The Average Blogger

And We Don't Even Have a Belfry

I dearly love my husband, as you all well know. And we have lived together long enough now that I am pretty well attuned to his noises, even when we are on different floors of the house. "Now he is opening the garage door, now he is in the kitchen, now he is parking his keys and wallet, next he will check the table for mail..." etc.

This does not quite extend to his moments of stress, however. If I am sitting in the living room and he is cooking dinner, I can never quite tell whether a forcible "God DAMN it!!" is in reference to him hurting himself, burning something, or swearing at the ballgame on TV. More often than not, when I find out what he was swearing about, my reaction is a very unhelpful, "Really? You made so much angry noise over that? Wasn't that a bit uncalled for?"

And sometimes I get in trouble for that being my initial reaction, like on Sunday when he made that sound and it turned out bacon grease had popped into his eye.

But other times ... both our reactions are more or less spot on.

Last night, he had an event and got home late, like after-11 late. I was already asleep. I started awake when I heard the garage door open, but dozed off again when I realized it was him doing his just-got-home litany. I roused a little when I heard him come upstairs, and we had a short half-conscious-on-my-end conversation and then he headed back downstairs to eat and putter.

And I heard: "Good Fucking Christ!!!"

Only it wasn't preceded or followed by any loud bangs or shattering glass, and then I heard him shut the doors leading from our living room to our hallway -- moving at a rate rather faster than his usual speed.

Muttering a "WTF?" of my own, I got up and came downstairs.

"There's a bird in our house."

"Huh?" (Ardent, you will like this part: When I had dozed off earlier, it was during the X Files episode "Chimera" -- the one with the ravens. So you see, I was having a stroke when I said, "huh?")

"THERE'S A BIRD IN OUR HOUSE. How did you not see this thing?"

"Errrr... it wasn't in here before I went to bed? A bird? Are you sure it's not a bat?"

"I think it's a bird. And that stupid cat. She's just sitting in there. She couldn't care less ... oh, wait, now she sees it."

At this point I was standing behind him, so all I could see was white Oxford button-down shirt and a teeny bit of the living room ceiling as he peeked through the doors.

Then he abruptly turned and shouldered past me. "Well, whatever it is, I'll be damned if it goes upstairs. I'm going to shut the kitchen doors." He headed back around through the hall into the dining room.

I peeked through the living room doors, and sure enough, something was very busy flapping away around our living room and breakfast nook. I still thought it might be a bat, but we have had countless sparrows get trapped in our garage, so it seemed possible one could zing from there into our kitchen, especially as much as the Young Prince leaves doors open. Then too, I've never really observed the flying habits of birds inside houses, so I couldn't be sure.  But it did seem to be awfully hyper and not ever alighting anywhere.

NYAB, having shut the doors, completed the downstairs circuit as he ducked into my view. "OK, I'm going to open the back door and hope it flies out." And he headed out on to our deck. I hadn't heard him open the kitchen door leading to the garage, so I went off to do that and give the thing two outlets.

At this point the whole scenario sort of went Wide World of Sports in my mind.

Annnd, it's taking another spin around the living room ... Makes a fast break left and zips through the kitchen, but retreats back to the living room ... Whoops, a misstep there as it thwacks into the fireplace. And it's heading for the door! Ohhh, so close. But it misses and takes another lap.

Etc., etc. I still hadn't gotten a very good look at the thing, mostly because I'm a shrill shrieky girly-girl when it comes to things skittering around my house at eye-level, but also because it was flying fast enough that it looked like it might hurt if it banged into me (not to mention claws and ... beak? teeth?) so I kept reflexively ducking and cringing and wincing whenever it came within 8 feet of me.

I ventured out of the garage and into the kitchen to see if I could get a better look while it was back in the living room. Just as I said, "That is SO not a bird, it's a bat!" I saw it slap  into the window. And then there was a flash of white, a flash of dark, and then I heard a very tiny but horrible eek-eek-eeee.

At first I thought it had flown so hard into the window that it had gotten between the curtains and knocked itself out. But no.  Our mighty huntress-cat Shays had finally stretched herself, hopped up onto the couch, and taken the thing out in midair.

NYAB called from out on the deck, "I think she killed it. On her second try. She's got it in her mouth. And yeah, I think it was a bat."

"Well for god's sake, don't distract her, you know how she is. She carries things around in her mouth and then she spits them out and they skibble off again."

He said, "Erm, not this time. She just dropped it and it's not moving. Yeah, looks like a bat."

We met in the dining room and both looked down at the limp little furry ex-rodent while the cat sort of preened and licked her paws.

And then my big brave husband got several paper towels and the dustpan and disposed of the body while I danced around on my tiptoes with my shoulders squinched up around my ears and my hands flapping as I sang the "Ew! Ew! Eww!" song. Sigh.

We still don't know how it got in here, or why it waited for NYAB to get home to make its presence known. Here's hoping it was a lone gunman. I don't want to be doing this every night.

Rats With Better Accessories

That's it. This means war.

