The way things are.

How are things? The general consensus is: "Not great."

A quarter of the nation is unemployed, thanks to a novel virus causing international lockdowns for social distancing.

Large cities are powderkegs of "protesters" and police clashing.

Cultural wars are in full swing. We have strong evidence (hell, let's just say "confirmation") of outside influence by international online arsonists who are fomenting hate and discontent on social media.

The President says that he does not trust:
The news media.
Scientists and doctors.
Our nation's intelligence services.
Our nation's criminal justice system.

The Left is cast as being full-bore socialists who want to tear down free enterprise, and get rid of the police.
The Right is being portrayed as racist, war-mongering, radical conservative, gun-obsessed zealots who care nothing for the nation's environment.

Police are being portrayed as focused on killing or at least hurting people of color whenever they can get away with it, who totally would get away with it, if The Left let down their guard.

Every use of force by police is now suspect to the public eye, if there is not a long history of the actor being a dangerous criminal, and there is not beautiful video of the event, depicting the recipient of police force committing indisputably heinous crimes (i.e., not just against police) when the police step in and expertly execute maneuver which stops the crime.

Police are assumed to be part of an inherently racially unjust system.

Because of this, people have taken to the streets in demonstrations which have repeatedly become riots. People will en masse block highways, blocking other people, to "raise awareness" of their issue. (This, to me, is akin to punching out a random old woman to raise awareness about breast cancer.)

People are stressed.

Listen to me: 

WE WILL GET THROUGH THIS.  

We as police will adjust some of the things we can, and the public will have to understand what we cannot adjust.

A vaccine is coming, and the greatest nation on the planet will get back to work again.

The current dumbass President will leave office, and another dumbass President will assume the role.

Do not get worked up over what someone says over the Internet-- chances are, they're just some Russian 'bot trying to goad you into a position of rage, to contribute to our chaos.

I and my brothers and sisters in blue will continue to try. And dammit, we'll try to do better. We have to.

I am sorry for our collective Troubles, and I will take a drink when they are past. For now, the liquor cabinet remains shut, because we have work to do.

If you can, try to be understanding of that idiot neighbor of yours, and do something kind.
If you can, let that comment box with the flashing cursor in it go unfilled with furious text.
If you can, send a little olive branch to that person that you used to think well of, before finding that they were just a little over on the Other Side on some divisive issue or another.

Finding Peace.

I am an atheist. I don't say that much, because of the negative reactions and connotations that seem to come from saying it.  This may be the first time that I've said it public. I think that it is. It's something that I've recently come to grips with.


I don't draw my peace from a higher power. For me, it has to come from within.


You may have noticed that the URL for this blog is MayPeaceBeWithYou [dot] BlogSpot [dot] com.


I composed that address one night after a decent beer or two, when I tried to decide what this web log, or 'blog, was to be about. I thought about writing about my experiences as a peace officer, but realized that most people don't tune into police stories for the "Peace" part of the officer's trade. They want to hear about the drama that accompanies discord.  I knew that I was mostly going to let people down if I promised them such things. If I had a counter on the number of times that I've drawn my gun with real concern that I was going to fire it, it would be in the double digits, and not really threatening the century mark.


When I suit up every day for work, I try to remember what my job is. I am employed to keep the peace.  The best way to do that is to show respect to the people that I come in contact with. And to be honest, I fail, occasionally. That respect thing works in a lot of other areas of life, too, for finding peace. Be it your neighbor, your wife, your daughter, your son, your work partner, your political adversary, or the saber-rattling nation a half-world away-- showing respect is a decent way to keep the peace.


That's hard to do, when we're irritated with someone. But if your goal, (having been established after contemplation in quiet times) is peace, then it is probably when we're irritated with someone that we most owe it to ourselves to display constant respect.

Another dog call.

I responded to two reports of a large pit bull acting aggressively. I arrived, and couldn't find it. I was informed that it had run off toward the highway. As I walked around the area, he showed up, and attacked the wheels of the complainant's Jeep. Literally, he bit the tires, snarling. He wheeled and ran at me, barking, ears down.


