A couple of years ago my officemate, S, and I were looking through our coworkers' photos on our company's intranet website and when my picture popped up S said, "And there's Wild-Hair Aguilera."
Fast-forward to now with my new officemate, K.
K: What are you doing?
Me: I thought I saw a piece of my hair sticking out.
K: It looks to me like all of your hair is sticking out.
The other day was a notice on my phone bill that my last payment request had been denied by my bank which, to me, is a very big deal. So I called the phone company using multiple customer service numbers and I heard the message, "We're sorry, but due to the large volume of calls, we cannot answer your call at this time. *click*"
That's like going to Denny's restaurant and them saying, "Sorry, we're out of food." Oh, wait... I get it.
We've caught 12 mice now and I'm certain that the number would be higher if we'd put traps out more consistently. Last night and today I heard something rummaging in the kitchen but I couldn't find it. I know that there are more.
When we catch them, we let them go by the wall at the back of our yard and they scurry up it. We always hope that some hungry hawks find them quickly but we really have no idea where they end up. I'm wondering if they're not ending up back in our house. Andy thinks we really have this many different mice living with us. Ick.
Andy suggested that we tag their ears to know whether we get new ones or not but I think it's more reasonable to try spray painting them with that stuff wildlife bioligists use to mark animals. Of course, if they're more noticeable to us, then they'd be more noticeable to the animals farther up in the food chain but I suppose that I'd forsake the scientific method if it means getting less mice in our house.
So, who's up for a slumber party at our house this weekend? We could sleep in the basement :-)
I've been home by myself for 20 minutes now. What have I done? Yelled "Woohoo!" when I walked in the door, danced around singing "I'm home by myself, I'm home by myself", cranked up the kid-unfriendly Nickelback, danced around some more, heated up mashed potatoes for dinner and grabbed a bag of chocolate chip cookies off the counter for dessert. Woohoo!
To my phone friend who I'm sure isn't even reading this... now would not be a good time to call ;-)
Kevin: (scowling and pointing his finger at me) You shouldn't say 'No' to people!
Me: (for the umpteenth time) I understand that it makes you upset, but sometimes we have to say 'No' to help people stay safe and healthy and learn to be good people.
Kevin: But you're not good people.
We caught 7 mice over a few days in the garage, basement and kitchen. We haven't seen any new evidence for a day or two so I took the chance of bleaching the utensil drawer and tray and washing all of the utensils and putting them back. The mice chewed on our utensil tray so we know they were in that drawer. Until now, we've been washing each utensil as we need it. Tonight's stand on my part should cause all the mice in the neighborhood to come swarming to our utensil drawer. I can hear them now, chattering away to each other like an evil game of telephone. "Meet me by the forks at midnight - tell your friends!" What they don't know is that I hid the oven mitts and washed all the kitchen towels and I DIDN'T PUT THEM BACK. Ha!
Last week I noticed that Andy burned one of our oven mitts and the fluffy stuffing was coming out. The next day Andy came face to face with a mouse in our garage. The next day, I noticed that Andy had burned one of our oven mitts even worse and made more stuffing come out of it. What was surprising was that he hadn't cooked anything in those intervening days. Hmmm....
We are missing our cat, Flash, who died last year. He was an incredible mouser when we didn't even know we had mice. Now we have no doubt that we have mice, thanks to the droppings all over the place, oven mitt stuffing thievery and in-person mouse encounters. We bought some live traps that are reusable but they get so gross once a mouse has lived in them for a few hours that we throw them out anyway. The first day that Andy put 2 traps out - one in the garage and one under the oven mitt drawer - we caught 3 mice in the garage trap. (!!) The next day we caught one under the kitchen drawer. Last night we bought 3 more traps and we caught just one mouse today in the garage.
Here, mousey, mousey, mousey - you know you want some peanut butter!
"Mama, you shouldn't pull peoples' pants down without asking first."
Kevin has been sick this week with a cold that brought on his reactive airway disease (sort of a pre-asthmatic condition) and bilateral ear infections. So... I missed some work that I couldn't make up and one of Kevin's Dr. visits was taken care of by my parents so that we could go to a funeral. He's feeling so much better today that I can't count the number of shrieks he's let loose while jumping and prancing around.