You might recall a while back I posted that we had issues with squirrels in our attic. I don't think I ever posted that we did, in fact, have to bring the guys back out and pay upward of $700 for them to put a strip of metal all the way around our house where the walls meet the roof to keep the little buggers out.

I know I didn't post that they still skitter around and drive the neighbor's dog nuts.  The good one, the one that DOESN'T upend our trash can Every. Single. Tuesday.

And I know I didn't post that they are pretty brazen and will sit there and stare at you until you get almost within range of clubbing them with a big stick -- then, and only then, do they turn tail and run.

Well.

In a rare occurrence, I drove my car to work last week. And when I dropped off the YP at day care, I smelled gasoline.  Noooo, I thought. Last time this happened, the fuel line had a leak and it was a big hassle to give up the car to get it fixed. And I need a car tomorrow.  Maybe it's not my car.

I drove to my office. It was my car.  I found a puddle underneath. Smelled like gas, looked like oil, sounded like Cha-Ching for the mechanic.

So I drove it over to the guy, who said he'd look at it the next day.  I rearranged my schedule and begged NYAB to let me drop him at the subway so I could take the car and meet up with friends for a trip to the Baltimore zoo.

Next day, we are eating lunch in the shade of the elephants when I get an email from NYAB.

"You are going to love this," he wrote. "The guy says you need both fuel lines replaced.  Because they were chewed through."

BY SQUIRRELS.  The guy said it could possibly have been rats, but he suspected squirrels.

I said, "Well, jeez. What do we do about this? Start putting the car in the garage?"

NYAB writes back, 'Well, it certainly won't do any good to put it in the attic...."

La. On the plus side, it was less than a  car payment to fix.  I do wonder how long til they get chewed again, though.  I have all these revenge fantasies. Coating the underside of the car with poison. Camping out with a slingshot and a whole bunch of rocks.  Going to the pound and adopting all the cats and dogs and wolves I can find. Setting big vats of water with elaborate compression systems to drown the little buggers.

Or, you know, parking the damn cars in the garage and getting a damn shed for the damn riding mower. But isn't that letting the little terrorists win?

The Soldering Iron of Justice*

For a while now, we have been contemplating buying a gun.

Yeah, yeah. Kids, ammo, brains spattered. I've heard the whole spiel. But I grew up around a fair number of guns. Brains still relatively intact. NYAB's entire family has done stints in the military and are all familiar with all manner of firearms. The only gunshot victim in the bunch was over 40 -- and from all I've heard about the guy, probably high -- when the unfortunate incident occurred.  Besides which, if I'm really worried about the YP blowing his head off, all I have to do is buy one of these to guarantee he won't come with in 10 feet of it -- what with it being For Girls and all.

So have your own opinions, but rest assured you aren't likely to change mine.  Aside from the protection angle, hey, maybe I'll take target practice on the flippin' bunnies and squirrels in our general vicinity.

Anyway, as a first step at shopping around, we went to a gun show a few weekends ago. It was very enlightening, no less so our No-Longer-Quite-So-Closeted-Gun-Aficionado-Colleague who took us around and explained the nuances of the various things we were looking at. Like: You can't buy a Glock with a manual safety. Like: Guns that actually look like guns, as opposed to weird tiny polymer jobbies resembling Star Trek tasers, are a lot more expensive. Like, if you were ever in the market for a Nazi helmet (or flag, or buttons, or dishware,) gun shows are a good place to try. Also up for grabs at this particular show were some ancient -- I mean, vintage -- Star Wars action figures. We did not seize that opportunity, however.

But the best part of the gun show was that it was occupying the North Building of the event site where we were, while there was a Wines of Virginia expo and tasting in the South Building. It's times like that when I especially miss my parents not living within an hour's drive, as they would have patronized both events AND smoked half a pack apiece in the parking lot going between the two. (ATF -- not just a government agency, but a lifestyle!) And it is funny to me that I'm actually in a life where -- being married to a teetotaler -- I stand a better chance of filling a gun rack than a wine rack. Ah, well. At least the gun rack would be less likely to require multiple purchases to refill as I depleted the  initially purchased inventory...

*And if you know what that title is from, you're ... old and lame, like me! 

Stuff I've Noticed:

1: McDonalds -- at least the one we went to tonight -- has switched from red and white straws to red and yellow ones. I do not like this. I do not like the juxtaposition of the color yellow with anything I am drinking, ya know?

2: You might or might not be familiar with Godwin's Law, wherein the first person to draw a comparison to Hitler or Nazis automatically forfeits the argument. Well, as far as I can tell, no one has made mention of another annoying insult, which will forthwith be AvBlog's Corollary: The first person to snark that their opponent "needs to read something other than liberal/conservative blogs and New Republic/The Corner" also automatically forfeits any debate. I have seen this in several discussion threads, from both sides. Frankly, if this is the best rejoinder you've got, you've run out of useful arguments and need to Shut. Up.

3: Last night the YP told me he wanted to get me a pink iPod for Mother's Day. (NYAB assures me this is not happening.) However, what I heard him say was that he wanted to get me a pinkeye pod. Not nearly as sweet a gesture, you'll agree.

