My neighborhood almost always appears to be a peaceful place. I've never heard gunshots, seen people beat each other up, or any of the stuff that I've seen in movies happen around here. But there's one crime in particular that happens often and goes unpunished: theft.

It's one type of thing that is very commonly stolen, and that would be fruit. I've known for a long time that the usual thieves are squirrels, birds, ants, and all the backyard fauna. Nothing I can do about that, since they have as much right to the land as I do...Well, my old afterschool/summer math teacher said you could hang up these spinning things that would scare away birds (it's hard to describe them...they sort of give you an optical illusion when the wind blows at them), though I have no idea if it's working anymore. Surely even with their bird brains they could figure out that the spinning things wouldn't really attack them. :p

Actually, though, I've seen people become poachers lately. There was one time on the weekend where I was taking a walk and I overheard the conversation of two people. A woman was sneakily taking a fruit (I believe it was an orange) from a plant growing out of someone's front yard. A man scolded her for taking it, but she insisted it was fair game because it was on the other side of the fence and technically no longer on the owner's property. (Well, I guess there's no harm done, I highly doubt the owner of the fruit tree would notice it missing.)

I'm pretty sure I saw someone else who took a fruit too, quite recently. He was walking with his arms behind his back, and I kept wondering why until I saw that he was holding an orange. He also had his hood covering his head, so I couldn't see his face unless I was facing the front of him. Very suspicious! I later saw another old man coming along from the other direction, his hands also behind his back, and once I passed him I whirled around to see if he was stealing fruit. (But that was just me being paranoid, the second old man was innocent. XD)

If you'd expected to hear about something more major, sorry to disappoint you. The more serious stuff that I've caught wind of is in the school environment, what with the copying of homework, ditching of class (though I'd only heard people consider it, I don't know if they actually have), and...smoking. I actually saw a couple of my fellow students smoking one day at lunch when I was walking off campus. They weren't really trying to hide it. It wouldn't trouble me too much except that I figure I'll end up dying of lung cancer while they go along their merry way...

I've always wondered what made people want to smoke. I'd heard that it was done to lose weight (since your sense of taste gets ruined and you won't want to eat as much), or to look cool (no idea if this is true, enlighten me?), or just a mistake - you try it once and get hooked. I have no experience in the matter nor do I intend to have any, but feel free to tell me why you smoke or why someone you know does, if you feel like it.

Well, this is unrelated, but I like to share pictures of similar-looking characters when I see them. I watched the Tales of the Abyss anime quite a while ago and had forgotten about it up until I saw some pictures a few days ago. Tear Grants always reminded me of a Vocaloid, Luka Megurine. (If I remember correctly, Tear sings too. Talk about a weird coincidence, unless it isn't one.) Their bangs and hair colors are different, and Luka's hair is generally wavier, but I thought their outfits were similar.

TEAR GRANTS
click or click


LUKA MEGURINE
click or click

Labels: birds, cigarette, crime, criminal, fruit, luka megurine, neighborhood, people, reasons, scare, smoking, squirrels, suspicious, tales of the abyss, tear grants, theft, thief, vocaloid

I've had a few previous run-ins with cats. Most of the meetings were with cats in the neighborhood, except for two occasions, one at my mom's friend's house and another at a Humane Society. Cats have never seemed to like me much. They either stare at me suspiciously and run off if I try to approach, or they keep turning away from me to show their disinterest. In fact, my parents' friend's cat even bared its teeth (though I'd heard that he - or was it she? - didn't like people much to begin with) when I attempted to get friendly with it.

So I wasn't quite sure if I really ought to be volunteering to help out with a Town Cats event at PetCo. It was an adoption fair for cats, and I was supposed to be helping with the cleanup - dismantling the cages and that sort of thing. I figured I might as well go. Despite all of my cajoling for the past couple of years, I have still been unable to convince my mother that we ought to get a cat or dog. It's probably because of one of these reasons...

1. My mom never liked cats or dogs much. It seems that her side of our family isn't fond of animals in general, since they didn't have pets when my mom was young.

2. No one has time to take care of it. There's no one to feed lunch to a cat or dog, and if we got a dog we'd have to walk it every day. (I think that'd be good exercise, but it is time-consuming.) Cats are lower maintenance, but as my mother considers them to be rather disloyal and not as useful (for instance, dogs could guard the house while we're away), that's out of the question. I don't think my mom has ever really spent time with a cat, though, so how would she know?

3. My mom is afraid of dogs. She thinks that the big ones are scary and that they will bite her. It's ridiculous considering that she's never even been bitten. And I don't think it's good to be judging animals' temperaments by their sizes. I've told her to pet dogs, that they won't hurt her, but she always refuses.

4. I'm allergic to cats, so I can't have one. Three times I have gotten rashes after coming in contact with cats. Of course, it's not life-threatening, I could still have a cat, but it sure would be annoying suffering from allergies all the time. (And since cats don't like me, I think I'd get along better with a dog.)

5. My dad is allergic to dogs, according to the doctor. I might've mentioned this in an old post. The doctor told him that he's allergic to dogs (guess he found out by giving my dad an injection of something doggish - yeah, I know, that's not a real word - and deduced that he's allergic) but I have never seen him react to dogs. So it's probably a lie. But I don't know for sure.

Anyways, I've wanted to have a dog since about second grade, though I didn't start to nag often until middle school. But even after years and years, I have not managed to convince my mom. She half-jokingly made an offer to me many years ago, saying that if I quit going on the Internet, I could have a dog. I suspect that she only offered that to me because she didn't think I would be able to do it. I have considered quitting the computer (except for homework purposes, I suppose) so that I can have a dog, but I'm not completely sure she would hold up her end of the bargain. Besides, there are lots of things on the Internet that I still want to do - post on my blog, for one. And so I am still stuck in this dogless, catless state. I'll probably be like this until I move out (my mother is always saying I can have a dog...when I'm an adult. It's rather frustrating. She says I'm not responsible enough to take care of one anyways, since I've broken my DS and a camera, as well as lost a jacket, homework assignments, and various other things).

Labels: adoption, allergies, animals, cat, deal, dog, fair, family, internet, mother, pet, petco, reasons, town cats

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