I was still absorbing it and marinating on it last night, which is why I mentioned nothing of it in last night's blog.

I probably nearly could have killed a man yesterday. Gina saw "bad Andy" for the first time...and probably she's one of the few who have EVER seen me as pissed as I was yesterday.

Gina came by my apartment after her parents' house. I had to let Kazak out. So, as usual, I opened the back door and made some noise to check if the dude's dogs were out. After a couple seconds, there was no sign of the dogs, so I let Kazak go past me. He hurried past...and I sensed something wrong really quickly. I tried to grab him, but I missed...he bounded down the stairs and was face-to-face with the German shepherd. I followed him down the stairs quickly (which I would have done anyway, even if the other dogs weren't out--I supervise Kazak and clean up after him, remember) after slamming the door and exclaiming "son of a bitch"...

The dogs startled each other and barked somewhat viciously at first but started to sniff each other...I again tried to grab Kazak...there was no tail-wagging and his hair was starting to stand on end. The shepherd wasn't happy either...but it seemed more surprised than anything...I grabbed Kazak and physically put my foot on the other dog's ass and pushed him toward the stairs...he slowly walked over there, and I yelled "Aviv (dude's name), come and get your fucking unsupervised dog out of the yard now!" There was no response...the shepherd was standing there, and I went to get Kazak in the house...he was confused. I told the shepherd to go upstairs...and it slowly kind of obliged...by now, neither dog was barking or anything. I was PISSED. I put Kazak in the house and SLAMMED the door...I walked back out, and over to dude's stairs. I stopped myself from going more than four steps up and saw the dog walkiing into the apt. (which means the hallway door was left open--nice and safe for our nice upstairs neighbor, Marquita)...I yelled at the top of my voice: "Hey ASSHOLE! Come out here and let me tell you about what a FUCK you are. Start supervising your goddamned dogs and cleaning up their shit in the yard asshole. I'm tired of this SHIT!" Keep in mind, I'm screaming this into a gangway between two houses, more or less, so it's amplified. This all around 9:15pm too. Too bad.

No response. I went back in the house...Gina was trying to "calm" Kazak down...she was about to come out there and help me when I let Kazak in. I walked in, and I've never been shaking so much in my life before. I threw my gloves across the room, went to the phone, went to the refrigerator to get my lease. Gina thought I was calling the dude upstairs, and she was like, wait a minute and calm down first. I said, no, I have to be mad for this or my point will be lost. I was shaking so bad I dropped the phone at first...then I couldn't get the battery to stay in. I went and got my cellphone and dialed up the landlord. I told him who I was (he recognized me) and rather furiously, "I'm really sorry to bother you late on Sunday, but you almost just had a dogfight in your yard. I just wanted you to know that and I want this son of a bitch out of here NOW."

He was calm and whatnot...he explained that he's meeting with the attorney on Tuesday and that he got letters from me/Butch and the lady in the front apt. and that our upstairs' neighbor's was on the way, supposedly (there are 4 units, for those keeping track at home). He said he is working on it and that he was going to call us to let us know but he didn't get a chance, and he apologized for it. I eventually calmed down a bit...I told him, I'm sorry if I sounded as though I was mad at you...because I'm not. But understand I just broke two dogs apart and am really pissed at this guy. That, what I wrote in my complaint letter about the dogs coming in contact accidentally had not happened until now, just as I feared it would.

He was understanding and whatnot...and I had calmed enough by the end of the conversation to say, "while I have you here, we still don't have a smoke detector. Can you take care of that, please?" He thought we had one...

Anyway...I was so full of adrenaline and general anger...I apologized to Gina, who said she understood and explained her side. She didn't want me to call the guy upstairs and say something I'd regret later. I thanked her...I told her that typically though I look out of control, I can control my words relatively well. I also said that I'm glad that dude DIDN'T come out, because then I MIGHT HAVE done something drastic, especially if it got more heated than I already was.

I figured out too, why this pisses me off soooooo much. It's two of my biggest things in life. When someone (yes, I'm personifying Kazak here--pets are like people sometimes...kazak is like my child--and you wouldn't understand if you haven't had a dog like him) I love is not safe, I shift into crisis mode. That gets the adrenaline flowing big-time. Second, it's the principle of the thing. It's also flat-out ignorant and a lack of common sense and common courtesy. You guys have listened to me bitch about this for the past few months. It's nothing new...but the anger has been building inside. I'm usually good about letting anger out...but in this case, there's no real outlet. Last night was a culmination of my protect mode and my "principle of the thing" anger mode.

I've seen Kazak get into a fight. I was bit on the hand in that fight. There's no doubt in my mind that had I not acted when I did, we'd have an injured dog or two and a big, big legal mess. And where was this dude? Who knows? Goddamn asshole can't vanish from this complex soon enough. And the funny thing is this: we'll still have to clean his dog's shit after he leaves. Bastard.