4: I have decided there are few things I find more annoying than being put in a position where the biggest jerk in the room is also the guy who's in the right and I have to take his side.

5: Today was so colossally irritating on so many different fronts that I spent a half-hour venting about various issues to my boss. In mid-rant, I remembered a conversation NYAB and I had early in our courtship:
Me: I know you don't believe it, but I really am a misanthrope.
NYAB: No you aren't.
Me: No, really, I am. It takes a lot for me just to tolerate people, and a ridiculous amount more for me to view them as worthwhile and not just as children I should pat on the head while backing away.
NYAB: You just haven't met the right people yet.
Me: People like you?
NYAB: Oh, I didn't say I was the right people. I mean, I might be, but I didn't say that.

As it turned out, he was the right people. (Not least of all because he didn't grumble at all when the cat flushed out a mouse last night but didn't finish her job and he had to dispose of the wriggling thing at 1 a.m.) And  remembering that conversation made me realize that tomorrow will be better, if only because now I have him to remind me that I should just keep looking for the right people (and because he gets rid of critters). Or, conversely, I could just keep hiding from the wrong ones in my boss's office til it's time to go home ... but I don't think that would go over very well.

All You Little Kids Seem to Think You Know Just Where It's At

I have blogged at length about the rodent problem (or rather, the problem with our rodent solution) in our home.

Well, folks, there's also a rodent problem around the office.

Not IN the office -- at least, not that I've seen. And I'm grateful for that.

You'd think with all the Wild Kingdom-ing that's been going on in my bedroom for the past couple months, I'd be over it, wouldn't you? That seeing critters outdoors would be no big deal. But I'm not, and it is. I see a shadow out of the corner of my eye, and realize it's not a shadow but a squiggly body, and then I remember the one time I had four skritchy-scratchy paws skitter over my foot in the dark, and ... well, I turn into a girl. That's about the nicest thing I can say about me.

So the other night we were leaving work. We park in a lot out behind the building, so we leave via the back door and the loading dock. We were in our usual single-file Indian lineup: NYAB in front, YP in the middle, me bringing up the rear, when I saw it. I saw the shadow. And I froze.

NYAB was already down the stairs from the loading dock and out in the alley. YP was on the sidewalk at the bottom of the stairs. I was still at the top. NYAB looks up and sees me shuddering violently, ew-ing and uggh-ing.

"What are you doing? Come on."
"Nope. No way. I'm not going down there."
"What? Why? What are you talking about?"
"A rat. I saw a rat."

He looks around. "I don't see anything."

I watch as it skibbles under the ramp from the loading dock to the alley. "Ugh! It's there! Right there! A bigdamnuglyfuckingrat! Under the ramp!"

At that moment, the rat pops out from under the ramp and onto the sidewalk, about 9 inches from the YP's foot. I shriek.

NYAB pauses, says, "Oh. There it goes."

The YP looks up. "It's just a rat, Mama."

I'm still at the top of the stairs. "Is it gone?"

NYAB is smirking. "Yes, it's gone."

"Are you sure? Is it coming back?"

"Well, he didn't hang around to be interviewed, so I can't be sure, but yes, I am fairly certain he is gone and not coming back."

I mince down the stairs and sprint to the car and pray there aren't any of his friends under the car to go skittering over my non-steel-toed-booted foot.

Which, by rights, should have been the end of it. But now, for the past couple of nights we've left work, the YP has re-enacted the scene, much to his daddy's amusement. "Mama! You said, 'a rat! a big-dahm-oogly-fooking-rat!' And then you screamed, like this!" 

And I'll be dipped if that kid doesn't sound exactly like me when he screams. Quite the knack for mimicry, with a little genetic assist.

Sigh. All that time spent trying to be a good example, and this is how he chooses to remember me? Why can't he emulate all the times I was excited and enthused about going on roller coasters, or hiking up mountains?   

It's 3 a.m. I Must Be Lonely

Actually, it's 2:21 a.m. and I am grossed the hell out.

At 1:50, my phone rang. And stopped. At 1:50:03, my phone rang again. It was a staffer telling me the web site was down. I turn on my laptop to assess the situation, and what do I see by the luminous blue glow of Windows starting up?

My cat in a Mexican standoff with a mouse. About three inches from my hand. Both of them frozen stiff staring at each other. I turn on the light, and the mouse breaks and runs. The cat chases and catches, but then she lets it go and bats it around. She won't just finish the fricking job and kill the stupid thing.

The web site came back up as if by magic.

So now it has been a half hour that she's been messing with it and I think the thing is almost dead, even though it's still squeaking. But damned if I'm going to get any sleep tonight. Partly because it's not dead yet, partly because I'm still squicked out by almost having touched it, and partly because I just know the damn cat will jump on the bed to eat it when it DOES die.

NYAB is annoyed because I keep waking him up  yelling at the cat to catch the thing and take it downstairs and NOT to jump on the bed. I don't want to pick the thing up, and the cat doesn't shoo well with things wiggling in her mouth.

I HATE winter. Those damn critters only come in our house when it is freezing outside.