I woke up to the bleeping of the heavy machinery's warning thingy.

Things went downhill from there.
The tiny, one-lane road in front of my house is being double laned because of the new construction in the empty lot across from me. They are building what I like to refer to as "Strip Mansions". This would be townhouses, but two- to three-thousand square foot townhouses going for more than $200 a square foot. Do the math. It's still only got windows on two sides, people. And less than six feet of grass between your back door and the wall that keeps the riff-raff like the neighbors out.

So, this being Florida, that meant that they had to dump crushed coral rock onto the road bed and then steam roller it into submission. Five or six times. Until there was a foot of substrata.

My house was rattling like there was an earthquake. I had to move all the glassware around. Then I walked past my miniature cabinet. Those items not previously shattered by falls were dancing around on the shelves like water on a hot griddle.

I trotted outside and asked the very nice driver if he would cease and desist for five minutes so I could empty the cabinet and make my tiny treasures safe. He said to come and get him when I was done.

It wasn't even lunchtime, yet.

I spent the rest of the day working on redesigning the rest of Girlyshoes. It amazes me how much I can forget about computers when I'm not writing code all day long.

I tried to watch De-Lovely. I've been trying to watch it for four days. No sooner do I drop it in the DVD then the phone rings, or an errand needs to be run, or the dogs need to go out, or the cat throws up. I finally saw the end. I should have stayed with Cole in Paris, because life definitely took a down turn after the horse fell on him.

Finally sat down to eat dinner, and the Drunk Neighbor came over with a dog he'd found in the street. Said dog had a collar with a phone number on it, but the Drunk Neighbor couldn't be bothered to call it himself. It would be more fun to drag the little dog over to our house so the Noble Dog Nails and Miss JoJo could work themselves into a tumultuous uproar over the sight and smell of a stranger in their yard. Besides, the Drunk Neighbor said that he couldn't call because his wife was drunk.*

So the RLA and I called the number. It turned out to be the people who live on the corner--next door to the Drunk Neighbor (and his mortal enemies). Of course, they couldn't be bothered to actually come and get the little dog. No. They left him with us, and my dogs barking non-stop for another hour. Until I called again (third time) and said if they didn't come get him, I'd walk him down to them. RIGHT. NOW.

Another ten minutes and they DROVE!!! out of their driveway, and two doors down. Except they are too lame for words, and parked in the driveway of the house between us. Lame. Lame. Lame.

Then there was the obligatory complaints about the construction, and the notes of who's selling now that the construction has started, and the damned woman would have stood in the neighbor's driveway all night and chatted except the RLA and I insisted that dinner was getting cold and left.

And that was life in Miz Shoes neighborhood.

* His wife is ALWAYS drunk. Ugly, stinking, screaming, channeling-the-snake-god drunk. She's not allowed in my house, anymore.

That's what I was shrieking out of my car window as the woman in the gold SoccerMom van put it in reverse and started backing down the spiral up ramp at Dadeland Station Mall.

No. Really. In. Reverse. On an UP-RAMP. With me driving a stick right behind her. And a really big Mercedes behind me.
REVERSE!!!! On an UP-RAMP!!!

Are you insane or just stupid? I don't know the answer, because, although I was screeching that and more out of my open windows, she had hers closed and was totally oblivious.

She got off the ramp on the same floor I did, but whereas I parked, she merely circled the (empty) level and then went back on the ramp and went up another leve. Which was a pity, because I was ready to go nose to nose with her and demand the answers to my questions.

1. What the fuck is wrong with you?
2. Where did you learn to drive?
3. Are you insane or just stupid?
4. Were you on a cell phone, too?

This is the same mall and the same ramp where just two weeks ago I saw a woman stop. STOP. Like, park. On the up-ramp and change her baby's diaper in the back seat.

Oh, yeah. What is there to add to that?

Yes!!!! Tonight there is a special on what the "divas" are doing now, and tomorrow another round starts on ANTM.
That's America's Next Top Model, but I am such a ditz, that during Cycle 2, when the girls had to sell a make-up line called ANTM, all I could see (or hear in my head) was Auntie Em.

