All A-twitter

I thought that freedom of speech means that anyone who feels compelled to express whatever is protected for doing so as long as the words do not slander or libel, pose a direct threat, or create a harmful situation that puts others in immediate danger. If a female athlete wants to tweet a racist joke, recipients have the right to deny a public reaction that validates the message. I know that in other countries, with other forms of government, public speech is both controlled and censored, but in America, we are supposed to have the right to speak our minds without fear of reprisal.

Thus, I'm not sure why the top echelon of Twitter people shut down accounts for people whom they deem have offended/upset/dismayed someone somewhere for something. I also don't understand why athletes are being kicked out of the Olympics based on their "inappropriate" tweets. Who decides what's inappropriate? If it were up to me, the 4-hour long, horrifically tedious and boring opening ceremony for this year's Olympics was inappropriate. I also think the skimpy "penis pouches" worn by male swimmers and divers are inappropriate. And, do we even need to hear yet another male commentator discuss the itsy-bitsy-teeny-weeny-bikinis worn by the women's volleyball players as if they are critiquing the new Playmate of the Month centerfold?

Sure, I'd think twice before I shared my personal pettiness with anyone outside my immediate circle of friends, but if a tweeter is willing to be judged by others for inappropriate thoughts, who am I to tell him/her not to send an ill-advised tweet? Obnoxious tweets speak volumes about the person who sends them and we more effectively deal with the individual by not providing feedback. It's the old "if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, is there any sound" approach.

Today, verbal graffiti is spread through Twitter and text messages. If you get something you don't want, delete it, rather than send it to everyone on your friends' list. If you are appalled by a tweet or text message, chances are others also will be appalled, so spare them that experience!

If you send it on, you exacerbate the issue, rather than stopping it before it goes viral, and are, therefore, guilty as an accessory to poor decision-making.

Good Enough Isn't

When is good enough … good enough? Howard Stern spoke out this past week on America’s Got Talent (which should be America Has Talent) and defined the difference between good enough and good, voting against a contestant who, Howard clarified, would be an okay lounge singer, but not good enough to compete against the better, more talented, candidates in a talent show. The other panelists want to coddle, to support, to ooh and ahh over the mediocre performers, rather than wait to be blown away by the best. When it’s a huge pot of gold at the end of a contest rainbow, not just anyone deserves to be there or to win. We used to say, “May the best man win,” but today, it seems that everyone deserves to win something for doing not much of anything.

This “good enough is good enough” mentality is being revealed more and more as competitive TV shows crowd the airwaves. In Opening Act, a panel of entertainment industry movers and shakers watch videos on YouTube and select their favorite musical performance to open for a famous concert performer. This past week’s contestant, a 16-year-old singer/songwriter with her own garage band, lamented that she’s wanted this all her life (she taught herself guitar when she was 11) and has worked so hard for so long (5 years) that she really deserves this opportunity to showcase her talent. She did a good enough job for a 16-year-old garage band singer/songwriter with no vocal training and limited performance experience, but there are thousands of other talented singers who are much better and “really deserve” a break, too.

The winner of Design Star, Danielle, is also disappointing because she is the contestant who consistently failed to complete her design challenge each week, but squeaked through because someone else did worse than she. In the final design challenge, her competitor Brittany (who I just discovered lives in the Valley and has a design studio here) did a more finished, polished room that spoke to the family, while the winner apparently provided more specific information about the process of decorating the room, information good enough to win her own show on a TV network. The judges assured all twelve of the original contestants that “everyone here is a winner,” but that’s not true: one person won her own design show and the others return home with shoulda, woulda, coulda stories to share.

Ditto the recent winners on Cupcake Wars: those who do better than the worst cupcake baker move on, while the winner is not the one who provides incredible finished cupcakes, but the baker who screws up less than the other contestants. When this show began, the bakers not only made delicious, unique, interesting cupcakes, but their decorations were spectacular and reflected the theme of each week's competition. This season, the cupcakes aren’t that good, an endlessly boring repeat of the same old/same old favorites. Even the viewers can see that a fondant cut-out on top of a pile of buttercream icing is not a decoration, but a desperate last-minute attempt not to have a naked cupcake! Will there be a week when there is no winner of the $10,000.00 prize because there is no best? That’s a lot of money to give to “good enough" and lowers the performance standard for the contestants who follow.