I drew my duty weapon, and had a few ounces of pressure on the Glock 31's trigger before he finally checked up about 4 feet from me, barking. He wheeled around, and I transitioned to Taser. I really didn't want to shoot the dog.


Taser still in hand, I phoned the animal control officer, and told him that I really needed a response. He was half an hour out. I set to calming the dog down.


My chief and I tossed him sticks, and talked nice to him, and generally wanted him to know that we thought he was great. He wouldn't kennel up in the back of my car, and periodically would get very aggressive again. My chief took my Taser, I kept my ASP out.


We called out the owner. She arrived right after Animal Control showed up. We asked for the dog's shots and registration, something that the owner had been warned about the last time that the dog was found running loose. She informed us that she HAD gotten he dog vaccinated, but that I just wouldn't believe her because it was a pit bull. It's funny-- I have long known that one of my tender spots is to be accused of being a racist. Here, I felt that same anger rise up. I swallowed it. Huh. Apparently my irritation at being called a racist translates into irritation at being called a "breedist." Or something. Good to know.


We got the dog put up. The owner got a ticket. She insisted that the dog was NOT aggressive. I pointed out that it had been to us, and that it had tried very hard to kill a cat in my presence (damn near managed it, too). "That's what dogs do," she said. "They get out, they kill cats, they kill chickens... big deal!" I pointed out that it was a big deal to the owners of the cats and chickens, and to the parents of the children in the area.


The dog had gotten out because she had it tied up in the back yard without a dog house this morning when she went to work, and he slipped his collar.  It was 30 degrees with a 25 mph wind outside this morning. I warned her of the Health And Safety Code: Unlawful Restraint Of Dog.


She shook her head ruefully and told the animal control officer that I just had it in for her and her poor dog.


I have very little enamel left on my teeth.

"There's a man at the door."

I was in the laundry room, turning dirty clothes into clean ones, when my daughter hollered to me that there was a man at the door.

I've actually been having some issues with a local who has lost his grasp on reality, and who believes that I'm the cause of his problems, so I made decent speed to the door. Not running, not amped, but ready. To my irritation, the door was standing ajar. I opened it, and found one of our newest officers at my department on the porch. I'm afraid that he may have misread my irritation with my daughter's accurate-yet-incomplete report as irritation at seeing him. He stepped back, and noted my hand in my pocket.

"Damn, Matt, you were about to put a cap in my ass!" He laughed.

I protested that I was happy to see him, and that no such thing was on my mind.

"Bull. You've got your hand on a gun, right now!"

I had actually been re-seating my little J-frame back into my leather pocket holster. I shrugged and pulled the whole rig out to seat it better, and re-pocketed it.

I closed the door and stepped outside, expecting there to be a potentially sensitive issue. There wasn't one. We chatted. Seems that a month or two back, I had done the recently-late officer from another agency a favor, when he had asked me over chat on our MDT to check on the registered address of a reported hit-and-run vehicle. I had found the suspect vehicle in its driveway, and documented the damage to it thoroughly photographically. I then had put all the picturess on a DVD,. and mailed it to him (my email couldn't handle it, and I was too lazy to set up a DropBox account.). Well, with his sudden passing, the case was languishing. I said that I would find the pictures and re-mail them to his P.D.

Strange the things that pop up.

Now I need to have a chat with the family about my expectations on answering the door and giving a more complete report than just "a man at the door."

Weekend projects

Ventilating the shed.
When we bought this house, one of the attractive features was that there was a garden shed built in the back. It had been custom-made by the previous tenant's ex-husband, who was something of a craftsman. He had made the hinges himself (he was a welder by trade), and had put the shed together very snugly.
Actually, he did TOO good a job at making it snug. He didn't even use trim; the joints are all so close that he just ran a bead of caulk to seal them. The door is good-sized, and I literally had to lean on the door to get it to compress the air inside, so that I could latch it.

While this is good for keeping your lawn tools dry, it also means that it has been death to enter that shed in the summertime. We genuinely have feared for the lives of our cats, should one get caught in there for more than a couple of minutes while exploring a the opened shed and then get locked in when we close it. So, ventilation.

