Batch

08-20-2017 -- At the Hickory house doing packing, I think. Not quite sure what is going on, but there are disappearing pets, and injured cats, and we're trying to figure out what is happening, when I discover that there is a lion running around the neighborhood, killing and eating other animals, and mauling people when it catches them. The neighbors at 8439 are running around in terror, trying to hide behind their big mobile home trailer, while the lion is just laying under the thing, eating the family dog, and occasionally taking a swipe at their legs.

So I'm looking around for Sammy, hoping he's safe, and trying to figure out where the lion is and when it might be safe, and the answer is pretty much never. The lion seems to be hiding off to the right side of the house in an area where the garage should be, but it is not. At one point, I am wandering around trying to find things, and come across the lion around the side of the house, and start to run for the door, and the lion starts to chase me, and I realize the running attracts it's attention. When I was just walking, it paid me much less attention. So I slow down, and before it can react, dart toward it and start scratching it on the head, and to that it reacts like a kitten, and purrs and loves the attention, and I am able to get back into the house, where I borrow somebody's phone and call for animal control to come and get it.

Dobby is here for a while, and trying to protect us, but he moves far too quickly, and is eaten several times (and just pops back into existence, ready to be eaten again) until he learns to make a big, pillow-like shield around himself that the lion just bounces off of. Meanwhile, Billy Damon is here, demonstrating some magic tricks, while a piano competition-like magic convention is going on, with a kids division that is competing, as well as an adult division, and some kids that are a cross between the younger ragtime writers and the stars from the Big Bang Theory are showing off their magic acts.

I keep opening the front door, and the lion is now pretty much camping on the front porch, and I am petting his head until he purrs, and keeping him calm, while urging others to move cautiously, and not trigger his chase instincts by running, while waiting for animal control, who seem to be incredibly slow about getting out here. But finally they arrive, and after a long time of setting up their trucks, they wander around and spray the two lions with some sort of foamy spray that may remove oxygen from the area, and knocks them out, and probably eventually kills them, which kind of bothers me, because now that I've started petting one, I'm bonding to it, and just want to see it removed from the populated area.

But even though I am opposed to the killing of the animals, and just want to get them moved safely, I have grabbed a small bottle of the spray that is killing them, and am running around spraying most of the people in the house (which may be forcing us to move) and giving them a brief spray to the air just in front of their faces, to try and knock them out, yet not kill them, and take everybody out in the hopes of moving them somewhere and getting them out of the way. But of course it is still very dangerous, and some of them turn their heads or don't breathe in, and the whole thing is just a mess.