News From My Neighborhood

Return of the Expulsions of Houdini Dog.  No doubt you recall the many times in the past when a clandestine canine visited my yard and made deposits in the hope that my feet, like some sort of podiatric bank tellers, would happen along and then whisk the deposits away to some other, safer location.

I thought that was all over.  But in recent weeks it seems clear that someone has been either helping or attempting to frame our old friend Houdini Dog.  We know this is true because a perfectly straight line of excrement has been appearing in our yard.  What I mean to say is that each pile is in line with the next, as if standing in a queue.  But what is it waiting for?  That is yet to be determined.  The most mysterious part is that, once again, the offending digested materials have been appearing in our back yard... our locked back yard.  Some think that it has been tossed over the fence.  It is a mystery.

Killing Me Softly... With Her Smoke.  There's this lady on the next street over who walks her kids to school every day while smoking a cigarette.  She forces her kids to walk five to ten steps ahead of her so they won't breathe in any smoke.  When we came up on the sidewalk behind her, she freaked out, tried to wave the smoke away and finally decided to walk in the middle of the street, where she wouldn't get her inhalations on anyone.  When I walk home from the school I often see her on the corner, standing there and having a smoke.  When she sees me coming she waves the smoke away and mumbles sorry, sorry.  If I were her I think I would just say, "Please look away... I'm trying to slowly destroy my lungs and it embarrasses me to have people watching."

Mews from My Neighborhood.  Gemma the Cat of Terror has given birth to yet another litter of kittens.  One of the girls who lives at Gemma's house said, "I don't think anyone has ever had The Talk with Gemma."  It's true.  It's hard to deny that they are cute.  I took hold of one for this picture.  Afterward I noted that it looked like I was choking the poor cat, but that could not be farther from the truth.  In fact, here's a second picture showing that the cat is alright.

Kittens In Disguise. And, lastly, in news of the neighborhood weird, Tuesday night at about 9:30 I drove home from seminary to see a man in camouflage carrying something clutched to his chest.  A rifle, I assumed.  Why is a man dressed in military-ish clothing carrying a rifle through our neighborhood, I wondered.  And then, as I drove by, I took a look in the rearview mirror and discovered that his rifle was, in fact, a large black cat.  I don't know what he's planning to do with that cat, but here's my guess: Using his camouflage outfit he sneaks up on his worst enemy.  Then, when his enemy isn't watching, he SPRINGS THE BLACK CAT, who crosses path with the enemy.  Now his enemy has bad luck!  Moowhahahahaaa!