Started a new book

And the frontispiece has a quotation in French by Joseph Conrad.

Il faut surtout pardoner a ces ames malheureuses qui ont elu de faire le pelerinage a pied, qui cotoient le ravage et regardent sans comprendre l’horreur de la lute, la joie de vaincre ni le profound desespoir de vaincus – Joseph Conrad (apologies for the lack of correct accent marks)

I translated it on the bus as:
It is absolutely possible to forgive those unhappy souls who elect to make a pilgrimage on foot among the devastation and look without comprehending the horror of the struggle, the joy of the conqueror, or the profound hopelessness (despair) of the vanquished.

(I had to look up "elu" at Babylon and I confirmed my suspicion that "pelerinage" was "pilgrimage," too.)

Here's an accepted translation:
Above all, we must forgive the unhappy souls who have elected to make the pilgrimage on foot, who skirt the shore and look uncomprehendingly upon the horror of the struggle, the joy of victory, the profound hopelessness of the vanquished.
• letter written in March 1890, published in Frederick R Karl and Laurence Davies, eds., The Collected Letters of Joseph Conrad, vol. 1, p. 43.


I don't think I did badly.

Oliver

One of our Westies, Oliver, has been known to bite. He doesn't do it when he's on a leash on a walk; he has done it when someone comes into our yard without permission. In total, he has bitten three people, other than family, in his 8 years. He is a great watchdog. He has prevented one break-in for certain -- I was living with the parental units when he did. He also got a compliment from a police officer who was on a stake out. Said cop had to move his car because Oliver kept barking at him thus giving away his stake out position. The guy mentioned that a dog like Oliver did more to keep a house safe than a gun.

A couple of months ago, while I was on the phone with my sister, Oliver went crazy with barking. Sis looked out the window, looked out the peephole, and opened the door to show Oliver there was no one out there. There was. He bit the woman multiple times (this is the third person from the paragraph above).

Today, the insurance company called and essentially told my parents that Oliver was too great a liability. It doesn't matter that in not one of the three cases was the family or Oliver in the wrong. We won the cases as they were on our property without our permission (which is explicitly stated on the "No Soliciting" sign on the fence).

The family will be asking our dog walker if she knows anyone who can take Oliver. If not, he will probably be put down. I'm trying to figure out if I can take him. The extra $25 per month (if it's still only $25) and the $300 deposit wouldn't break me, but it would put me in a rough position financially. I worry about his barking in an apartment that's less than a third the size of his current living situation and his no longer having a companion through the day.

I just needed to vent a bit. I'm so angry about this because as Dad once said, "If Oliver didn't protect the house, we wouldn't have a reason to feed him."