On the cooking channel, a contest for the next network Food Star recently concluded. Again, a dozen began and one won a spot in the fall line-up. This time, however, when the judges were asked to eliminate a contestant to create the final three, they refused to do so because all of the chefs were “so good” that the judges could not make a decision, a manipulation that seemed to favor the judges' star contestant, Marti, who consistently mismanaged her time, as well as her intended recipes, and winged it through the eight weeks of competition, while other, better chefs were eliminated. Then, for the first time, the show asked the viewers to select the winner by voting online or by telephone. Happily, the public voted for the underdog, the guy who took risks, who did his thing (he fried fish bones!), rather than pander to the panelists and select Marti, who may have been good enough for the judges, but, for the public, wasn't, and the best man won.

I admire the Bachelorette for sending “good enough” Ari home. Ari is a nice guy, but he isn’t the best man for Emily. It is difficult to explain why one is okay and the other so much better, especially when it results in hurt feelings, but why settle for second best? I watched the home viewer winner of a day on Live with Kelly and all I could think was, “Is this the best they could do?” He was obnoxious, so overly gay as to be an offense to gay men, and he delighted in completely taking over the opening dialog, as well as the rest of the show. I thought the show was looking for the best viewer to be the guest host, not someone who may be good enough (and I almost want to finish that sentence with “because he’s gay.”).

I admire Ryan on The Glee Project: his approach is that if one of the contestants doesn’t have the talent, the drive, and the stamina to win the contest this week, s/he is cut from the competition. This week, Abraham got the axe, even though he came back onto the stage after the final performances to explain that he wasn’t making excuses, but … a whine that Ryan interrupted to clarify: “I don’t believe you. A person who says he isn’t making excuses is making excuses.” Well said, Ryan, and right to the point. You may have been good enough last week, Abraham, but you weren’t good this week, so pack your bags and head back home.

After all, we don't allow everyone who wants to compete in the Olympics to do so: we only take the best of the best athletes to compete against the best that the rest of the world has to offer. When an Olympian says s/he has wanted this all my life, s/he has been training for their entire lives for a chance to compete and qualify for the Olympics. Before they are selected to be on the Olympic team, they compete against the best athletes in their field of expertise -- not against anyone who wants to suit up and show up! To be the best, you have to beat the best.

We have become so accepting of good enough that we are losing our ability to know the best! At the top of my favorite novels list is Harper Lee’s classic, To Kill a Mockingbird, which also features my all-time favorite character, Atticus Finch. In Atticus’s famous courtroom defense of Tom Robinson, he explains that “We know all men are not created equal in the sense some people would have us believe—some people are smarter than others, some people have more opportunity because they’re born with it, some men make more money than others, some ladies make better cakes than others—some people are born gifted beyond the normal scope of most men” (CH. 20).

For some reason, we have forgotten that we are uniquely different from the moment of conception. I am much better at some things than other people, and not nearly as good at many things as other people. There is a hierarchy of bad, so-so, good, better, best and we rank somewhere within those parameters, a recognition of the reality of being human. We cannot continue to lower our standards of excellence so everyone can be awesome, amazing, fabulous, outstanding, legendary, heroic and/or earn a 4.0 gpa or even be good enough; instead, we need to maintain our expectation of excellence and then encourage each individual to strive to reach it, as well as to accept the reality that many won’t ever be the best, but maybe only good enough, and, sometimes, baldly bad.

Good enough isn’t, so if you cannot become better, step aside and let the person who can do the job better, the person who is the best at doing whatever it is, do it.

That Dark Night

It is a tragedy that people sitting in a darkened movie theater were randomly shot by an armored man who created his own killing field. We are all so vulnerable in a theater, the lights darkened, the sound intensified, our trust in our safely implicit as we sit next to, in front of, behind complete strangers whose only bond to us is the purchase of a ticket.

No one expects to be killed in a movie theater!

Or in a mall. Or at a school. Or while attending church services. Or while walking with a new baby through a family-friendly neighborhood. Or while dining in a fast-food restaurant. Or while sitting in a car at a stoplight, waiting for the signal to change. Or in any of the thousands of other locales where people with weapons turn innocent civilians into instant crime statistics. With a pull on a trigger a hardened criminal, a youthful gang-banger, a vengeful spouse, a jealous lover, an envious neighbor, a fellow student, a psychopath, or a mentally unstable loner can end countless lives and secure a place in the media's face book of crime. The media shines a spotlight on the killer's act of violence, replaying it a thousand/thousand times so everyone can relive the terror of that moment, an endless loop of media fame that takes the focus off the victims and puts it onto the perpetrator of the senseless crime. The most recent killer's crime is quickly fact-checked to see where it ranks on the "most famous" list, placement that gives the talking heads more to talk about when they can't think of anything that has not already been repeated many dozens of times.