We went to a construction salvage store yesterday, and bought a new back door for the house. While there, I saw some nice used gable vents. I have made gable vents, while I was a carpenter's helper. It was a pain to do, right. These looked pretty good. We bought them, and I put them into the shed.

Modifying the gable by cutting a 12"X18" hole.

First vent installed.



Second vent, installed.

 The difference was immediate. The door swings shut effortlessly, too. Fear not; both vents are screened in the back. Strangely, they were already painted a shade that worked pretty well with the extant shed gables. Yay, me.

Cat Door.
This one, we haven't solved, correctly, yet. We wanted to make it so that only our cats could come and go. We bought a cat door for the garage that would only let in the cat with the magnetic bobbin on his collar. In short order, he lost the collar, and butted his way through, breaking the door.
I've noticed that the neighbor cat has been coming in.
We have a second door through the kitchen door to the garage. Its locking device was broken by our boulder-headed cat, as well, but the flap remains. My wife installed stops (many screws, with their heads sticking up) into the cat passage, to prevent the flap from opening inward. Thus, the cats can exit to crap, but cannot creep back in. They must been ushered in. We'll see if this works.

Looking online, there are auto doors that use the RFID chip in your animal to let them in, which you can program for only one of your animals. Smart. Neither of our cats is chipped. Also, they're made of plastic parts, as well. I'm not spending $150 (before $70 to chip the stupid cats) for another plastic door. That plastic hinge with a flexible poly door is a fatal flaw. Make the whole thing out of sheet steel/aluminum, and I'm there. I might even go higher. I don't dote on those vomiting, shedding, annoying pieces of crap. But they matter to my wife and my daughters, and I'm lazy, so I'd actually go $200 to not have to deal with this anymore.

That neighbor cat has a collar and tags. It would give me only momentary satisfaction to deal with it the way I first was tempted to. Unless there is danger, I'm against killing someone's pet, as a rule, even if it's trespassing. It's not HIS fault that we make the food in our house accessible to him. We need to put a stop to this, though. I don't want opossums or raccoons in here.

Halloween.

• --On September 13th this year, I turned off the word verification Turing test on my blog. I've put most of the spam that I've gotten into a folder on my email. As of today, there are 444 such spam messages in there. The majority of my email now regards this blog, from "Anonymous," and exhibits one of three different characteristics:

1. It will compliment me as being such an extraordinary writer and providing such a useful blog.
2. It will be full of sentences mined from the net or just put together its own sentences with subjects, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, and such pushed together to make a sentence that almost makes sense. Reading a paragraph of such sentences and trying to determine content will drive a person mad. End of line. Jump.
3. It will simply be full of links. Actually, they ALL have links. But this third variety will have nothing but.

• --I propose new legislation banning any October advertisement that includes any variation of the sentence: "[Nouns] so [adjective], it's scary!!!"  EG: "Prices so low, it's scary!!" "Food so good, it's scary!!!" Pull the advert; they're done for the month.
• --My high school freshman is making a mask to go roaming trick-or-treating tonight. She's taking her 10 year old sister, who is making some kind of raggedy witch costume. She makes pretty good costumes. Check out her dead bride costume from last year:

The dress was a costume dress that she'd picked up at a Goodwill for three dollars. The blood was some of her daddy's stage blood left over from graduate level blood spatter experiments.  She's miserable in that pic, because the stage blood, having been left in the garage, was about 55 degrees, and she was made to stand out in the fresh Halloween air to let it dry. She was cold.

