Unfortunately there's not much news to report on the kidney disease front. Christian doesn't even have an appointment with the kidney specialists until well into July. Life has pretty much gone back to normal, as much as it can, with the exception that we make a whole lot more jokes about me kicking him in the kidneys. He's still not feeling much better, though. Of course he's been cleaning out the back bedroom for the possible arrival of our niece and lifting boxes and generally just not really resting much, so I don't see how he expects to feel better. This has become somewhat of a marriage litany to rival the old favorite, "I love you," "I love you more." It goes something like this:
"Sweetie, I feel so awful."
"Well then maybe you ought to relax a little and get more than 6 hours of sleep a night." "But I slept 9 hours a week and a half ago, and I didn't feel any better."
"You have to do it regularly to feel better."
"But I used to be able to pull 15 all-nighters in a row when I was younger, and I never felt like this."
"Perhaps the pod people have returned your body since then."
"But..."
That's where I kick him in the kidneys.

In the meantime, we've been dealing with our other exciting situation: the scary next-door neighbor. I think I mentioned him in here a few months ago as the suspected culprit in the Bracken getting put in doggy-jail incident. Well he's back, and this time we know that it was him who did it. He called the cops one evening while we were gone because the dogs were barking after 10 pm. When the cops got there he insisted on a ticket, despite the cop trying to talk him into a warning. So now we have a ticket, and we actually have to go to court for it. Mike (the neighbor) also has to go to court to testify. All of this has sort of confirmed our suspicions that he was the one who let Bracken out of the yard and called animal control.

What confuses me about all this is the fact that our dogs are hardly the only or the loudest dogs in the neighborhood. In fact, there are a couple of yappy dogs right behind Mike that I've often heard barking at night. Our dogs certainly bark at night, but it's never excessive. I totally understand how annoying it is to be unable to sleep and how frustrating incessant dog barking can be, but I just don't understand why he is singling us out.

We've talked to a few other people in the neighborhood and have found out a few things. One, the neighbors on the other side of our house also sleep with their windows open like Mike does and they have never had any problems with our dogs barking. Two, the woman who does the paper route in our neighborhood told us that the few times she has been late with Mike's paper, he has called her employer and demanded to talk to her supervisor about it. She also said he is very reticent and is never friendly to anyone in the neighborhood.

I'm having mixed feelings about all of this. The biggest part of me is scared of him. I'm not just scared about getting another ticket or anything, although we have been keeping the dogs in the house at night to avoid this. What I scared of is that he will get mad enough to try to hurt the dogs at some point. I don't think he's the type to get a shotgun and shoot them or anything, but I wouldn't be surprised if he decided to try to poison them. I wouldn't be surprised at all. We're all kind of walking about on pins and needles trying not to piss him off. Last night around 9 or 10 pm Christian was drilling some holes in wood, inside of our house, with all of the windows closed, and he was still nervous about "bothering" Mike. After all, it's not like Mike would actually ask us to keep the noise down next time. We wouldn't even know he was annoyed until the cops showed up.

Another part of me is furious and hateful. This part is very closely related to the fear part. I just want to go and yell at him to stay the hell away from our house and our dogs and threaten him and do whatever it takes. This part scares me.

The smallest part of me feels bad for the guy. He obviously has some problems. (Ironically enough, he is a psychiatrist and does therapy from his home. I wonder what he tells his patients with confrontation problems.) He probably doesn't have any friends or any fulfilling relationships and is most likely pretty miserable. I'd like to make him feel better, but I haven't the foggiest idea how to do it. He seems quite contemptuous of any attempts at friendliness. Plus the two former parts are always getting in the way.

I kind of wish that this last part was a little bigger. The fact that it isn't makes me think maybe I'm not as nice as I thought I was and that kind of scares me too.