Since the "Murder at the Movies" coverage began, far too much time has been spent on the killer: who is he, who knows him and will talk about him on-camera, who will speculate on the motivation for his killing spree, and who will keep this killer viable for the world's media that depends on a "good get" for ratings. No one in that theater could possibly have deserved this pernicious attack by a complete stranger, no matter how the killer's deranged mind may justify what he did, and asking victims to speculate about a killer's motivation on-camera is not healthy. Reporters sitting by the bedside of a shooting victim hours after the attack and asking a stream of inane "How did it feel?" questions may also create a scenario in which other latent killers fantasize about recreating the scenario to see how it feels ... to be the shooter. For some deranged people, the incessant, intrusive media coverage becomes a blueprint for violence, not a time of shared grief.

I don't want to hear one more commentator dissect the crime, discuss the killer's possible motivation for the crime, or speculate about the potential court proceedings that become the focus of the media for however long it takes. It disgusts me to know that the talking heads are counting down the minutes until the killer appears in court so another barrage of "coverage" can begin. The "first photo" of the killer will blanket the news channels, with news readers trying to find explanations in physical appearance, nonsense that will consume the airways for months, and perhaps years. In Pennsylvania, Jerry Sanduski was taken from his home, taken to court, taken to trial, found guilty by a jury of his peers, and confined to a prison within months of his arrest. Take this Colorado killer to jail: take him to court, find him guilty, and then execute him. No one cares why he did what he did, only that he did it: he was caught in the act and he needs to be held accountable.

Don't let his killing spree become his legacy; instead, let his crime be his death sentence.

As Dylan Thomas encouraged in a poem about death,

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

This killer does not need our forgiveness nor our understanding: he needs to know our rage. We all should rage, rage against the killer and the media that glorify his crime! We all need to show the world that we are all sick of the killers living out their lives as stars of their own horrific reality shows, while the victims of their vicious crimes first must learn how to get through today and then pray for one more tomorrow.

Games People Play

I am not a gamer; as a matter of fact, I don't like playing games. However, I am a recently-retired senior citizen who needs to maintain mental acuity, rather than vegetate, so I turned to Yahoo games for some brain and coordination stimulation. There are several games I enjoy, most recently the Marble Train, which is akin to Zuma, which used to be free but now requires not just a purchase, but a financial and trust commitment to a website that I don't want invading my computer.

This past week, I discovered Yahoo's FITZ!, and it's evil. The directions are generic: match 3 icons to move through the various levels. When the icons are brightly colored, it's easy to see them, but when the colors are gone and the whole page is white on white, it's really, really challenging to discern the various shapes and positions next to one another. I'm always slow as I search the icons for my next move, so the program flashes my next move at me long before I've ruled out further moves on my own! When I take the computer's advice, I have no idea why I didn't see that move myself -- before the computer takes over my game and plays it for me.

At one point, Level Six I believe, I could not get the level completed, although all the tiles except one were white and I had consecutive moves constantly. Of course, one of my moves could result in a dozen computer moves as the icons moved onto the board in an endless stream or only changed by one or two at the top. I finally figured out that I "should have" been able to "do something" to affect the icons surrounding the one that was still colored, but how does that happen?

Luck: there is no skill involved. The computer is programmed and I'm fumbling my way through the icons; of course the computer is going to win. If I win, it's sheer luck because I have no idea what I'm doing, why I'm doing it, or how to do it differently to affect the outcome. I did make it through Level Eight without knowing how to play the game and/or affect the outcome, but that was enough game-play to last me the rest of this lifetime.

A value in playing these games is that the player has to use trial and error to know what to do next time, as well as what not to do. Problem-solving is a mental skill of basing decisions on knowing what works and what does not. However, no matter how often someone else tells, for instance, an employee how to do the job correctly to avoid a costly/ dangerous/ fatal mistake, the employee doesn't learn until s/he does it incorrectly and has to handle the consequences. It may be valuable to teach that lesson in a game, but there is a difference between making endless mistakes in a game that allows a continuous stream of do-overs and making a fatal mistake in real time that changes everything for everyone forever.

Although we encourage ourselves, as well as students and employees, to think outside the box, sometimes, life's answer is "because I said so," rather than an endless stream of options that don't work in a search to find the one that wins the game.

