ARRRGHHH!!!! Okay I like dogs, honestly I do, but that basset hound across the hall has got to go! Quarter after five in the morning, the bas___d is howling at the top of its lungs again! So, I broke down and wrote the drunk a note, telling him as nicely as possible--at five am--to do something or...well, or else. Hate to do it, but this guy is such a putz. Well, his whole family is...no really, they're all a bunch of drunken hillbilly's. No joke--for real, unfortunately.

This guy is always leaving his dog's tie out rope draped across the inside or outside steps--just waiting to break my neck over it some day, when I forget to look or am in a hurry, he'll stand under the building's windows and deliberately make the dog bark repeatedly--he says he loves it when his dog barks...isn't that special? And, well..the man's nice--but a complete idiot. The other night, his sisters and he were all standing outside on the lawn, yelling (that's how they communicate, they yell at each other at the top of their lungs--even in casual conversation), discussing some fight his sister had with somone, and how she "beat the crap" out of some guy, and then sister two was lamenting how she lost her house key and couldn't get in, and would he loan her money...and he started whinging, and she started hustling him for money--all this yelling under my windows at 11 pm at night---chav-tastic! He still sings to his dog at midnight, one am, as well...impossible not to hear him, as the walls between our apartments are paper thin.

Something the old landlord forgot to mention when he showed me this place: "Oh and by the way, the drunk across the hall..." (who, despite evidence to the contrary, denies he drinks) "...who sings to his hound in the wee hours, and lets the dog bay and howl repeatedly, at the crack of dawn..."

Well, no more bats lately. I'm not that scared of bats, but have a serious issue with one flying over my head, and circling my tiny little bedroom, at half-past two in the morning..hopefully they'll not be a repeat of that ever again. Brown bats aren't usually all that big--but this one very much was, one of the biggest (and I'm going back four decades) that I've honestly ever seen. Hope he or she hasn't found a way back into the building.

Well, going to have a glass of milk and try to go back to bed for an hour or two, at least. I don't have to be to work until noon, so I don't have to get up any particular time--as long as I don't sleep past nine or half-past nine, that is.

It's nice and cool this morning, lovely out there--but it's supposed to get blazing hot, later--absolutely boiling, or so I'm told...eventually getting to 30 or 32 C, again. Nuts to that. I miss living near a lake/river. It sure was nice to just be able to walk or ride a bike or drive up (or down) the road to a beach. I had access to three beaches in Lake George, Three when I lived in Lake Luzerne, as well--well, four, but it cost money to go to the one at Forth Lake in Lake Luzerne, because it was in a state campground and they charged admission), and even when I was in Corinth, they had a beach on the Hudson River (only one of two public beaches on the entire length of the river). We had a tiny lake with a private beach for village residents just up the road--literally, in the town where I grew up, so except for a dozen years when I lived in a large "bedroom" coomunity in the suburbs, I've always had access to a public beach--even here in the city, is the other beach on the Hudson River--but alas, it's just way too far for me to walk to, with my bad foot, and there's no public transport in that part of town. Public transport here is extremely limited--just a couple of the main roads, and that's it...you can go from the city to the shopping areas and mall in the northern suburbs, to the neighbouring city of Hudson Falls, and, in the tourist season, to Lake George by the trolley bus--mind you, the 15 or 20 minute trip to the resort town of Lake George can take about an hour, no joke...so if one goes, it can seem like an all-day affair, just getting there.

Well, I've just wasted half an hour, prattling on about absolutely nothing....but, the dog's shut up, so I'm going back to bed now. Cheers. :(