16 July 1999: Newton Saves the Day!

Friday, 16 July 1999:

Newton Saves the Day!

So last night I forgot to set my alarm clock. I do this every so often, maybe two or three times a year, usually just completely spacing out turning it on at night. Moreover, waking up briefly very early this morning (4 am?), I for some reason was thinking that it was Saturday.

Fortunately, Newton seemed to know. Around 7:15 he started his pawing-and-licking routine, which is more than sufficiently annoying to wake me up. After petting him for a little while, it occurred to me that it was, in fact, Friday, and I wondered what time it was. I looked over at my clock, and - zoiks! - it was 7:30!

What impresses me about this is not just that Newton got me up more-or-less on time, but that he generally doesn't do this on the weekend. He usually wait until 9:30 or later.

What a great cat!

The downstairs neighbors are really getting on my nerves. They'll often come up and tell me I'm playing my stereo too loud, often when I've turned it down so low that I can barely hear it elsewhere in my apartment. Tonight the guy down there came up and complained that they were trying to sleep and could hear it in their bedroom, when I could barely hear it in my bedroom! I've even put the speakers up on cardboard boxes since they seemed to think the sound was reverberating through the floorboards since they were right on the carpet.

They've either got unbelievably sensitive ears, or they're imagining things.

The guy down there also makes arguments that don't make much sense, like implying that I'm bothering the whole building, when in fact they're the only ones who ever complain. (One of my speakers is next to the wall adjoining the other apartment on this floor, and they've never complained. I've even asked them.) Or claiming that I can't hear the stereo because the speakers are in the living room and I'm in the bedroom, while overlooking that he's in his bedroom, too (and he has a big hunk of floor in between him and the source).

It's possible there's something strange going on with the building, and yet, when I wake up in the morning (my ears no longer being adjusted to the quiet at night) and turn on the stereo and it's so quiet I can barely make out any words or music when standing right next to it... it's hard to believe.

I must admit, I'm secretly hoping he'll come up and complain again - now that I've turned the thing off entirely.

Sigh. This never happened in my nice Madison apartment - or in my cheap Madison grad school apartment, for that matter.

(Actually, it did happen in my nice apartment - twice in four and a half years. Both times it was because for reasons that escape me the bass on my stereo was turned up high. This is something I don't usually do; I usually turn the bass down, in fact. So I turned it down, and everything was fine. Apparently there is no solution which will make things "fine" in this case, short of turning off the stereo.)

I don't think I'm being unreasonable, but if they really do have over-sensitive ears, what can I do? At some point I think this becomes a matter of, "Well, that's life in an apartment." But the question is: Is that life for me, or life for them?

Argh. Now I'm all wound up being aggravated about this.

Ben asked me at work the other day whether I'm going to buy a new car (his car just went into the shop itself). I replied that it's a struggle between whether I'm going to drag my feet more on getting a new apartment, or getting a new car. Maybe these apartment frustrations will be enough to get me out looking at some places.

The car, well... maybe I will look through Consumer Reports this weekend and see if a Honda Civic is still the way to go. I rather like the current Civic models (like the one John has). But I might look at some other cars too, just to see. Nothing fancy, just possible alternatives.

I will have some time this weekend, since I mid-read a BBQ invitation, thinking it was for Sunday, and instead it's for Saturday. As a result, tentative plans I had with Ceej and David ended up being cancelled. So my Sunday is entirely free.

Michael Rawdon (Contact)