• --Kids over 11 who arrive at my door tonight out of costume get no candy. Kids under 11 may get some candy, but they'll be told we disapprove, and that they need to sing for their supper. Also? They get the crappy candy, like Dumdums, or Good-n-Plenty.
• --I will actually be working an off-duty gig this evening for a couple of hours, controlling car access to an affluent community. Seems that the rabble locally less-affluent have discovered that their high-rolling neighbors give out the Good Stuff, and they all like to bring their kids. Problem: left to their own devices, man parents won't walk the sidewalks with their little kids; they will drive along beside them. This results in the hazard of people driving the streets while looking out their passenger side window, on the very night when there is the highest likelihood of a sprog darting out in front of their vehicle. My job will be to direct such parents to park their cars at the convenient lot near the entrance to the 'hood, and invite them to take a stroll with their costumed charge.  Such service will be rendered with a big ol' Officer Friendly grin. I have been assured that I am to be compensated quite well for this.
• --It's to be 73 degrees at 6:00 PM today, with a dry 5 mph breeze from the north, and not a cloud in the sky. The moon is only waning two days past full. It will be a delightful evening for a stroll with friends.
• --When I was about 13, my best friends' parents attended a church that taught that Halloween was evil. I was invited to a Halloween party with their youth group, and found to my dismay that they were all praying for the souls of all those kids who were caught up in the Satan-worshiping that surely accompanied the act of dressing up and unintentionally celebrating dark arts. The television show 20/20 had just done a big exposé on the apparent rampant spread of Satanism and people were wringing their hands all over. In retrospect, I think that there could have been no greater reward for the mullet-wearing teens with cans of spray paint and hopes of getting the townsfolk all scared, than that they would receive such coverage.
• --When I was 12, I was on a Boy Scout camp out on a fall night, when I went for an unsanctioned midnight walk with a friend*. I can't recall now if it was a Friday the 13th, or a Halloween night, but we came across a group of older teens in the woods who clearly were trying to work themselves into a tizzy. They had a girl screaming, and shouted. It was midnight. At one point, one of the young men stepped onto the dirt road near where we crouched and yelled the refrain to "Shout At The Devil!" I don't know about my companion, but I was rather impressed. It was right at midnight. I was pretty certain that if we were detected by the revelers, we would be murdered. I sharpened a large stick and we sat in the shadows, about 80 yards away. I suggested to my friend that we should go rescue the girl. My older friend pointed out that such an attempt would be foolhardy. I permitted him to persuade me. Later, we heard her talking and laughing. We crept away. To quote Robert Earl Keen in "Shades Of Gray": "...these are just some sorry kids/ They ain't the ones."*
• --I've just had that crappy Mötley Crüe song playing in the background while typing. It's no longer scary, nor does it sound that hard (it was mostly unlistenable to teen aged Matt G). It just sounds kind of crappy. Also? The metal umlauts are dumb. Yeah, I know-- I'm getting old.

_____________________________
*I had seen him get up and walk out of the campsite, and I hopped up and ran to catch up. He was a couple of years older and a minor hero of mine, but I was aware that he also had a naughtier streak, too. To this day, I have no idea if he actually had a destination in mind. I think maybe he was hoping to get the two miles to the highway and get to a convenience store for some cigarettes.

**Yeah, this is the Richard Shindell version with Cry Cry Cry, but I think that the lyrics are clearer than the original Robert Earl Keen, Jr version. Also, yes, I'm aware that the song was written later in 1997, about some kids who almost got implicated for the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing, but the phrase has resonated in my head many times throughout my career, when I have run across some light-runnin' malefactors who distracted me from my search for real evil-doers.

Just that easy.

A commenter in my previous post suggests that I could probably get the best loan rate from a savings and loan. I sure don't dispute it, though we don't have an S&L in my community.

Perhaps I could have shopped around and gotten a better rate. But I think I'd have ended up within a 1/4 percent of what I'm getting, and in this case, the banker saw me walk in, called me by name, offered some services that will permit me not to make a round trip into the Dallas area and which will hurry things up, and also permitted me to not have my wife come in from work to do some paperwork during the business day.

Small town banks and honest small town bankers are part of what makes things happen. This guy bent over backwards to grease the wheels for me, because he knew that I was a member of his community, a patron of his bank, and a good risk, even when I got out of a 15 year old Honda and walked in wearing a bad haircut and a rumpled shirt. He also knew that I needed to hit that coffee machine before sitting down.