A dear friend of ours lost his mother a little over a week ago. It was sudden, unexpected, shocking, devastating,... you name it. This was my first chance to test my new practice of not hiding that I have emotions, particularly those that make me cry. So I have spent a lot of time crying for my friend and trying to accept what it feels like to be sad and grieving without trying to pretend that I don't feel that way, which is what I've always done before. Embracing my sadness wasn't as bad as I expected it would be.
Me: These lights are hard to get off the tree. Where is this string coming from?
Kevin: Where dat string coming from?
Me: I don't know yet. Papa is a crazy light man, you know.
Kevin: Haha! Papa is a crazy man.
Me: No, honey, Papa is a crazy LIGHT man.
Kevin: Papa is a crazy man.
Me: Well, maybe sometimes. You're right.
Kevin: Mama, do you know dat dinosaurs lay eggs like chickens?
Me: That's very interesting!
Kevin: Mama, do you know dat dinosaurs lay eggs like chickens?
Me: Yes I do, and I find that very interesting. Thanks for telling me.
Kevin: Mama, do you know dat dinosaurs lay eggs like chickens?
Me: Somehow I do know. Where did you learn that dinosaurs lay eggs like chickens?
Kevin: From a dinosaur book.
Me: Oh, very nice.
Kevin: Mama, do you know dat dinosaurs lay eggs like chickens?
Me: Are you seriously asking me that again?
Kevin: Why did the dinosaurs all die?
Me: We think that a big meteor hit the earth and changed the climate.
[pause]
Kevin: Why he die, Mama?
Me: Why did who die?
Kevin: Jesus.
Me: That's quite a segue. He died to pay for all of the things that we do wrong so that we can have a relationship with God.
Kevin: Oh. "The itsy, bitsy spider went up the water spout! Down came the rain and washed the spider out...."
Me: Kevin, I'm going to take a shower and then we'll go to the playground.
Kevin: I want to play on your computer while you take a shower.
Me: You can play on your own computer now, remember?
Kevin: It has dat web thing?
I was pretty sick yesterday and it wasn't the first new year's day I've spent throwing up (although it was never from drinking too much.)
Most (if not all) people that I know who I've ever discussed being sick with say that they don't eat for a few hours or days after having a stomach bug. Maybe they eat a few crackers or some broth but that's it. Some people even lose weight from having a 12-24 hour stomach bug because they continue not to eat for real for a few days.
While I need to lose weight, it never happens from being sick. What is wrong with my body that it craves an all-you-can-eat steak and lobster buffet minutes after being disgustingly ill? I will feel like death warmed over one minute and then it's like somebody flips a switch and the nausea is instantly replaced by even worse nausea coupled with hunger pangs. If I don't eat right away, I get worse. If I eat, then I feel better. If I eat only a little, I feel ok for a few minutes but then I feel so hungry again that I feel sick and have to eat. So I'm best off eating a full meal at that point, which doesn't make any sense because hey, my body clearly didn't want any food in it 60 seconds ago.
Once in my life that I can remember, I lost my appetite when I wasn't in the middle of being sick to my stomach. That was when I had mono so bad that I had to crawl into the lab to get my blood drawn for the test (it was my first time having blood drawn so I'd held off awhile) and my liver was infected so my digestion was messed up. That was a pretty extreme case - it sure seems that I should lose my appetite more often than once in my life.
From Pat Loughery:
Perhaps we need to re-emphasize the fact that “Christian” isn’t an orientation or marketing adjective
We used gift cards to purchase a toy organization system yesterday for all of Kevin's little things that end up strewn around the house and drive me crazy. Andy and I assembled it last night (that was our big New Year's Eve plan - it was a rockin' good time!) and the instructions had a special note at the top that said, "For best results, use a power tool." I read that to Andy and he ran out the door saying, "I'll go get my drill from the garage!"
Me: I'm sorry that you're sick, Andy.
Andy: Yeah, me too. I think Beth gave it to me.
Me: But we never saw her.
Andy: She called on the phone, didn't she? [pause] Transcendental Osmosis.