Handy Helper

It's challenging to find a handy/man/person to help with the small household jobs I am no longer able to do myself. The latest job is finishing off the guest room that went from a typical guest room to a multi-purpose room. Where once the queen bed dominated, there is now a reclining couch that quickly folds open for sleeping, a coffee table high enough to be used with a computer, a casual chair, a bookcase, a night stand, and a huge dresser that came with the original queen set that perfectly fits along one wall and adds much-needed storage. Even with all the furniture in the room, it feels roomy and comfy.

In the process of changing the look and use of the room, I removed the 3 ginormous closet doors, one of which is mirrored. The problem with the sliding closet doors is that it is impossible to open fully one-third of the closet, much less more than that, so it became a constant battle of sliding doors back and forth to access the contents of the closet. Once the doors were down, I decided they would not be rehung and began thinking about a replacement. My first choice, bi-fold doors, was nixed because any discretionary money for the project is paying Daisy's vet bill. I had to think ... free, or close to it. After I ruled out a half-dozen other ideas, I recalled a neighbor's living room curtains that use a wire in her "industrial" decorating scheme, so I decided that was my way to go, too.

How easy could this be: screw in some heavy-duty "eyes" in each end of the closet opening, as well as 3-5 across the top to help support the weight of the curtains, attach a wire at one end, thread it through the supports, tie it off: voila. Job done.

Funny thing about having a simple idea is that the employees of the hardware stores, both local and big box, pointed out all kinds of potential problems that I simply refused to believe. I decided to go ahead, but waited to buy the supplies until I could find a handy/man/person to help me install the eyes, which required use of an industrial drill I don't have. One guy wanted $25/hour, another wanted to do it his way, and a third looked at me with a totally blank expression that did not bode well for communication. However, my neighbor knows a guy, and this handyman listened to my explanation of the tasks, asked questions, and said, "Let's do it."

I made it very clear that I wanted to use eyes and wire, drew a picture (literally), and then sent him to the hardware store, from which he returned with ... hooks and rope.

"Nope," I told him, "that won't work. The hooks aren't strong enough to support the curtains and the rope will sag."

"No, missus, it will work. I show you," he replied.

Today, I finished cutting apart the sheets and hemming them to serve as curtains. [Aside: sheets are the perfect curtains: cheap, easy to wash, dry, rehang, and are available in multitudes of colors, patterns and sizes.] These curtains are solid black (which I may embellish before I'm completely finished), so it was challenging to see well enough to do the sewing, but I finished the prep and did a trial hang.

I'll go back to the hardware store and buy the stronger eyes I originally described, as well as wire that will hold the weight of the curtains without stretching and sagging. I'll also add the other 2 eyes for the support that I described in the original discussion yesterday.

And, I won't call him back to redo it to the way I directed in the first place because that would assume I'd pay again to have the job done "my way," which is probably why it was done his way yesterday.

Still Hooked

Ah, for a trip back in time to Dr. Hook and memorable songs, such as Freakin’ at the Freaker’s Ball and I Got Stoned and Missed It. My sentimental journey began when Mark & Brian asked listeners if they could guess the top 10 on Billboard’s list of all-time best songs for making whoopie. When Olivia Newton-John’s Let’s Get Physical took number one, I almost drove into a ditch!

Really? No way in hell, people. Dr. Hook’s A Little Bit More is number one on any list anywhere, anytime. Okay, so Dr. Hook was big in the 1970s, but really? A song about exercise tops sex on the floor and wanting just a little bit more? Find Dr. Hook on YouTube and listen to A Little Bit More: believe me, you'll be wantin' a little something something half-way through!

Dr. Hook’s band has so many memorable songs, including another biggie, The Cover of the Rolling Stone, complaining about being one of the top grossing bands in his heyday, but a band that couldn’t get a RS cover. Someone has put Hook's song to a montage of RS covers on YouTube -- and it's quite enjoyable to view. Baby Makes Her Blue Jeans Talk is so sexist as to be funny, but perhaps not so much to today’s overly-PC young people who think everything anyone says is somehow pertinent (and offensive) to them specifically. Freakin’ at the Freaker’s Ball still makes me laugh as it’s so ridiculous, which makes it funny, but whoo-boy would it get all the targets of the satire up in arms if they heard it today. Back when, we believed that if you laughed at it, it didn’t blow up into something more important than it actually is … and I still believe that. People make too many little things into big things, sometimes to prove a point, but far more often to turn their pettiness into a cash cow in the court system.

