This book! Making me nuts. False pride is involved, I believe.

I skimmed this book because a neighbor recommended it to me. It's causing me to fret way, way, way more than it should, and for all the wrong reasons. I'm not going to tell the whole story right now--because I seem incapable of blogging a short story (see, for example, yesterday's overly long story about a micro dog bite). But friends and family will get a sense of why I'm wringing my hands over the book when I reveal that the neighbor who suggested it is my Tea Party/Trump Supporter/Conspiracy Theorist Neighbor, with whom I have a love-hate relationship.

Skimming the book led me to this article, which is also why my brain is so muddled right now.

A scene from my very uneventful life

The other night I was walking to a neighbor’s house at 11 pm to feed her cats when two dogs from another house across the street rushed over to me, in the dark, barking, and not in a friendly way. I barely know these dogs—the neighbor, Cari, is new to the neighborhood. I tried talking to the dogs but in a split second I felt the smaller dog bite my ankle. Not hard, and the skin didn’t even break. But what a shock! I yelped, I think. Cari was right behind the dogs trying to get them under control, which she did, and then profusely apologized. I laughed it off and went on my way. She didn't know the dog bit me.

I confess that it shook me up a little. I have no experience with dog bites. When I walked home 15 minutes later I was nervous and hoped the dogs—there are three of them—were back inside or at least on leashes. I told Doug about it and he was annoyed to say the least. In the 2 months she's lived here, Cari has often let her dogs off their leashes while outside her house. It's not unusual for people to do that around here since we live next to a large park.

The next day Doug ran into Cari in the park. He told her he wasn’t happy and gave her a little lecture on the dangers of unleashed dogs. He even told her that the previous owners of her house were threatened with a lawsuit after their two part-pit bulls raced off their property and into the park where they encountered someone walking a single dog. Something ugly happened but I'm not sure exactly what. We do know that there was a financial settlement. Cari assured Doug that she would be more careful in the future and he replied “you’d better be!” And then he apparently repeated it as he walked away: "you’d better be!”

Doug has a very high boiling point for anger, but once it's reached it's not usually a pretty scene. He felt sorry almost immediately and we agreed that he would apologize when he had a chance.

The next morning we found this quartet of goodies on the front porch, with a very nice note from Cari apologizing again. So both Doug and I wrote notes back to her, with thanks and more apologies. Tough way to get some chocolate but there's no bad way to get chocolate, right?