense, but then the dogs go off the property....
I am dog-phobic. There, I said it. If you have a dog and I know and trust you, I will be mostly okay with the dog. I may not be particularly affectionate, not in the way I am with cats, where I will sit down on the floor and hope they come over and want me to pet them and will crawl into my lap (and yes, I know, there are dogs like that too, but in my mind they are "honorary cats") but I have had too many bad experiences with dogs - as a kid, and also more recently, because I had some bad neighbors for a while who had a mean dog who sometimes got out of its yard.
With cats....oh, I know there are mean cats, but my experience with unfriendly cats is that they tend to run away from you after they hiss at you; they don't usually* attack
(*Apparently my parents' first old cat TRIED with some people; they used to have to lock her up when workmen came)
***
I dunno. I also made the mistake of reading a MeFi thread on "what does it feel like when you die" (linked to a book, luckily, not an article online, so I don't have the experience of maybe trying to read through my fingers over my eyes, not wanting to read but also being tempted to). But yeah. This is still kind of a raw thing and some of the commenters noted that "sometimes the person senses it days in advance" and based on some of the things my dad had my mom do - calling up a couple services and cancelling things or putting things in her name, where it would have been harder without my dad's verbal directions, I kind of think he knew, and that's kind of awful knowledge to have. Though I don't know: maybe knowing and having time to make your peace with it is better than having a massive heart attack or something and the last thing on earth you sense is pain and fear and the sudden realization you're not going to make it.
I think I said before that I suspect the "curse" on humanity - the thing that came from the metaphorical eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the thing that got us expelled from the metaphorical garden, is the knowledge that we're going to die. As far as we know, we are the only animal who knows this fact most of our lives (I suspect many non-human animals realize death is imminent shortly before death, but I don't think they carry around the burden of the knowledge that that will happen to them). Also, perhaps, the expulsion from the Garden is repeated in every person's life, as soon as that person becomes old enough to realize they are going to die some day.
And while in an abstract way I "knew" since I was seven or eight, it was only really brought home hard to me this summer - losing the first close family member in the generation right before yours.
(Then again - I've lost a couple cousins who were between my dad and me in age, and that didn't faze me in the same way, but.....I guess I was able to write it off, somehow: Tom took his own life, which is a terrible thing, but on some level it was his choice; and Chum had had a serious stroke and was unlikely to recover)
Also as I said on Twitter: I've gazed into the abyss far too much; I want to gaze into something fluffy and candy-colored for a change.
Though I don't know. Maybe it's fitting the chaos in my soul right now matches the chaos in the outside world. (At least, the world of power and privilege and government. Maybe I just need to find a cabin in the woods where all I have to look at is the trees, and all I have to listen to are the birds, maybe then things would seem less chaotic).
I just. I just want to hear something good and nice and where people aren't incandescently angry about stuff and innocent people aren't getting hurt and I'm telling you if a portal to Equestria opened here and now I'd step right through it, and barely pause even if they told me "you can never come back to Earth and you'll never get to talk to the people here again." Or something. I want an alternate universe that is nicer and prettier than the one we are in right now.
What I need is for someone who loves me to figuratively "kidnap" me and take me somewhere nice: either going antiquing for a day, or for whatever form a "spa day" would take for me, or hiking somewhere (once it cools down) and just get me out and away from the thoughts that torment me. And another person is an important part of it because having someone to talk to means I don't think as much about the stuff that's bugging me.
***
Still came in to a lot of "asks" today and I gave up my usual Tuesday 'go home for lunch' and packed a lunch because a student who was supposed to make up an exam yesterday could not, and the only time she was free was this afternoon, and it turns out the mandatory meeting about insurance re-enrollment is at 2 pm, so she has to come in before that, because I need to go to that meeting, because YET AGAIN the plans have changed and I have to figure out which one is best for me (and please God I need one thing to be easy).
And yes, I could have said no, but in the longer run, it would complicate my life more if I had. But I do get tired of giving up the small comforts of my own life in order to get work done or help other people. Because sometimes I feel like people wouldn't do that for me.
And being able to get home and make a proper cup of tea (by the time I get home around 4 or 4:30 it's too late, I wouldn't sleep for the caffeine) is one of the few small things I look forward to. (Yes, I have teabags in my office but they are old and kind of gross and it's harder to make tea nicely there)
***
Still not gonna do anything for Hallowe'en outside of sending off some cards (My offer still stands: if you want one, drop me an e-mail with your address. I have a bunch). But I can't with some of the festivity and also the whole death-themed part of the thing. A neighbor up the street has done their usual thing of putting out "joke" tombstones (they did that this weekend, awfully early, IMHO) and I drove past them and just kind of groaned because I can't, you know? I've lost too many people too recently. And yes, I know the point of Hallowe'en is to laugh at the stuff that scares you but....it's not so much that I'm scared but that I'm SAD, and it's harder to laugh at stuff you're sad about. What I really need is some comforting....
I had a grief counsellor meeting last week; the next one is in about a month (I am trying hard to stretch out the "paid for by my university" ones, but I may wind up just needing to go more times, I don't know.)
It does still feel like it's just hard to get everything done, like I get one thing done and think I can sit back and relax a little but NOPE, there's something else. Yesterday was a meeting (shared governance) about some upcoming stuff for accreditation and it seems like every time we do this there's more stuff added on, it's like there's a grand and devious experiment in "how much can we make faculty do until we break them totally" and I'm getting close to that point.
(Again telling myself: if you fail at something, if you wind up that caryatid crushed under her weight, it's okay, they were expecting too much of you, the fault is in them and not in you. But I can't quite believe it.)
I admit driving in today I thought "it would be....kind of nice....if the power were out to campus or if a water main break shut off the water and we all just had to go home" (it happened once a couple years ago with a big water main break. I wound up going to Sherman because I could get lunch out at a place that actually HAD water). No, I can't take a mental-health day, as much as I might need one. I would feel guilty and also people are depending on me. But a Tuesday or Thursday....well, those are the days where my class is NOT behind the syllabus so something happening to cancel class would be fine.
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