The last time that I'd seen him, he'd been sweating over a grill, selling cheap burgers and hotdogs at a community event to raise money for the community youth activity fund, in this town that he grew up in.

I'll pay that extra quarter percent, I think, and never look back.

Wink-wink. Nudge-nudge.

One rule that I was taught early as a peace officer writing probable cause affidavits is the Four Corners Doctrine. Simply put, if the information is not put within the four corners of the sheet[s] of paper that the affidavit is written upon, the judge may not consider it.  If I charge Mr. Smith with Assault Causes Bodily Injury With Prior Conviction, I had darned well better mention his prior conviction for Assault CBI in that PC affidavit. I know of a judge who fairly recently threw out a PC on this doctrine, when the officer charged the defendant with Dischage Firearm In Certain Municipalities, but forgot to mention that the city was over 100,000 people. (Everyone knew that town had over 100,000 people, but the officer didn't mention it.)
It makes sense, though-- if it hasn't been testified to, the judge may not consider it.

Looking at the Arizona law SB1070 (which empowered Arizona law enforcement to make on-view warrantless arrests of individuals where there illegally, for violation of the new state law against being in Arizona illegally), we see that, first shake out of the box, it forbade enforcement based on ethnicity or race in black letter law. Yet concerns about harassment of people based upon race and ethnicity were exactly what got its opponents upset. A cynical person might also say that some were concerned that, even without harrassment based on race or ethnicity, some opponents were simply concerned that the law might actually be effective, in detaining and eventually deporting people not legally in this country.
But when the feds challenged the state law and brought it to the Supreme Court of this nation, the racial/ethnic issue wasn't brought up.

Although some critics of the law have contended that it would inevitably lead to targeting of Latinos simply because of appearance, speaking Spanish, or having a Spanish accent, Verrilli told the justices on April 25 “We're not making any allegation about racial or ethnic profiling in the case."

When the federal attorneys challenging a state enforcement law bring no allegation about race or ethnic oppression to court, that's because they haven't got any evidence supporting that issue.

But the law was struck down in all ways but one: state-appointed police are still permitted to enforce the federal immigration laws. The new provisions that it be illegal on a state level to seek work as an undocumented alien, and that that aliens must register with the state, and that Arizona law enforcement may make warrantless arrests of undocumented aliens for violation of the state law-- these were struck down.

The reasoning given by Justices Kennedy, Roberts, Ginsburg, Breyer and Sotomayor, was that the state must not usurp the federal authority. We already have laws about that. Huh. We have federal laws about drugs, and bank robbery, and a thousands of other things that are redundant on the state level. But this one, we must see overturned. But it's not about race or ethnicity.

The dissent given by Thomas and Scalia and Alito (all notably conservative or libertarian justices) is that there is state sovereingty to consider. The Arizona governor strangely claimed this as a victory for the 10th Amendment.

But it's not about race or ethnicity.

Random Halloween Day Thoughts.

• --The Eighth Grader In The House carved up a jack-o'-lantern that was better than any that I've done in 40 years. My wife, a sculptor, was impressed. Not fancy; just well-executed. I don't have a picture because the effect is lost without darkness and a candle, and I forgot to take one last night.
• --I still need to finish cleaning guns from Blogorado. Next year we should put together a gun-cleaning table to sit and chat at while cleaning guns at the end.
• --While working the crosswalk during the city-sponsored Halloween event this weekend, my partner and I wondered how else girls would learn to dress up as sluts in public, if they didn't have their hot moms to show them how at Halloween.
• --Yard decorations for Halloween have gotten out of hand. I don't think Christmas-style strings of orange house lights were even seen before about two or three years ago. Now they're ubiquitous.  Front yard graveyards are thick on the ground. Stupid inflatable fabric lighted yard decorations? All over.
• --My daughters are terrified that I'm going to wear my kilt and pith helmet while accompanying them and their pack of friends trick-or-treating this evening. I've let them believe that I'm going to. Talk about the scariest thing that they can think of on Halloween! Heh.

