A friend I work with had a groundhog incident himself, and it was alarming. His wife had the front door open, and was halfway out in the yard, when a groundhog was startled by her, ran past, and ran into their house. She was on her way somewhere that she evidently had to, just had to get to.... and because she couldn't locate the groundhog in a few minutes, actually LEFT the house, closing it up and decided to deal with him later.

When she returned, it had torn apart some things in several rooms. And there was a 6-inch hole chewed in the hall wood floor, through several layers of floor, and it looked like the groundhog had gotten into the basement, which is all concrete. They couldn't find it, but left a humane trap down there with some fruit in it.

Two days later they haven't seen any sign of it. Who knows where it is now.

Speaking of habit-forming substances (which Martin was), in the local paper here were notices about a marijuana dispensary opening at the mall, and the state liquor store was able to move back to its old location again. The building had broken in the back corner because it was sinking into the old mine underneath. They poured cement into the mine, apparently.

I am being forced to close out two storage units because I can't keep up with the cost. While I can give all the furniture in one to Goodwill, I can't give them boxes of papers -- of which there are many. I'll have to make room for all these and go through them as soon as I can. That'll be the opposite of fun. Some ancient stuff in there.

It is nice to see the site up again! I hope everyone can post.

Some street painting on the South Side:


and its companion picture around back on the next street: