Complete, total vent session

Today is one of those days where I just wanna either stand outside and scream my frustrations out, or crawl back into bed and hide from the world for the day. At the current moment, neither is a feasible option, so instead I'll air my gripes here. Stop reading now if you want. I won't be offended.

Still with me? OK. Here goes. Vent number one: WHY, WHY, WHY don't people control their dogs???? For the last two weeks or so (maybe more often than that, and I just noticed it recently.) just about every night, anywhere from 9:30 - 11:00 pm, these dogs in the yard behind me start in and bark, and bark, and bark, on and on and on. Like I said, maybe it's gone on longer than the couple of weeks I have noticed. But, the time I started to notice it was after I had turned off my air conditioner. I guess it was always just enough to drown out the barking. What I don't get is this: if I can hear them and they annoy the heck out of me, how are their own owners who are lots closer than me not noticing to go and make any effort to quiet them? I know, dogs are gonna bark. It's their nature. But almost every night, and for an hour or more at a time? Really? I admit, I am not a fan of these particular dogs in the first place. Anytime I am out in my own backyard, they bark at me. (Anyone wanna come volunteer to put up a wood privacy fence in place of the current chainlink so that I can go to my own yard in peace? Didn't think so.) There have been times their owner has been out there and they can see that I am not doing anything other than minding my own business and my own yard, and they don't make any effort to call the dogs attention away from me. But I really don't think that's why the barking annoys me so much. Honestly, when I first noticed it, I thought it was coming from a different neighbors yard, and it still annoyed me just as much. Now I don't know whether to just turn on the television so it'll drown it out, or what to do. Based on the neighbor's previous actions, I really don't want to approach them directly. I have a feeling they would tell me to mind my own business. Then, I get to deal with a neighbor with a bordering property line who holds a grudge. Another option is the possibility of contacting the city, but I have mixed feelings on that. I looked up city ordinances, and by definition there, I really think this would fall under the "nuisance animal" clause. However, the city animal control office NEVER has anyone there. All you ever get is a recorded message of "for a dangerous animal, please contact the police department. To check animals located at the shelter for identification or adoption, leave a message." Well, this isn't a dangerous animal, so I don't want to bother the police department, and I don't need to identify or adopt one. I hesitate to leave a message about these nuisance dogs, because I don't know if they will actually follow up, and if they do, I don't want them to give them my name and say "she called to complain about your dogs." Kinda defeats the purpose of avoiding talking to them directly. Ugh. (Please do not get me wrong, I am not anti-dog. In fact, I prefer dogs over cats and most other animals. I just don't like ones that are annoying.)

OK, on to vent number two. Before Daniel left, we mounted a flag pole on the column of our porch. Yesterday, when I turned onto our street, my first thought was "I know I put the flag out this morning...did someone steal it?" because I could see the porch, and I couldn't see it. But then when I got to my driveway, I saw it was laying out in the yard, bracket and all. The column of our porch is brick, so we used some of that mighty putty to mount the bracket. (Didn't want to put holes in the brick) It was stuck very well. Daniel tried pulling on it several times, and it never budged. There have been several very windy days where that flag has whipped around and the bracket never lost its hold to the column. Yesterday was not a very windy day. I couldn't figure out how the whole thing had come down. But once I looked it over, the bracket is bent. Looks like someone had to have pulled pretty damn hard to pull it off of the column and bend it like that. Yeah, I know that's my theory only, and I could be completely wrong, but I really don't see it just falling off that way. Anyway, I am gonna buy a new bracket and this time we will mount it with masonry screws. We'll see if it stays up that way or if it mysteriously ends up on the ground again. (Yes, I realize if it stays then it probably means my idea that someone pulled it down is wrong. As long as it stays up, I am willing to live with being wrong.)

Now, vent number three. Since I got pregnant, I have really cut back on caffeine. I let myself have it once or twice a week, at most. Before pregnancy, I loved those iced coffees from McDonalds. I have really been wanting one, so I decided I would let that be my caffeine for the week. So this morning, I go through the drive through, order, pay for it, and get to the next window to pick it up and they tell me they ran out of coffee and if I could pull up away from the window, they'll bring it to me when it's ready. Really? At 7:45 in the morning, when coffee is a pretty common morning time drink, you ran out? Is it that hard to see how much is left and say "hey, the coffee's getting low, maybe we should make some more"? I have never worked in McDonald's (thank goodness!) but I would think a little bit of common sense could have been applied to that situation and helped prevent actually running out. (Yes, I admit, had the other events of the last twelve hours not happened, I probably wouldn't have been irked by this fact, and you wouldn't even be reading about it. But I was already in a not so good mood, so it was added to my gripe list.)

Vent five: This morning on the radio, they were discussing how the deadline to send holiday packages to troops overseas is coming up pretty soon. That really bothers me, because Daniel won't leave to head over until sometime in early November. So, until he actually arrives, I won't have an address to send things to him. So, I won't have an address until after the deadline has passed, and I won't be able to send him anything for Christmas. I know he's gonna understand and it's not anything either of us can control, but it really bothers me.

Finally, the last vent. Daniel's out in the field training again, and it'll be Sunday or so before I hear from him. I keep telling myself I need to learn to get used to it now, because I know once he is over, there will be even longer stretches when I won't hear from him. But it still sucks and makes me feel very lonely and alone. I know I have wonderful family and friends here for me, but it's just not the same.