• --While in the front yard spattering stage blood (left over from my graduate studies) onto the white lace garage sale dress that The Fourth Grader In The House was wearing, I thought to myself that the greater horror for me was seeing my kid in a bridal gown.
• --My younger daughter, while standing outside with the blood drying on her bridal gown, saw the cat playing with a mouse. She tried to save the mouse, and got bitten for her trouble. Didn't break the skin, and the mouse was healthy as could be. I told her that she was lucky that I got to see the rodent, or I would have her getting shots. Do they still do that? I also threatened her with a thrashing if she ever again tried to touch a wild animal of any stripe. I killed the mouse, which did have a broken back already. The cat looked at me disgustedly, and ate it.
• --My elder daughter dressed in black, painted her nails, eyes, and lips black, wore a giant silver cross and a chain belt, and made her face white, and went as a Goth Girl. She practiced sighing and rolling her eyes as she announced, "Trick or treat" in a voice dripping with irony.
• --My neighbor thought that it was AWESOME when I put Burglar Bob, the reactive shooting dummy, on the front porch. He liked it even better when I put the words "Free Candy" on my skeevy old van parked out front. I took some pictures, and then chickened out. I gotta work in this town.
• --At the last second I had to run get some candy. The door hasn't been knocked on yet.
• --I should probably fix that doorbell.

Project A Kon

And speaking of Larry Correia, that reminds me-- I ran into a guy dressed out as one of his characters out of his excellent series of Monster Hunters International books.

He was very nice, and let me take his picture. I mentioned that I'd been a moderator with Larry at The Firing Line and The High Road for some time, and he asked if I wanted a patch. I've never gotten an MHI patch, so I was excited to get this one. I think that I'm going to sew it onto my patrol bag. I may put velcro on the back, and put it on my department gas mask bag, or on my fast response bag.

I ran into the guy at A-Kon, an anime convention for serious nerds. What was I doing at A-Kon, you may ask? Well, I think that I was being a good daddy. See, my elder daughter and her best friends have gotten deep into reading all manner of Japanese cartoon books called Manga. They watch videos of Japanese anime. They copy hundreds of Japanese pop songs in MP3 format to trade among each other to play on their iPods and phones and convert to CD format to play on my dadgummed car stereo when we go places.

So when my 12 year old daughter, who had just been recognized by Duke TIP as a really bright kid for doing exceptionally well on the SAT in 7th grade, got all A's for the six weeks, the semester, and the school year, she was getting a big reward. And she wanted A-Kon. I took her and her two best friends.

Folks, I've been to a few county fairs, a goat ropin', and I've seen ducks copulate, but I've never seen anything like this.

We drove into downtown Dallas to the hotel. No parking for blocks. We finally drove into a parking garage that was almost full, for $18 to park. We walked into the hotel amidst hundreds-- nay-- thousands of people dressed in various costumes. My daughter was not in costume, but she had dyed her bangs aqua (hey, they grow out). She was so normal-looking, that she was almost invisible. I just wore khakis and comfortable shoes. I was invisible.

We walked in as the conga line of several hundred passed us. The leader was a belly dancer with 8 foot butterfly wings of gold. Following her were all manner of costumed nerds who were in their natural habitat, mostly between the ages of 14 and 30.

It was as if, repressed of their chance to be social during their daily lives, these youngsters had finally found Their People, and took the opportunity to crawl out of their shells. They were jubilant. When they found someone in a similar costume, depicting the same character that they had come dressed as, they didn't get upset. Indeed, they would happily embrace, as would long-lost friends who had finally reunited. I saw this over and over again. They minded not at all if you asked to take a picture of them (or better yet, with them). It was a high compliment, and the most popular had worked on their poses. My daughter was a little jealous of her friend who was repeatedly recognized for the character whose costume she wore.

I paid the registration fee for all four of us. But that was it. (Besides snacks, lunch, supper, and a little help with a pin when a girl came up short.)

We saw furries, cross-dressers, perverts, and robots, both real and imagined. We saw storm troopers. We saw girl storm troopers. We saw video game characters. We saw faux Florentine fencing demonstrations. We saw people dressed as stone angels. We saw browncoats. We saw steampunks. We saw movie heroines. We saw superheroes. We saw strange mixes of culture that defied explanation. It was a throng of nerd-dom, taking up three stories of the hotel.

