After a relatively mild (yet persistent) winter, I’m cautiously optimistic that summer is finally here. Or at least that we’re done with frost and snow. Last weekend was slightly on the crappy side, but things have gotten steadily warmer all week and they say it should be in the upper 80s by Friday. A shame that the pool’s not open yet. Even if it was miraculously free of algae when I pull the cover off, it’ll be way too cold to swim in. And there aint much propane in the tanks, so I don’t know if I can get it warmed up by Memorial Day. We’ll see, I guess.

The only drawbacks to the warmer weather are bugs (the black flies seem to be viciously carnivorous this year), lack of time to brew beer (what with all the lawn mowing and whatnot), and of course neighbors.

We happen to have one very lovable but loudmouth dog who barks at pretty much everything – deer, turkeys, foxes, crows, people, trucks – you name it. And while we are mostly free of neighbors, there is one corner of our back yard that’s somewhat adjacent to the neighbors back yard (separated by about 20 feet of woods). So when they go outside, he likes to bark at them.

Normally I keep on him to shut up, but sometimes I’m not home and not everybody is as diligent at keeping an eye on him as I am. So, the neighbor came over and bitched at the wife the other day, which made feel absolutely terrible for a couple of reasons. I hate to bother other people (I mean, even though I’m up before the birds most days, I wait until after 10:00 to do things that make noise, like cutting the grass and swinging a hammer), and I felt really bad that our dog was such a burden to them.

I also felt pretty depressed because the reason I moved almost six years ago was to get away from neighbors, and here I am having to worry about them again.

So we’ve contained the dogs to the front side of the house (which is fine until we want to hang out by the pool) and my wife bought a bark collar, which, frankly, I don’t really approve of (but you can’t fight city hall). We only put it on him when we’re outside and since I’ve made a point to be out with him when I’m home, he doesn’t really get the chance to yap too much. Plus I’m not convinced that it’s actually doing anything, but maybe it’s a deterrent just handing on his neck because he seems to have quieted down quite a bit. It’s supposed to start out with a warning tone. The a longer tone, followed by an even longer tone. Then the zaps start, with increasing frequency.

I of course tried it on my arm (I wouldn’t do anything to him that I’d be unwilling to do to myself), and by about the third zap my arm muscles were twitching like crazy. It’s not excruciating, but it’s no exactly pleasant either. Of course, he’s used to being dragged by his neck off the porch and into the yard by his brother all the time, so I don’t know how touchy he is.

Otherwise, things are going just swimmingly. Trump and Clinton seem to be running neck and neck (except Trump doesn’t actually have a neck), so it should be a thrilling election season. And it looks like pretty much everybody wants to dump Debbie “The Payday Loan Queen” Wasserman Schultz as DNC Chair. Except to replace her before the convention, Obama would have do the dirty work and he’s apparently reluctant to start a war.

So maybe Clinton can get her to resign by promising her a cabinet position.

Personally, I’d just like to get an ambassadorship to some low-key, American-friendly country. Like maybe Sweden or Switzerland (or Grand Fenwick). Someplace warm would be good, but folks in the warmer-weather countries tend to hate us (not that I blame them – I’m not too crazy about us most of the time myself).

But since an ambassadorship doesn’t seem forthcoming, I guess I’d better get back to work.