Ah, this weekend I went up to untarp Old Alt! The season has finally commenced!

Old Alt was lovely as ever, of course, but there have been sinister change afoot! At the yacht club, Terry the Barmaid was all "Huw! How are you doing! How was your winter! Give me a hug!- Oh, by the way, you're not welcome here any more... you'll have to leave." No, it was nothing personal, no egregious transgression on my part- they know me pretty well there, and there's little I could do to get much more than a raised eyebrow- but -get this- the club has decided to NOT ALLOW NON-MEMBERS IN ANYMORE. Frankly, I find this a little preposterous. What the hell kind of club is this anyhow? Won't allow non-members in? What the hell kind of nonsense is this?

Well, as Joey G. says, if some private concern decides it wants to go bankrupt what business is it of mine. Joey G. is right of course, on both counts. Not that it is my liquor business alone that has singlehandedly kept Westlake Yacht Club financially solvent, but there's a whole lot of paying customers that they're now deliberately turning away. George was already convinced last year that they were losing their shirt. As far as business plans go, this one seems singularly ill-advised, if not even hare-brained.

Bill and Sandy were there, who kindly offered to invite me in as their guest. So I wasn't immediately thrust out into the cold, but when dinner-time came me and Jeff (another non-member, and one whose liquor business is of an order of magnitude that possibly could keep an otherwise struggling establishment afloat) had to be off- we headed to the Castle to go eat Mexican.

Sunday morning, I was up with the chickens at 6:30, as is my invariable habit. Also as per usual, I moseyed over to use the facilities at the yacht club, where to my chagrin I discovered the second major change.

The bathrooms are now kept locked.

Now this was something I hadn't foreseen! The members-only policy extends to the crapper too! This is serious! So I hopped in the car and busted over to the marina- it was locked up too! Even the nasty Johnny-on-the-spot is gone, not yet set up for the season! At this blighted hour there is simply no place in Lorain for a guy to go! Things are starting to get urgent. Do I need to remind you I ate Mexican last night.

I had to sneak down by the river, in the woods, to, you know, to make like a bear. Frankly, the woods in mid-April leave a little to be desired. The foliage is not yet much advanced... the shrubbery is bare... You lack the necessary cover, the camoflage.... You do your best to try and look inconspicuous, of course, but...

You feel like you're all just kind of hanging out...

Well, it came in the mail to-day, a letter from the splendidly named Clement W. Pyles, Attorney-at-Law, who evidently is now representing my Crazy Ex Landlord. Mr Pyles has filed an objection to the Magistrate's decision of last month.

There were several pages detailing the faults he found with the judgment, all of them ludicrously inaccurate. Even the details which you'd have thought he'd have gotten right, such as the date of the original trial, were incorrect. Except for the part where he explained Isabelle's absence from the trial, apparently due to the fact that her aged father had been suffering delusions and needed Isabelle's care. That sounds extremely plausible. Of course he'd been suffering delusions. Of course there's mental issues in her family. It only stands to reason. You don't get as manifestly bat-shit insane as Isabelle is unless you've got a little help from genetics.

Anyway, I bear no ill-will to the old gentleman, but frankly this whole lawsuit deal is getting to be a pain in the ass. Evidently, the Crazy Ex Landlord is getting bored with it as well, because Mr Pyles wrote that she would prefer to settle if an agreement could be reached. So I called up Mr Pyles, who told me that she wants this all to "just go away". I pointed out, politely, that if she just simply paid the freaking judgment, this unpleasantness would indeed do just that: go away.

Needless to say, the CXL is reluctant to pay what the Magistrate ordered, which really isn't surprising, because it was her strange reluctance to pay my security deposit back which has occasioned this whole legal folderol to begin with.

Mr Pyles, who doesn't appear to have taken the time to acquaint himself with the facts concerning the case, asked me how much she shorted me in the deposit, and offered a ridiculously low-balled figure to settle. Needless to say, I refused that out of hand, but when he asked what figure I would agree to, I had to admit I was stumped. Obviously, if we go back to Court, the possibility exists that I might lose the entire judgment, but on the other hand, if Mr Pyles thought he had an unassailable case, he probably wouldn't be so eager to settle.

I believe I should get legal advice. I believe I should speak with Rapid.

Amateur hour is over.