And next year, if she gets all A's, I'll take her to do it again.

A happy ending.

Yesterday, I did some checking. I came across a phone number for the landlord of the now-empty rent house across the way where the little dog used to live. I called but couldn't reach the landlord. I left a message with several contact numbers for me, and why I wanted to speak with him or the previous tenants. No call.

I have of course already left a letter on the door of the house, with my number and address. No call.

Today, my wife took off of work. I woke up to find her sleeping beside me late this morning after she had taken the kids to school. (I had gotten off late last night.) Later I woke to hear her puttering about the house. The little dog yipped. I hoped that my wife had let her out to pee. (We've been slowly training her to be housebroken, and she really does prefer to go outside. ) I went back to sleep.

A few minutes later, my wife walked into the bedroom to announce, "I just made a puppy deposit!"

As my last thoughts on the dog were concerning its need of house training, I of course immediately thought that she was referring to a deposit, from the puppy. Look, I was sleepy.

"Huh?" I asked.

"The girl who owned the puppy just knocked on our door. She asked for her puppy. I gave the perrita to her, and she said 'thanks' which seems to be about the only English that she knows. The puppy is gone!" my wife gushed.

I sat up quickly. "She's gone? And we didn't have to let those vile thieving children have her? The communists and terrorists don't win? Huzzah!"

To celebrate, we walked to the diner, and ordered the specials. I had meatloaf. She had chicken-fried steak. Hers was better. The tea was strong, the coffee was fresh, and the terrorists hadn't won.

A good day.

The cute dog on my day off.

The neighbors across the way have a cute little brown puppeh. Really cute. No, even I can't handle the cute. They work all the time, and are almost never home. The puppy runs loose. While this is a violation of our city ordinance, I don't care; she's adorable, and she's harmless, and when I'm home, I'm off-duty. And since she runs across the street to play with my family and the other neighbors, it's like having a puppy dog on time-share. Remember how it used to be-- the neighborhood dogs that everyone knew? That everyone petted and even fed, but at day's end, they went home? That's kind of how this is amounting to be.

We are after some thought growing a little afraid that the puppy would get run over in our street.

Friday, some girls come by my house and ask me if they can take the puppy, because it's not being taken care of. I look at the dog's taut little belly, and silky coat, and look across at the pan of food and pan of water, and tell them that I don't see how the dog's being mistreated, though it would be nice if she were kept in an enclosure for her safety. They say that she will get run over, and beg my permission to take her. Hey-- I'm just an off-duty cop. Who made me that dog judge? No, I tell them. That dog belongs to those people. Leave her alone. They point out that she is sooooo cute. I agree. I go back inside.

Sunday, we learn from my other neighbor that they came and took the dog Saturday night.

My wife is FURIOUS. "You don't just come take someone's dog!" she complains. "That's not right!"

I happen to agree, but it's not my call. Perhaps there was an agreement made with the neighbors across the street, who are NEVER home. Maybe they put the dog out for someone to take. Maybe they were hoping to leave it, as I hear that they're about to move. I look for the chance to talk to them. They're never home. Finally I see one man loading up a car. He's clearly nervous about talking to me, and I gather that it's because he's not technically legally here. He's full-on south-of-the-border Mexican. I make myself approachable, but he says nothing, and leaves. Well, I hoped that someone would say something. I got nothing. I go inside.

My wife is madder than ever. If only I had a complaint? I have checked at the P.D. twice to see if they had made a complaint about the dog missing or stolen. Nothing.

Then my mother calls. A note was left on her door Monday night when she was asleep. The girl who owns the doggy wants her back. She's moving, she says, and thinks that maybe my mom has the dog. (Mom lives next door to me, and the kids played with it in her yard a lot.)

