There are worse places to attend an academic conference than Dublin.

Mmmm, Guinness.

Now if only it would get above 55 degrees outside.

The Vatican has issued 10 Commandments for drivers:

1. You shall not kill.

2. The road shall be for you a means of communion between people and not of mortal harm.

3. Courtesy, uprightness and prudence will help you deal with unforeseen events.

4. Be charitable and help your neighbor in need, especially victims of accidents.

5. Cars shall not be for you an expression of power and domination, and an occasion of sin.

6. Charitably convince the young and not so young not to drive when they are not in a fitting condition to do so.

7. Support the families of accident victims.

8. Bring guilty motorists and their victims together, at the appropriate time, so that they can undergo the liberating experience of forgiveness.

9. On the road, protect the more vulnerable party.

10. Feel responsible toward others.

So assuming everything continues to go well, this’ll be our new place by the end of July.

Looking into the dining room. We’ll be replacing the totally incongruous Ikea light fixture.

Our awesome bathroom– fixtures are original to the building (c.1920). Check out the sweet water closet with its scrolled base!

More bathroom.

Original pistachio fixtures! (Yeah, I’m a loser.)

One of the large hall linen closets.

Master bedroom. Hard to get a good angle on it.

Second bedroom, plus realtor.

Looking into the living room from the dining room. Southern exposure– huzzah!

For ye olde phone.

Yeah, this just looks like a window. But in reality, it’s a six foot square office.

Peeking into the kitchen. There are tons of original wood cabinets– many more than can be seen here. Nice track lighting under the cupboards, too– I think the previous owner might actually have cooked! There’s lots of counter space that can’t be seen in this shot.

Stove. Nothing terribly fancy, but a heck of a lot better than the old tilted piece of crap we have now.

Yeah, I know. I should actually update my blog once in a blue moon. Your complaints (ahem, R. Batty) have not gone totally unnoticed. But I’m just so damn busy these days! My summer thus far includes a conference in Dublin in 9 days, a visit from the inimitable Christian, a teaching job in New York in August, and closing on a condo.

The latter task required Jason and me to spend a good while signing contracts in a realtor’s office Tuesday night. Our realtor recommended the sushi restaurant down the street for dinner afterward, and we were pleased to find the fish there was just about as fresh as it gets in Chicago. But the best part, by far, was the bathroom.

On the wall was a laminated sign advising patrons not to throw paper products into the toilets. This imperative was typed in a speech bubble emanating from the mouth of the figure in Munch’s “The Scream.” Next to the screaming figure someone had photoshopped in a picture of a toilet, from which a generous serving of soft-serve vanilla ice cream issued. Yes, that’s right: soft-serve vanilla ice cream coming out the bowl of the toilet. French vanilla by the looks of it.

 The moral of this story, children, is that if you throw wads of paper into toilets, ice cream will come out. Delicious!