I think I used up all my brain. I have been fighting with LJ trying to log in. It kept saying my password was bad. I kept reentering to the point I got locked out for a bit. Then I kept trying only to finally realize I had misentered my username. Dur.

It's amazing how much noise four large teenage boys can make walking (calmly!) up uncarpeted stairs.

Emmett's like a little chaos generator that comes equipped with a stack of Marshall amps.

Yes! Last weekend we had 6 15 to 17 y.o. boys in the house to watch football. It was very loud. Then they went to one of the other boys' house and I found out from that mom this evening that she caught them trying to light an aerosol can on fire (!!!) -- these are good boys, why they gotta be so reckless??? Oh yeah, teenagers...

Oh sarameg, that sucks! I feel like your neighborhood should have a protective dome of love around it to keep that stuff out!

I just cleaned out the fridge last weekend. It's all nice an organized now, I expect that to last for about one more day.

Let me find you some cute T-Hard.

Wow, that totally gave me the feelings! Good stuff for the morning, indeed.

In the last apartment we lived in, the apartment next to us was connected to a bedroom downstairs, and the staircase was right next to our kitchen (just outside our bedroom), separated from us by the thinnest of walls. The neighbors themselves? An unspecified number of 18/19-year-old boys, students at the local college, whose friends were constantly coming over to hang out, play video games, watch sports, smoke pot, and run up and down the stairs all night long.

Man, I don't miss them at all.

Yeah, lisah, I feel you. I posted to facebook, but in case you haven't gone there: once you get the doors open run a candle/bar of soap along the edges. It helps SO MUCH.

But NSM with the flooding. Sump pump or french drains for that, neither cheap. When I finally decide to finish the basement (in, oh, 20 years) I'll do both.

I keep getting more pissed off every time I think of the carjacking. I keep wondering, what was I doing then? Could I have looked out and seen something? But the thing is, I mostly monitor the back unless I hear weird noises out front or a neighbor calls me to ask me to watch for them. I just have more angles back there, with the deck being unreachable.

And I have yelled off creepers in the alley.

But tonight I noticed a LOT of folks eating dinner out on their porches and just generally hanging out and chatting. I know from a couple of them it was a deliberate show.

But tonight I noticed a LOT of folks eating dinner out on their porches and just generally hanging out and chatting. I know from a couple of them it was a deliberate show.

That's a really good idea. I mean, the nude pervert in the alley freaked me out, but that's a one-time kind of thing/person. If people were getting carjacked in this neighborhood, I would be off the wall with LET'S TAKE CARE OF THIS.

Couple more for you there, Jesse. I got your back.

Allyson, this Top Chef is adorable. GAIL is all aflutter over Horowitz.

It's the 90s

Yeah, Buffy is in there....

DAWN!!! New Skulduggery Pleasant! READ IT so I can geeble with you! There's A Thing. And then holy shit, Another Thing. And something that actually made me close the book and flap my hands for a minute.

SERIOUSLY.