Finally, this is the request for help that I've been looking for! I grab my daughter and put her in the car, to guide me to which house the girls reside. It turns out that they live in a multi-family dwelling about 4 blocks away. I park well away so that my daughter can't be seen, and make contact. I keep it informal, but explain that they can't just take a person's dog, and now the owners think my family has it. Five minutes later, I have the dog, and I take it home. I'm a minor hero with my wife and kids.

Mom wants to buy the dog. The people who stole it want to buy the dog. I put a note on the dark front door of the neighbors explaining the situation. Mom calls me over to put HER note on the front door. I put my phone number in the note, asking them to call to get their dog.

They don't call.

The dog pees on my rug and sets to chewing things, and barking at the cats.

Turns out that this pitch of dog bark resonates quite well on ceramic and stone tile. Ow.

I put the little bitch into a dog kennel and put her in the laundry room. (Ceramic tile.) I cover the kennel with a large rug. I go to sleep.

This morning, still no call.

It's possible that I moved too late.

It's a cute dog and all, but it's still a puppy, and needs training, and Mom's house needs better fencing. I don't have a fence. I don't feel like signing on for this.

This and that.

Sorry I've not been feeling it in the form of good blogging, lately. We'll try the shotgun approach:

• --I bought a '94 Dodge van last week for $500. It runs like a top, has good A/C, a trailer hitch and working trailer lights connections, good rubber, and a stout luggage rack. It doesn't have any seats behind the front seats. Time to do some chores that I've been meaning to tend to, and I may just put together some kind of business with my shift partner. We'll see. In the mean time, the ride makes me look like a prime suspect for any future abductions. The word "skeevy" comes to mind.


• --I bought my wife an iPad 2 in 32gig 3G. It was difficult to find. The guy at Radio Shack was so customer friendly, he put me on a list and called me and held it for me when it came in. That guy needs a raise. The wife loves the iPad. I don't know yet just how useful it is. I can't type on it very well, though Marko says that he can, pretty well. Marko does not have hands as big and clumsy as I do. Neither did the silverback Lowland Gorilla that I saw today at the Dallas Zoo.


• --When we took my daughters and friends to the zoo today, we found parking was $7 per car (we took two), and admission was $12 a head. Then there was the cost of food inside. The animals ate well. Giraffes eat romaine lettuce and RyeCrisp crackers that you can buy from a vendor there. The bald eagle ate fresh quail. The fossa had a very nice looking rabbit. I don't recall my parents spending so much when they took me to the zoo as a kid. Still, we liked it.


• --Dunno what other heeled visitors were carrying, but with the temps in the high 80's, I just wore my standard J-frame stoked with +P .38 Spl, with a NY reload of a P3AT in my pocket. The roundbutt .38 rode VERY nicely in my new but steadily-being-worn holster by Mike, which I need to do a review on soon.


• --I found myself the other day able to compare Tamara's favorite Stone's Ruination IPA with my old standard Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA. The Ruination has a more pure note of bitterness all the way from the initial sip through the fair-thee-well. The Dogfish Head has a more complex flavor, with more malt and mouth feel. The head is almost crunchy. This will require more study. --I used the van tonight to fetch home 24 bales of Owens Corning pink insulation and a blower, so that in the morning I might blow in about 12" of insulation into my mom's attic and perhaps another 6" over my garage.


• --My wife made a wonderful curry with venison on Thursday, and it suffers not one whit as leftovers, served over fluffy basmati rice. It seems that pressure-cooked venison makes a superb base for curry. If you're concerned about the gamey flavor of venison (we're not), may I heartily recommend you try it in a vindaloo?


• --I was able to help a local family out recently, after their kid went on the lam, merely by picking up the phone and calling a fellow law enforcement professional. It seems the run-away son got himself picked up (in Texas, you can be a runaway at 17, but can still be held in grown-up jail for your criminal actions) for a minor misdemeanor (fibbing about his age). LawDog made sure that, while his stay may not have been comfortable or fun, it was at least safe and reasonably smooth. Classification is something of an art, and sometimes it takes a nudge from an artist with LD's knowhow to keep the puppies out of the wolves' dens. Problem child is back at home, mending fences. With a little help from some people he's never even met, he'll get by. (Thanks, 'Dog.)