The Year of Pestilence and Bother

Although this is the Chinese Year of the Rabbit, at our house it has been various other things. It has been the Year of the Yellow Jackets, which not only invaded the outside of the house but also made themselves quite at home on the inside. It has been the Year of the Stink Bugs, which have behaved similarly, and whose only purpose, as far as the Hero can tell, is to drive him to the brink of insanity. 


And now, just as the yellow jackets are a distant memory and even the stink bugs seem to be waning (although the Hero is sure THEY will never be a distant memory), it has become the Year of the Crying Dog Next Door.


The Crying Dog Next Door, a new addition to our neighbor's house, is six years old, female, and miserable when left alone. We are also miserable when she's left alone. She whines. We whine. She cries. We cry. She barks. We -- well, we haven't resorted yet to barking, but that response may not be far behind. Her crying also keeps us from our weekend naps, which is making me, anyway, grumpy.


Even the dog across the street, who has full command of her owner's porch, from which she surveys the comings and goings of the neighbors -- and frequently comments on them with a loud bark -- must be able to hear the Dog Next Door, because she occasionally barks in the direction of that house in a distinctly disapproving manner. 


One evening when the Dog Next Door seemed particularly agitated and had been crying for hours, suddenly above her whining we heard another noise of distress. We listened, trying to figure out where it was coming from.


"I think it's the Cat Next Door," the Hero announced. "He can't take the crying anymore, either."


Whatever it was, it certainly sounded unhappy. And loud. Almost like it was...


"There's a cat on our back porch!" I yelled to the Hero, peering out the door.


He merely shrugged. To him, a seasoned combat fighter, a little fluffy ball of fur -- noise notwithstanding -- was far less threatening than the enemies he'd dealt with all year.


The cat did not seem to want to come in -- not that we gave it that option -- but sat for some time, loudly proclaiming all its woes to the world. Even the Dog Next Door grew quiet for a while, probably admiring the way the cat expressed such a range of emotion. We fretted about what to do, and finally decided that the prudent thing to do was to watch a movie, turned up very loudly, and hope the cat would go away. This proved to be effective, although we have no idea how long it took the cat to leave, because once a movie ended we would immediately start a new one, fearing the cat would take up its lament again if it perceived any silence on our part.


When we finally climbed the stairs and fell into bed, the Dog Next Door commenced whining.


"I think she can hear when we're on the stairs," the Hero said. "She thinks we're THEM." After that we avoided the stairs as much as possible, and when it was unavoidable, climbed as quietly as we could, putting one leg in front of the other in such exaggerated motion that it took quite some time to either ascend or descend.


Eventually the Hero politely brought the Dog Next Door's plight to the attention of her owners, who were suitably horrified. The next several times they went out, they huddled outside the door, hoping to hear what we said we were hearing.


"We don't hear anything," they said. "I think she knows we're still there."


And ten minutes after they really left, the crying would start.


Later they proposed getting her a kennel and a blanket to throw over it. 


"A blanket to throw over sounds good," I said to the Hero. 


"Won't that scare her?" he said.


"I meant a blanket to throw over ME. A soundproof one."


Given all this excitement, the Hero has declared this the Year of Pestilence for us. While we wait for the Dog Next Door situation to get resolved to everyone's satisfaction -- a behavioral specialist has also been called in -- we are already looking forward to next year: the Chinese Year of the Water Dragon. We can hardly wait to find out what this might mean for us.