Example: A woman is going to court to defend herself against her habit of talking profanity-laced trash in public, which I find offensive, but she’s flying her own flag, not mine, so I move on. Nope, a mother is up in arms because her child was exposed to (and allegedly offended by) the woman’s rant – and the child's mother stayed in place to capture it on her cell phone to prove just how bad this woman’s mouth is. So, which woman put the child in harm’s way: the trash-talker or the child's mother?

Dr. Hook played in a venue in Joshua Tree one year and I really wanted to go, but didn’t. My friends went, had the best time ever, and closed the place down. Her husband drove back to their home for a record album cover Dr. Hook autographed. I’ll have to ask if they still have that.

Yeah, I’d go see Dr. Hook today, perhaps joining an audience of arthritic grey hairs, all of whom remember the spirit, the energy, the enthusiasm, and the lyrics of one of “our” bands from back in the day. Yeah, you can sing along with Dr. Hook's easy rhythms, hum-able melodies, and memorable lyrics too, but be prepared to be over the top politically incorrect while you’re having all that fun!

When is a Strike Out the Third Time Lucky

It's more than just hot out: it's steaming hot. Temps are in the high teens and humidity is thickening the air to unbreathable. Because I have respiratory issues, I stay inside the air conditioned house when it's humid, and out of the burning sun when temps cross into trip digits. The three summer months each year I find things to do to keep me busy inside, rather than going outside; hence, I have boxes of yarn in what used to be a closet, but quickly became my storage center.

Ironically, I like making blankets, hats, scarves, and fingerless gloves, even though I am a desert rat by location, but not personal preference. I was born on the CA coast and prefer the cool dampness of the seashore, but my house value to mortgage is underwater and, contrary to all the boasting by the current President about how homeowners can refi and take advantage of the new, lower mortgage rates, unless the mortgagee has equity in the home, there is no refi, another disparity between media hype and practical application.

I digress, so back to the storage center filled with yarn. I both knit and crochet and enjoy taking a project from balls of yarn to something useful. I've been working on using up, rather than buying more, but the only way to accomplish that is to avoid any retail outlet that sells yarn and extend summer by another 12 months or so. Today, I decided to open yet another bag of yarn balls and pulled out some autumn colors to create a swirly pattern that (finished) sort of looks like an acorn (it's hard to see that the colors are chocolate brown, orange, and red at the top in the photo).

It took me three separate tries to get past row 4, which is unusual for me as I pre-read the pattern, gather all the goodies, and then hunker down until the hat/scarf/gloves are finished. Each time I finished row 4, something was off because the holes should have swirled, and mine meandered. I ripped out, cast on, and started again after carefully reviewing the directions. The third time, I cut the yarn, pulled the mess off the needles, tossed the disaster into the wastebasket, and went to the kitchen to make some noodles Alfredo for my lunch/dinner.

An hour later, I returned to the couch and started to put the yarn, needles and pattern away. I picked up the pattern, glanced at it, and realized I had been reading it incorrectly. To create the swirl, I had to begin each row differently, but the rest of the row was the same all the way across. DUH; I've done this pattern before, so I should have figured it out after screwing it up the first time, but had to do it wrong three times before I was able to see the pattern with fresh eyes.

The life lesson is this: walk away. If it doesn't have to be done right now, give it some time to percolate and come back to it later with a fresh perspective. Chances are the elusive idea will reform, the subtle difference will clarify, and the words on the page will read the way they are written, rather than the way we think they are written. Sometimes, taking the time to take some time is just what a problem/issue needs.

Smart Move

IF, and that's a big if, Katie Holmes really was feeling pressured by both her husband and his church to live a life that is not a good fit for either herself or her child, it was a totally smart move to relocate and file for divorce, then let the media spread the stories that "it's the Scientology thing" at the core of the divorce. The media has done a great job in creating Scientology as monstrous, controlling, demanding, insufferable; well, sort of all the same adjectives ascribed to Tom Cruise and his past marriages.

IF Tom refutes it's the Scientology thing, he has to let Katie stand on her own and live with the decisions she's made; if, however, he insists that he owns her, bought her and paid for her, including the Scientology loyalty thing, then the world's sympathy goes to Katie and Cruise loses big in every way possible, including both his credibility and his pocketbook, as well as confirming it's the Church of Scientology thing.

Cruise is caught between a rock (Scientology) and a hard spot (Katie and Suri moving on), and it's going to be challenging for him to turn this into anything vaguely resembling a win/win unless he's willing to accept that what's done is done, and they are finished. Giving in graciously may allow him to continue his life with dignity and take some of the negativity off Scientology.

