The landlords of the murder house finally kicked everyone out a few months ago, and it's now apparently being renovated. Slowly. However, someone in the neighborhood is keeping up the proud tradition of exciting Saturday nights, because there are eight police cars and a van in front of my house, and they are hunting someone with dogs ( Read more... )

So I've figured out who was stealing the pots: my next door neighbors. These aren't the loud ones who throw parties that end in violence, these are the ones across the driveway from me ( Read more... )

This one featured arguing, much smashing of glass, but no shooting. Though I think someone was stabbed; at least, when the cops arrived their spotlight fell on a gentleman making his way down the sidewalk, not entirely steadily and with one hand clutched tightly to his chest just above his heart ( Read more... )

There are still cop cars and evidence vans outside, 8 hours later. "A single, possible double homicide", according to the cop that is stationed closest, and the street is a network of orange yellow tape crisscrossing as it blocks of paths of evidence. One of them apparently died about 30 feet from my front door; I couldn't see it last night, ( Read more... )

Well, this is certainly exciting. A party across the street was disintegrating into argument, whch I was listening to with one ear, when I heard a firecracker pop. Then two more, sounding so much like gunshots that I ducked down on my couch to get my head below window level. Nothing more, and I thought I must be wrong because the shouting ( Read more... )

100 according to weather.com, 103 in the shade according to my little Brookstone thermometer. By closing off the bedroom and positioning the evaporative cooler right in front of the couch, I've achieved a sphere about 6 x 6 of barely tolerable temperatures. Normally I'd go hang out at an airconditioned bookstore when it got this hot, but that ( Read more... )

I haven't actually seen the new neighbors yet, but I came home from shopping today to find that some of my plant boxes were gone; my several-year-old rosemary, a very nice basil plant, and some of my strawberries. Suspiciously, they were all in one row, right behind where a careless truck driver might back past the concrete and into the dirt, ( Read more... )