Do You Hear What I Hear

The goats have been really loud tonight and when I went outside to shush them I heard one of my neighbors making comments about them. I couldn't tell what the comments were - but I sense they were disparaging. This is the same neighbor I've heard making comments before but I've never heard the whole comment - just snippets..."blah blah blah goat blah blah noises blah blah". It's making me paranoid and giving me anxiety so I've sent Jacob - sweet, sweet good-with-people Jacob - over to ask them if the goats bother them. He thinks this is weird and is reluctant to do so but I must know - it's really making me tense and driving a wedge in my love for the goats. Jacob agrees perhaps because he thinks he'll discover there is a neighborhood petition to get rid of them and this is his chance before my second foot surgery puts him in charge of the menagerie again.

I hear things wrong all the time. One time, when I was working at a concession stand at a movie theater, I thought a guy asked me "Are you Chinese?" when he was pointing at candy and saying "Have you tried these?" I sensed I had heard him wrong so I asked him to repeat it and again, "Are you Chinese?" I replied, "No, do I look it?" There was some confusion.

So I'm anxiously awaiting Jacob to come back and hopeful the news will be good. Cautiously optimistic I guess.

* Update: He's been gone for maybe 20 minutes. I try and imagine them all sitting around the table, sharing beers and laughing about this misunderstanding and what a great neighborhood this is.

* Update: Miracle of miracles - they love the goats! The downside - they really hate Suki. Apparently we were about to get a mystery gift of a no-bark collar in our mail box before we just started keeping her inside due to the weather. I can only imagine what an unmarked no-bark collar in the mailbox would have done for my anxiety. I guess we'll have to consider getting her one as a Christmas gift - making this the worst Christmas for her ever but since she's not quite two and hasn't gotten anything in year's past the bar hasn't been set all that high.