Sometimes I can't sleep because of the apnea. Sometimes I can't sleep because of the cats. Sometimes it's the birds and the squirrels that keep me awake. Last night? Last night I was kept awake by the drunken idiots next door.

For the most part, we've got great neighbors. There's the family down the street that has a bad rep as drug users (which they probably are), but I get along with even them. I wave "hi" to the guys, and they nod at me. Sometimes they make comments on the yard when they see me out working.

The neighbors behind us, however, cause a bit of consternation. Mostly they're okay, I suppose (though I've never actually met them). Sometimes, though, they scare me.

One Sunday, the man and woman who live in the house had a loud, public outdoor row about who-knows-what. They shouted and screamed and slammed doors. Ultimately the man left in a huff, driving off in a cloud of burning rubber. Another time they had a late-night party with much whooping and hollering and fits of drunken song. I gave that a pass, tough, because we'd recently had a rather late part of our own to celebrate a visit from Joel and Aimee.

Last night was over the line, though. At about 1:18 I woke to what sounded like people in our yard. Loud people. Loud drunken people. I got out of bed to investigate the ruckus, and found our yard empty. The din was coming from next door: the neighbors had a small fire, a lot of beer, and very loud voices. Despite the fact it was the middle of the night, the group seemed compelled to SHOUT EVERYTHING THEY HAD TO SAY. Every other word was "motherfucker".

I tried to get back to sleep, but only succeeded in reaching a sort of mild doze. The loud voices kept me awake.

When my alarm went off at 5:30, the neighbors were still in the yard, still being loud. Being louder. BAM! — laugh laugh laugh. There's nothing like leftover fireworks early on a weekday morning. BAM! — laugh laugh laugh.

"I think they might have a gun," I told Kris. "I thought I heard one of them say 'give me the gun'."

She was preparing to go down for her sponge bath. "Do you think I'll be okay?" she asked.

She was okay. When she came back from the porch, she told me about the conversation she'd overheard. "They're drinking, that's for sure. They keep talking about how drunk they are and how everyone will be leaving for work soon and they'll still be drinking. They're talking about drinking something purple, but I can't figure out what it is. Also, that's not gunfire; they've got some sort of explosive and they're using it to blow up trees for firewood. I'm not sure how that works. Now they've decided that it would be fun to put the explosives in beer cans and throw them over the neighbors' fences."

BAM! — laugh laugh laugh.

"Yeah, like we won't have any idea who did it," I said. By the time I left for work, the group had actually quieted down. I drove around the block to cruise past the party house. There were several pickups parked in front, and the smell of a campfire hung in the air, but I couldn't see anyone. Maybe they'd all passed out from alcohol poisoning. Maybe they'd blown themselves up with their leftover firecrackers.

One can hope.

Kris had a paint emergency yesterday.

For months I've been complaining about her color choice for the bathroom: Spring Sprout. "It looks like split-pea soup," I say, because it looks like split-pea soup. "It's too yellow. And I don't think the tub should be the same color as the wall."

"I like that it's yellowish," Kris says. "Trust me. You'll like it."

Then yesterday, after the paint had dried on the bathtub (the bathtub and the bathroom walls are to be painted Spring Sprout), Kris experienced a crisis. "You've planted the seeds of doubt in my mind," she told me.

"I wish they'd sprouted earlier," I muttered.

"What?"

"Never mind. You should hoe those seeds of doubt. You ignored my advice for months. You especially ignored me last weekend when we were out shopping for the paint. You vetoed every suggestion I made."

She looked sad. "I really thought you'd change your mind when you saw the color on the tub."

"It looks like split-pea soup."

Kris called several friends, declaring her paint emergency, and asking for them to come over to offer their opinions.

Marla came by. "It looks great," she said. "I like it." Kris gave me a look that said See? I know what I'm doing.

Rhonda came by. "I don't know," she said. "It does kind of look like split-pea soup. It might be okay, though I don't think the tub should be the same color as the wall."

Paul and Amy Jo came by. "Uh-uh," Amy Jo said without a moment of hesitation. "It's too much. You'd be sick of that color in a month."

Paul stood back, not offering an opinion. "I'm staying out of it," he said. He and I wandered off to pick blueberries and to discuss woodworking.

In the end, we sat around the kitchen table with Paul and Amy Jo and with their help we hammered out a new palette for the bathroom, one that is less yellow, one less reminiscent of grade school hot lunches. Kris, bless her heart, agreed to consider colors from Miller Paint's historic color collection. (Remember that I'm big on staying as period authentic as possible; the three rooms we painted downstairs essentially use period colors.) Ultimately, we compromised. The walls will be a less-yellow green: Marrett Apple. The bathtub won't be purple (Concord Grape was my top choice), but will be a slightly darker green: Wainscot Green. Neither of us is ecstatic about these colors, but I think we can both live with them.

Meanwhile, the electrical work still hasn't started. The bathroom is in the same state it was a week ago.

On this day at foldedspace.org

2004 — A Rough Guide to Removing Spyware   This entry is a primer on how to cope with malware.

2003 — Clamdiggers   In which I hunt for bivalves.

2002 — When Standards Aren't: A Rant   Let me get this off my chest: among the many evils perpetrated in the name of standards -- in particular, CSS standards -- coding a page in ems instead of absolute font sizes is one of the worst.