4th of July

It has been way too hot to be comfortable around here. I know, I am by the coast and therefore more comfortable because we are at least 20 degrees cooler than our valley neighbors, but still. It is hot, and humid (not the South humid, but humid nonetheless).

Anyway, the heat really ate up our energy so we did a lot of nothing yesterday. The girls slept at our apartment because

 and I were going to do some web design stuff that never happened. We got up late to ants in the kitchen. I still don’t know what they found so appealing, but it is summer time and in this apartment, a crumb will yield an entire trail of hundreds/thousands. It. sucks. So after fumigating the entire kitchen with a can of raid, I was totally disgusted with the place and did not feel like cooking, so we went to IHOP for brunch.

Dude, did you know they are serving funnel cake as a breakfast? o_0 Little sister had some of that (with eggs, etc),

and I had the french toast with strawberries (and eggs….) and Juan had the steak and eggs because he felt like spoiling himself. lol We then went to the parent’s (from here on known as “the oven”) and just hung out. We tried installing Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 on sis’s laptop, but it failed the minimum requirements. It needs 512 MB RAM or it won’t install. So then we popped open the back to see just what she had in there. She has 256 MB RAM. Then I opened mine. Same thing. o_0 Worse thing is that mine doesn’t have an expansion slot for more, so I can’t just add to my 256, I just need to get new RAM. So after some deliberating, we went to Best Buy, only we got there just as the employees were leaving for the day. Great.

So it wasn’t an entirely uneventful trip and day, we stopped by to purchase some fireworks. Got a nice assortment of stuff, little things, fountains, etc, and waited until it got dark to go out front to light them.

My parents live in a mobile home park, prefab homes. So despite the fact that fireworks are permitted in the city, they are not, however, permitted in the park. So we went right out to the front gate and set up right outside. We had a great time watching the big fireworks all around us and setting our own to see. I don’t know how long we were out there, but finally, the grand finale fountain, and we were done. We were happy, tired, and ready to go home when…

we saw a little white shaggy dog start to cross the street from our side to the other. This is a big street and we watched the little dog make his way across slowly. Then we saw the light down the street turn green and a slough of cars started coming in his direction. We watched in amazement expecting this little dog to start running across to avoid the cars, or the cars stop, but it was like a slow-motion chicken. Before we knew it, a car ran him over. Then another. And still, another. It was the most awful thing. Terrible cries of pain and horror. And my little sister, who is the most sensitive and loves animals more than anyone there, shrieked and covered her eyes, started shaking and could not take it. The only thing keeping me together was not breaking down in front of her. None of the cars stopped, they didn’t even slow down. And then the street became dark again with the little dog just lying in the middle of the street – crying.

He wasn’t dead. He was yelping in pain and as he did so,

(little sis) got worse and worse, covering her eyes, ears, everything and anything. My parents crossed the big street to pick up the dog before the light turned green again and another onslaught of cars. They didn’t stop the first time, we didn’t want to go through this again. I was so scared for my mom because I was afraid that it would try to bite her in its state of shock and defense. But it lay in my mom’s arms as calmly as it could, still fully conscious and alert. It cried and cried and she placed it on the floor where we had just finished celebrating the holiday with fireworks. I had already walked my sister to the car so that she wouldn’t see what the dog looked like since I had not idea what it would be like.

When I went back to see what had happened, I saw the little dog in a much much better state than I would have imagined. It looked like it was hurt in its hind leg(s), and somewhere it was bleeding a little (there was blood on the pavement), but from what I saw, I expected so much worse. So it quited down, dragged itself to a little corner and whimpered quietly. All the while, Juan was on the phone on hold with 911. They finally got through and said animal control was on its way and would be here in about 15 minutes. Seeing the little dog in a better condition than anyone expected, we went to get

so that she could see that the worst hadn’t happened. It calmed her down a bit. She petted it and tried to comfort herself while comforting it. But then the adrenaline (I am assuming they have that or something similar) started to wear down and the poor dog started to bark and howl in pain. I told my dad he needed to take my sister home and that he should bring a towel back so that we could keep him warm. The effect of the dog howling was enough to rattle my sister all over again and my dad took her, and as he did, he took his shirt off and gave it to me for the dog. I couldn’t say no to him, but we all knew that that is the worse thing for him to do. He was a little sweaty, but there was a breeze now, and he has a real tendency to get sick in these sorts of situations. But anyway, he did that, and then my mom noticed and took her vest off and made him wear it. She took my sister home and not even two minutes later, animal control was here to pick up the dog.

I am afraid of calling because since it looked like a stray, odds are they simply put it to sleep last night. But it was also such a cute dog with a wonderful disposission that I know that if he were to get better, he would make a wonderful candidate for adoption.

So yes folks, after having a grand old time, it was all completely overshadowed by the ending. “All’s well that ends well” also seems to work the other way around.

I promise a more cheerful post tomorrow or later today since I do have stuff to talk about. I just had to get that off my chest.