This has got to be the longest time I have gone without updating my blog, and I apologize.  Here are some updates . . .

Mrs. Noisewater and I finally moved out of our tiny apartment where our bedroom window faced the alley of decadence and a Chicago life of excess.  Just about every night we would hear a couple getting ready to get it on, some people doing cocaine, a fight breaking out, but usually just people being loud and drunk.  I really knew it was time to go when I saw the aftermath of what I could only assume was a hobo orgy.  This is an actual picture that I took:

Aren't you glad the bums are being safe?

So now I'm back in Lakeview, my favorite neighborhood where I lived for around 7 years before the party-alley-place.  But back then I had 4 roommates.  Now I just have one, and she's the best roommate ever.  Does it bother me that Mrs. Noisewater is more handy than me and is painting, hanging up shelves, and using power tools that I don't know how to operate?  A little.  But I'm in charge of . . . the record player.  And that's important stuff.

Our landlord is a Chicago cop part time, and despite the fact that he looks precisely like Vic Mackey from "The Shield," he is actually a really nice guy.  He doesn't want us grilling on the balcony because he doesn't want us burning the place down, so he lets us use the grill and smoker in the courtyard and even buys and replaces the propane tank for us.  Now that's a hell of a deal.

"Don't beat a confession out of me!  That was me playing Captain and Tennille on my record player last night.  And singing along."

Our downstairs neighbor is an elderly four and a half foot tall Japanese woman who has been living in the building for forty years, and when she moved in her rent was sixty bucks a month.  Very sweet woman, but a bit of a hoarder.  She has filled up the basement with years and years of useless crap.  She was telling me one day when I was doing laundry down there that sometimes she buys two of something because she forgets she already had one.  Probably because it was buried under other stuff.  Landlord Vic Mackey has given her until the 15th of this month to have all that stuff moved out of there.  She will often offer us something, and usually we say no.  But sometimes we will take something just to make her feel that some of those objects have a home.  I fill a thermos of hers up with Gatorade all the time and tried to tell her I was using it, but her English isn't very good.  I have been thinking about taking some things that she offers and just throwing it out for her - a few dumpsters away so that she doesn't see that I tossed it.  That way she's happy and I'm helping her clear the joint out, right?

Hope you're enjoying your summer as much as I am, readers!