This One Is About Cheddar Too

23 Apr 2021

I don’t typically allow things to consume me, but this Cheddar thing really has me roped down–perhaps it’s the accumulation of the last two weeks and still at a sleep deficit. I’m obsessing over these ring videos that have very little to offer except for the video of the white dog at 2am followed by two more snapshot images of a white blob at both 2:31 & 4:13am–the latter of which has a tail–and something that might resemble a cat in front of the fountain from 2:16 to 2:31 that disappeared right when the first blob showed up, but it might also be a shadow. We also found a dog’s collar in the back area by the fence opening–no tags of course.

See, i wasn’t lying–i’m totally obsessing. I think I’m just blaming myself for letting him out and then for ignoring those sounds we heard both at 12 & 2AM. A part of me is hoping it happened at 2AM, because if it happened at midnight, then it was just moments after I went in.

I really never thought a cat would have me this wound up. Maybe it’s just because it was so unexpected and because of the way it happened. I don’t know.

Then yesterday while the AC guy was here, he came in and asked me if the other dog outside was mine. I made a beeline for the door to see if it was “The Dog”. It wasn’t. It was a very friendly rottie-shepard mutt. Only a rabies tag on. Despite my emotions and my anger at dogs on the loose, I thought of Tails. I gritted my teeth to do so, but I lured him into my backyard (locked Tails in the house). I called animal control to see if they could find the owner with the rabies tag number. A part of me hated this dog too, just for being a strange dog in my yard–plus he went and sniffed the spot where we found Cheddar.

They called her and she came and got him. She was a very sweet woman and so grateful. She called me kind and told me I was a very special kind of person with a warm heart for doing what I did. I told her no thanks necessary, and she cut me off to insist on her thanks and say again how uniquely special it was what I’d done. I didn’t tell her that it had actually broken my “warm” heart under the very fresh circumstances to rescue her dog. Under normal circumstances, there’d have been no question what to do, but with Cheddar so fresh, it was painful to do the right thing. I did it because, despite my emotional state, it was the right thing to do, and it’s what I would want if Tails got out. It surprised me & saddened me when she said most people would not do what I’d done.

She came by today with some freshly-baked, from scratch, warm-out-of-the-oven, salted-caramel chocolate cakes as a thank you. She said it again today, how grateful she was. She even invited Tails over for a playdate. I told her about Cheddar and showed her the picture of the dog. She didn’t recognize him–definitely an intact “him” by the way. I felt good about what I’d done after her repeatedly saying and showing how appreciative she was. It was the neighborly and the right thing to do, and Gumbo was not “The Dog”. Gumbo is a very good dog.

Anyway, on to what I’m actually supposed to write about…

Today, I worked on the trello integration some more. I have the authorization complete and worked on refactoring some of the javascript. Then I switch gears to work on the poker side of it to save the information so that I can request the lists. I should be able to finish it all by the deadline.

Cheddar & Wasabi