People Like Us

Depending on how one reads the title of the film I watched yesterday, either people share traits in common that make them similar/like one another or they are "liked" by others, as opposed to disliked. I'm not sure which interpretation applies to the film starring Michelle Pfeiffer (Mom), Chris Pine (Sam, the son), Elizabeth Banks (Frankie, the sister), and the most obnoxious child character in a really, really long time, Michael Hall D'Addario (the nephew). I did not like any of these characters at all, but most especially the Mom, Sam, and the obnoxious nephew, and I truly hope that I am not like any of them as that would mean I have a whole world of apologizing to do to atone for being such an ass.

The story has a good premise, sort of, with the philandering music mogul dying with unresolved issues that include another family, other than the one grieving his passing in public. Pfeiffer knows that her dead husband had a child with another woman, and that daughter now has a child, the obnoxious 11-year-old who blows up a swimming pool and attacks two other kids with a large textbook, but who's such a "good kid" and just needs to resolve his personal issues. Sam hates his dad because the music mogul was such an absent asshole during Sam's formative years. Mom finally admits that she gave her husband a choice, and once he chose her and Sam, she put that truth behind her and moved on. Problem solved until Dad dies and leaves a shaving kit with $150k and a note for his son, Sam, to deliver the money to a woman he comes to realize is his half-sister: she has dad's eyes.

But therein also lies a problem because Chris Pine is incredibly good looking, and so is Elizabeth Banks. They are also both single adults in the film, so when Sam makes himself part of Frankie's life, it is natural for her (and the audience) to assume that he's a single man becoming a significant part of her life in a romantic/sexual way, and he comes onto her "that way" for most of the movie. He has so many openings to be honest with her, but, because it's a movie, that part is strung out until it becomes unbelievably cruel. I am surprised that when Sam comes back to Frankie and her son at the end of the film, she accepts him back into her life. Some things you just don't forgive, forget, and move on.

The movie drags the story out far too long, which made it hard to stay until the inevitable ending. There is no conflict, no drama, just the feeling of really? He's going to play it that way? Sam, who alienates every single person in his life, has his personal epiphany and not just gets his mom back, but also gets his girlfriend back, as well as his half-sister and his nephew. No one else gets much of anything, so ... so what? who cares?

Liar, Liar

It took a while, but Animal Control finally showed up July 3 to take my report of the June 28th early morning attack by two big "Husky" dogs up at the corner. I had staked out the street where I had last seen the dogs heading and finally figured out where the dogs are domiciled (3rd house on the left), so was able to provide that information to the officer so the incident could be investigated. Today, he stopped by the residence to talk with the people and determine if they have dogs matching the description I provided following the attack last Thursday, June 28.

They do have 2 "husky" dogs, one of which is an actual Husky and the other an Alaskan Malamute. They are both very light in color, just like the dogs that attacked us, but these dogs have NEVER been off the property. However, the dog owners provided another possible lead in the attack: there are two other dogs on the street who look just like their dogs, and THOSE dogs are always running the streets. Thus, I made an honest mistake by accusing these dogs when it's those dogs that probably attacked us last week.

I stared at the AC officer and asked him what he wanted me to say: actually, I asked him how I could even respond to that preposterous fabrication. Did HE really believe that there is another pair of dogs just like their dogs, and they all just happen to live on the same street? The AC officer explained to me that these dogs are "tied down" in the backyard, and he actually saw the tie-downs for himself. I have to catch them off-property and get a photo of them before my "story" about the attack is believed and any further action can be taken.

As the AC officer was readying himself to leave my front door, I smiled my sweetest smile and said, "I don't envy you having to figure out which of us is the bigger liar."

"No, no," he responded, "I believe you and your dogs were attacked, but if there are two other dogs in the neighborhood who look like these folks' dogs, well, you can see the spot I'm in."

Yeah, I can see that. And I can also see that I have to cough up $616.38 to pay the vet bill because I have no photographic proof that those dogs attacked us and it's, once again, the pet owners' version of their truth v. my allegations about the attack and injuries.

If, however, those owners left a box of puppies on a roadside, or if I physically harmed their dogs, there are penalties for that: $20,000 fine and up to 3 years in prison. And I'll bet that if I had hurt their dogs in fending them off during the attack, those would be the same dogs I reported to Animal Control, NOT the mirror set of phantom twins "down the street," and the owners would prosecute me the fullest extent of the law.

Same bullshit, second time around: not my dogs, not my problem. Mia survived her attack; Daisy survived her attack; and I hope I survive when it's my turn to be savaged by dogs that have NEVER left their property.