2008-09-07 - 10:00 p.m.

...that definitely falls under the category of "no shit, sherlock",,,

Today was sunny, warm, and beautiful.. and I spent most of the day working on committee stuff. I am worn out and the week hasn't even started.

We are having troubles with our car battery, in that there seems to be a short in one of the connecting wires. The problem is that we have a New York car - one with one of those annoying car alarms:

DJWEE-ER WEEER WEER WEER WEER, DJCHO
DJCHO DJCHO DJCHO, DOOOOOOOOOip! DOOOOOOOOip! aag, aag aag aag. oooo EEEEEE oooo EEEE oooo EEEEE ooooooo...

rinse. repeat.

It's exceedingly annoying and we hate it. Everyone one I know who hears these car alarms hates them. Except Heddy. One time I visited Heddy in her little studio apartment off Union Square in San Francisco, and EVERY morning without fail this exact car alarm went off outside her window at about 6:30am.

I was coming from a small town in Germany where the neighborhood was so quiet that visitors to my apartment would have to leave their bedrooms and find the clock in the kitchen two rooms away to remove the battery to stop its gentle ticking - in a place without noise, these things can sound like time bombs. So imagine what that car alarm sounded like to me.

But not Heddy. I don't think she even noticed it anymore. But I knew that she heard it when I woke up one morning and listened to her singing along with the car alarm while in the shower, anticipating the distinctive, "AAG AAG AAG AAG." I couldn't believe it. It totally cracked me up. Even more so that she didn't even realize that she was doing it.

So anyway, these dreadful car alarms. They annoy the shit out of me. And everyone else, too.

So imagine how we felt when our battery was failing and this thing went off three times in one day. K went out and was dealing the with the wires when our ever helpful neighbors screamed over at us:

"Hey that's getting REALLY ANNOYING."

It SO pissed me off. DUH! And we've been trying to STOP the DAMNED thing for the last half a day! Do you think we are doing this because we LIKE IT??? That's like looking at someone holding expensive crystal and screaming, "DON'T DROP THAT!!"

I was really really mad. So I just yelled back, "Thanks for your helpful comments." To which she replied, "Could you just keep it down over there???"

I refrained from saying anything further. These are our NEIGHBORS. The alarm went off THREE TIMES, and never for more than 2 minutes. We hate it too, but it should have been obvious that there was a problem and we were outside trying to deal with it.

Nevermind that we put up with their gas-powered lawn mowers and leaf blowers that blast gas fumes and noise pollution into our kitchen for 30 minutes at a shot EVERY WEEK. This is considered an acceptable noise? They have a lawn the size of a dish towel, for god's sake. Speeziks.

It made for a day of feeling like we just don't fit here in our neighborhood of SUV hippies, where their property values are more important than the people next door. We just don't get these people.