July 12
 
 
 

I was taking out the recycling pail last night when I noticed something strange about my front lawn.  Mainly, that there was a giant Rottweiler sitting on it.  "Oh, hello there!"  I said, trying to decide whether or not it was going to lunge at me and eat out my eyes.  I reasoned that I could throw empty water bottles at it as I ran for my life, if necessary, but it never amounted to that.  I walked past, and it stared at me kind of benevolantly, wagging his stumpy tail, but never coming closer or moving away.  I sat down on my front steps and we regarded eachother quietly.  He didn't look dirty or hungry or particularly sick.  He wasn't wearing a collar.  He got up kind of lazily and strolled out into the middle of the street, still wagging his stump, looking back over his shoulder at me with the same expression of benevolance.  A car came down the street.  My boy didn't care.  Like a goose crossing the road, he stood defiantly until the car was practically on his flank.  The drivers of the car glared and gestured at ME.  I tried to convey with some idiot sign language of my own, that the dog was not mine, that I had found it sitting on my lawn, and that I wasn't 100 percent sure it wouldn't bust open their window with a giant paw and gnaw on them, Cujo style.  Obviously, they didn't speak idiot sign language because they and the dog were locked in a stalemate.  They huffed and honked and displayed their Yankee furor (they drove a new Volvo wagon, and I could see that the woman was wearing a nautically themed sweater set) yet, rolling down their window to ask me whether or not the dog was mine never seemed to occur to them.  Finally, after about 2 minutes, the dog moved over about in inch and they zoomed past it.  I'd like to imagine the conversation in the car going something like this:

Man:  Boots, look! A dog in the road.
Woman:  Oh, how UTTERLY!!
Man:  We're going to be late for Sunday martini time at the club, I told you we shouldn't have gotten off the highway!!
Woman:  Oh, Chippy, don't worry.  The only people who arrive on time are those DREADFUL Hamiltons.
Man:  Oh, Kitten, be NICE.  Biff and I were Bonesmen, you know that.  Darn this dog.  Look, a middle classed woman standing on her lawn, that dog must belong to her.  Gesture at her so she feels our displeasure.
Woman:  My stars, is that a T SHIRT she is wearing?  Please, get us out of this ghetto immediately!  Dog! Be gone! Filthy cur!!
Man:  Make your gestures more grandiose, the dog isn't paying attention!!
Woman:  Darling! I can't!! This is exhausting me!!!  Do something, Chippy!! DO SOMETHING!!
Man:  I won't stand for this!!!  Don't you know who I am!?!  My great great great great Grandfather was a FOUNDING FATHER OF THESE UNITED STATES.  I command you to move!!
Woman:  Please, Chippy!! Make it move!! The dog is staring at me.  I'm so afraid!!
Man:  Why, I'll bump it!! I will!!
Woman:  You are all kinds of TOO MUCH, Chip.
Man:  Look, it moved!
Woman:  Darling, I'm parched.  All this poverty is making me weary.
Man:  Boots, we'll get through this.
Woman: God, I hope so.  MY night is just RUINED.
Man: But think of the wonderful story this will make! It's like being held hostage in some little village!
Woman:  Too right.  Too right.
 
 

After that, the dog kind of glanced around, peed on my across the street neighbor's lawn (I hate them, so I was glad) and dissapeared.  I don't  know whether it's connected to the dog or not, but this morning when I got into my car, there was a cat sitting in my driveway.  I'm thinking that maybe they're all playing poker in my garage.
 
 

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