Some Numb Nut at the Pizza Luce across from our apartment building thought it would be a fine idea to hire a crew to redo their parking lot at 3:30am last night. Non Birding Bill and I were part of a coalition of neighbors coming out to get the crew to stop. Boy, was I the old lady of the group--all the younger neighbors were shouting "This is unacceptable! Call the cops!" or "Dude, I can't believe this, you gotta stop!" (although add a few more colorful metaphors) and I was quoting the city's noise ordinance and shaking my fist.

I must say, the woman who came out to meet the tired/sleepy/irritated/slightly irrational gathering didn't give the best initial answer. When a business has suddenly awakened the neighborhood and angry neighbors come out, the response should be, "Oh wow, dude, I'm sorry, I didn't realize that using noisy paint scraping motorized equipment would be a bad idea in the middle of the night! We'll stop immediately! Oh, and here, why don't I give each of you gift certificates for a free slice for your inconvenience!"

Instead we got, "Uh, well, I didn't hear anything."

We did get them to stop, but I had a fitful night of very little sleep afterwards, couple that with working all day today and packing for Utah and an early flight in tomorrow morning, I'm feeling like a bit of an anti pizza cranky pants. Or, rather, a bit like this:

Okay, I'm having way too much fun with the jumping spider, I'll stop soon, I swear.

I do need some cleansing, so how about a cleansing American redstart (or as NBB calls them, sample sized orioles) who must be nesting near the feeding station in Mr. Neil's yard. Speaking of Mr. Neil, have you seen the baby raccoons he found in his yard (cute!). I know they nest down by the creek, but this one was singing all over the fallen oak and declaring his domain near the feeders.

Breathe in the redstart, breathe out, in, out, in out. Ahhhh. And now for some video: