Brain Cleft Evening

Good: Coming home and plugging in the outside Christmas lights.

Infuriating: Discovering the peppery stay-off-my-lawn-and-out-of-my-dirt-sprinkle-for-animals did not work, and something had left a gift and kicked dirt all over my walkway.

Happy: Pulling in to Zamzow's and smelling the Christmas trees on the way into the store.

Very Irksome: Spending what is now a total of $35 and three trips to purchase remedies to keep dog/cat/thing out of my yard.

Probably Inappropriate: My answer when the nice man at Zamzow's (catering to attentive gardeners and pet lovers in Southwestern Idaho) asked me on my way to the register if he could help me with anything this evening. "Not unless you can teach me how to use a BB gun and take out the dog hanging around my yard." Nice, smiling man suddenly looks as though he does not know quite what to do with me. Call ASPCA? I continue, "Or anger management classes. Whatever you think might work." Nice man: "Ha...ha...um, yeah. Huh." I think I saw him dig out the number for the Humane Society.

Surprising: The humungous light display on the house hidden from the street behind Zamzow's, which I never would have seen if I had not driven here in a fury tonight after leaping immediately back into my car after plugging in the Christmas lights. Cool.

So Very Kathie: The man and his teenage son who, as they exit their car, catch me with my nose neslted in one of the Christmas trees for sale outside the store, deeply breathing in one last wonderful dose of pine. They smile politely and start to walk a bit faster toward the store entrance, and the teenage boy carrying his new puppy puts a protective hand over the little furball and shifts him to the other side of his body. It almost escapes my lips to ask if I can pet the puppy, but I remember the man inside the store dialing 411 for the American Humane Association, and I think better of it.

Other-worldly: The brain cleft created in my cranium on the three-mile drive home by simultaneously being all goofy-giddy about the loads of pretty Christmas lights on houses and thinking about how to best make sure that whatever animal loves my yard for its toilet experiences some very memorable pain upon its next visit: Should I mix my own cayenne pepper concoction and give that a sprinkle in the yard? Oh, pretty lights! Maybe that thing needs a poke in the butt--I'll make a rampart of my little bamboo skewers out there--no squatting here, by golly! Oh, what cute swirls those people made in the trees with their lights--I should try that! Oh, a rock garden, that's it--little paws can't move boulders to dig up dirt to poo--where can I get some boulders? Oh, look icicle lights--I love those things. You horrible little animal--I tried to be nice and use "natural" pepper deterrent--now I am pulling out the chemical crap and I don't care--I hope you get Agent Orange on your butt. Oh, that person put light-up reindeer on their roof--how cute!

And so on.

The war is on, people. Me vs. my brain, and me vs. the critter. Place your bets now.