It is so not easy being blonde.

Man, if I were 30 years younger, 30 pounds lighter and about 4 inches taller, I would be all over that show like white on rice. Or not, seeing how I feel about reality shows in general, and actually being on one in particular.

But this show is my secret vice. OK, not so secret. My vice, though. Oh, yes it is. I L-U-V this show with the heat of a thousand suns. I cuddle up on the couch with a jug of plonk and a gallon drum of popcorn and I watch every minute of it. I even tell the RLA to leave the room if he's going to be scornful of my taste in trash TV.

Speaking of the heat of a thousand suns, Miss Bliss wrote something the other day that just made me spew martini on my monitor. In reference to holding hate in her heart, she said that she knew "it just makes the sweetbabyjesus want to drink gin straight out of the cat dish."

I ask you, has a finer phrase ever been crafted?

I thought not. I am stealing that puppy so fast your head will spin around like Linda Blair's. And with a Southern accent? Honeychile, you just best be watching out.

I'm back in Miami, back in my house, back in my neighborhood. And you know what? I don't care. I had such a wonderful time in my childhood home, that I want to go back there and live.

Which is pretty damned funny, actually, since for the past thirty odd years I've been saying that my hometown was a great place to be from, but you wouldn't want to live there.

Except, last week, I'm walking JoJo down a dark street at night, and total strangers were passing in the other direction and talking to me as they passed. Even more amazing than that, the things they said were in English, and did NOT include the words "money" "life" "hand over".

I could see the stars at night, and smell the moist and salt in the air. It was quiet. Quiet and dark. Dark and quiet. And there were small animals, like rabbits and squirrels and racoons wandering around in the dark. I saw them, and not just their remains in flat, fuzzy lumps in the road.

I saw people that I haven't spoken to in more than 20 years. And I even enjoyed it.

Nope. My home town was looking pretty damned good to me this time.

People were concerned for me, being in the house alone. Why? I asked them. There was nothing in there but love, and how could that be scary in the dark?

Then I got back here, and had to delete more than 100 spam hits for cialis, viagra, on-line poker and betting. People, people, people... Do I ever talk about sex? Or poker? Do I seem like the kind of writer who would want to play poker on-line? Huh? Do I? No. Nor do I have any need, desire, or even vague interest in sexual enhancement drugs. Do me a favor and keep your fucking spam bots off my site.

Like that will do any good.

I'm going off for a week of home wrecking. Maybe not so much wrecking as dismantling. For the third time in about ten years, I get to take apart and pack up a family home. Yippee, she says with as much sarcasm and distaste as she can manage.
This exercise is freighted with memories and sadness, of course, because this time it is my childhood home I'm putting into boxes and sending away to Goodwill.

Books. My mother was a reader, and there is a huge library of books ranging from cookbooks to mysteries to histories to coffee table picture books and on to art tomes and reference books. There is a pile of Judaica and next to it my childhood books and college texts.

Furniture. Photos. Clothing. It's all there and it's all going somewhere else.

This is week one, and it's the week that will tell me how long this project will take.

I'm taking JoJo, so that I won't have to be in the house alone, but the truth is, I'll enjoy the solitude for a while. Maybe I'll even be able to do a little beach combing while I'm gone.

Talk amongst yourselves.

Oh, how I wish I were going to the dogs, the Westminster Dog Show, that is. But I'm not. I am watching it, though, from the comfort of my couch and with that big old flopsy walrus of a puppy, Miss JoJo in my lap.
Tonight is the hound group, and you can see a PBGV in that group. The first time they showed at Westminster, it was JoJo's grandsire... I think. It might not have been the first year, but he was in the center ring there one year.

I love this show. I love hearing the breed standards, I love seeing the dogs strut their stuff, as aware of their audience as any rock star, or star athlete.

For the first time this year, Westminster is offering streaming video on their site of ALL the breed judgings. So you can see, for example, all the Komondors looking like animated mops as they prance around in their dreadlocks.

I love the dogs.

Woof.