I’m going to have to respray the outside of the house again with bug killer. While the product says it’s good for many months, it appears it’s really only good for about a month. Either that or we have incredibly persistent and resiliant bugs. There are ants around Kitty’s food dish again, and Ian pulled yet another deer tick from my arm last night. Hoo-ray. Damn bugs. If they weren’t so vital to the functioning of the planet, I’d say, “DESTROY THEM ALL!”

Another annoying critter that has turned up recently is in the form of four legs, a wagging tail, and a snout that won’t close. There’s a new dog in the neighborhood (as if we didn’t have enough; our house is literally surrounded by dog owners) that is either barking in a sort of sick, pained way, or it’s howling. About 80% of the time, it’s howling. It’s not even a full, deep howl or the constant baying like a Beagle. No, it’s this high-pitched, thin, airy howl almost like the wind blowing through a cave or through trees on especially windy days. This dog is howling almost nonstop. I’m beginning to wonder if it eats or sleeps or really even gets a chance to inhale with as much howling as it does. Ian doesn’t hear it much because the den is louder than the living room since it’s a smaller space with two computers running in it. I need to take a walk around the neighborhood so I can figure out whose dog is doing all the annoying howling and then ask them to tie the dog’s mouth shut. I could even provide zip ties or wire or rope or whatever. Four days of this straight with no end in sight is not my idea of fun. And people wonder why I don’t like dogs. My cat has never once howled for an hour straight (or a minute straight), and there’s no way that even if she did that she could possibly annoy the neighbors with it. But no, dog owners think that so long as the dog’s outside, their howling and barking isn’t their problem. @#$%&?! dogs.

The dog had stopped for the last four or five sentences I typed. Now it’s going again. I’m thinking loud music or TV. Though technically, that hasn’t helped much before. Grrrrr. I’ll just have to scrounge up enough laundry to do laundry. Our washer’s louder than anything else I can think of. Now if only it were winter and we were wearing more clothes, I might be able to get enough loads to block it out for hours.