Tuesday, December 05, 2006

the battle continues

I came home this afternoon and found a wee mouse sitting in the middle of the living room. He seemed lifeless, and thinking maybe Cricket had gotten hold of him, I gave him a poke with my toe. He ran behind the hutch. So I set the mousetrap and put it by the hutch. Later I saw him creeping out by the baseboard and I tried to catch him, but he scampered back in. He's not very fast, it's like he's not 100% or something. Hmmmmm. If I can get him in the clear, I might try and scoop him up in the dustpan and toss him in a bag and release him up the hill. Again, not my favorite thing to do, but if I can get to him before he traps himself, I'll just send him packing. I hadn't seen rat bastard (mouse bastard?) in a while and was considering myself lucky, but now, maybe not. But I am maybe winning the cockroach war, as I killed one this morning in the pantry and found a dead one on the deck this afternoon. Okay, maybe not winning; as for every roach you see, there are like 200 you don't see.

Telling Patrice I had roaches, she roared with laughter and reminded me that everyone in Hawaii has roaches. Funny, it used to be such a mark of shame in my family, growing up, having any kind of vermin in the house...

Patrice is so sassy. She called me at 8am this morning to inform me that she'd heard this story and was suggesting that maybe my problem of dissatisfaction with my job could be improved chemically. Oh my...before school, too.

Cricket has an ear infection. Rather, change that to say that Cricket keeps an ear infection. He's getting Zymox and shaking his head, but the Zymox is supposed to be a miracle drug for such a problem. After that runs out, we're switching to a cleaning solution that's some unholy mix of gentian violet, boric acid and rubbing alcohol that is supposed to be the magic bullet. I'm sure, had he been feeling up to par, he'd have finished Slow Mousie off.


Here's a peek at my particular drug of choice, for late afternoon revival.

4 comments:

Reya Mellicker said...

The wild kingdom is all around you! Yikes!!

Have you seen the book "Four paws, five directions" ? It's a book of Chinese medicine for animals - an excellent help for many of the problems Jake has had over the years.

Sorry you're struggling against rodents, insects and infections. Onwards & upwards to another shot of espresso!

Anonymous said...

re: roaches - life in the tropics! I have friends from Louisiana who have the same relatively blase attitude towards them, 'cause we know you can keep the house clean, seal everything in tupperware and set traps and you'll still get them. One of those "life in paradise" tradeoffs, like ringworm and head lice (but no poisonous snakes!).

Anonymous said...

Gads, we had lots of dope smoking teachers in my high school. The social studies teachers' lounge shared a vent with the AV room and we'd get a contact high just from sitting under the vent. The stoned teachers were actually the GOOD ones, and not just because they were funny and didn't assign a lot of homework. The uptight dicks in the math dept on the other hand....yeesh.

Acornbud said...

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http://acornbudsyarns.blogspot.com/2006/12/bathroom-sushi-and-bit-of-wierdness.html