I am cranky, until...

The apartment here is in the middle of town, right off Corrientes, which is the street with all the theaters on it (as well as many, many bookstores). During the week, it's a very busy neighborhood, hectic with people going to and from work. But the building itself is very quiet. Since there are two inner courtyards and we're off the second, I don't hear any of the hubbub.

One of the things I like is that my neighbors are very much locals. For example, directly to one side is a nice couple of 20-somethings. He writes for a newspaper called Perfil and she's a lawyer. Then there's the crazy couple below them. I'll leave their oddities for another entry.

And there's a family across the way with a young son, or maybe two. I'm not quite sure. Anyway, last week was quite nice here, and I noticed that they were letting their son run wild more often than usual, and he was particularly inexhaustable, running about and screaming a high-pitched kid scream for what seemed like hurs, but was certainly at least half an hour. Now, that sort of thing is cute for a while, but does begin to grate, especially as it's just noise in my apartment—I can't actually see what's happening because the walls of my galleria are too high to see over.

Yesterday after a particularly long scream-and-run session, I was getting a bit cranky, so decided to go browse some bookstores, get some ice cream. When I get to the bottom of my stairs, I'm greeted by a black, waggy puppy and two squealing boys.

So it turns out that's why the change in noise levels—they got a puppy. And I gather their main method of exercise is to let the puppy and boys loose in the patios. Boys run, puppy chases, boys scream. Repeat.

Of course, dogs being cuter than kids, my heart melts and I forgive them. For a bit. The dog is sweet and surprisingly quiet.

Well.

It's very quiet when it's chasing boys around patios. It's less quiet when they're not home. It tends to bark relentlessly for much long periods of the day. Or at least I think it's the new puppy.

Hopefully the dog will get used to being alone. Or I'll get used to having a bit more of a soundtrack than before.