The Good, The Bad, and The Not So Pretty

I have a little chore that I need to complete for the wedding reception, but in order to proceed I need mugshot-type pics of both me and Steven. The problem is that we never seem to be attractive on the same day. I washed and flat-ironed my hair last night, so I had high hopes to get the pics done this afternoon, but alas, I started my period. That makes me photogenically incapable for the next 4 to 6 days. Which also means that Steven will reach maximum attractiveness this week, then take a sudden homely dive just as my face clears up and my hair stops frizzing. We really should coordinate our looks. At least for the wedding.

I'm going to go and eat ice cream.

Current Status of Mr. Squirrel

As of this morning at approximately 7:15 a.m., Mr. Squirrel was still alive, although he sounded weak and disoriented. Which is exactly how I felt at 7 this morning too.

Operation Bamboo: Complete!

The joke's on you Bamboo Man cause I got my bamboo!
And this bamboo did not just appear under my pillow one night, delivered by the Bamboo Fairy. No sir. This was all the doing of my Aunt Susan (my dad's sister) in Pennsylvania. Aunt Susan made all my bamboo dreams a reality, by getting us this beautiful stack of bamboo here. Brooklyn loves it so much that she decided to pose for a picture with it (and because I smeared it with peanut butter). And this bamboo did not come easy for Aunt Susan. There was some detective work involved, a little bit of sneakiness, and she even had it transported across state lines from Pennsylvania to the Virginia border. The kind of stuff Burt Reynolds, ala Smokey and the Bandit, would be impressed by. And I'm impressed to. Thanks Aunt Susan. Fifty thousand bonus points for you, redeemable on our wedding day weekend.

Things Are Getting Squirrel-ly

I've got a new alarm clock. It's in the form of a squirrel that visits our attic every morning at 7:15 a.m.

If you've never been to our apartment, then let me give you a brief layout. We live in a row of conjoined rental townhouses. We don't actually have a singular attic, but a joint space that spans the entire row of townhouses. According to Steven, it's a dismal & horrid place. He said there are so many holes in the roof that it's not even dark in the attic because so much sunlight is allowed in. Of course, when he describes this, I picture a serene Baptist church punctured by beams of sunlight coming through massive stain glass windows. I don't think it's quite that lovely. On the contrary. When Steven merely lifts his upper torso into the forbidden zone, he's masked in a hat, goggles, gloves, and clothes that he does not care for. He looks like one of those guys at the end of E.T.

So through these roof holes we obtain some new friends from time to time. A few months ago, we had a rat. I know it's a rat because I actually saw him one day. I came downstairs and walked into the kitchen to make my coffee. I was still rubbing the sleepy out of my eyes when we saw each other. We actually saw each other. He was sitting on my kitchen counter. He looked at me. I looked at him. And then we both panicked. I screamed, and he hauled ass across the counter. Of course, the sight of him in motion took my scream to a higher octave and that was enough to wake Brooklyn (and believe me, that's saying something. Normally, she doesn't get up until the coffee's ready). I don't like rats. Or mice. I never wanted a hamster. But I must say, this was a very handsome rat. He did not look like a hoodlum rat. Oh no, this rat knew people. He was white with black splotches, and had a gorgeous coat of disgusting, puke-out-my guts rat fur. I would not be surprised if this rat had an agent, and would potentially be in some absurd family comedy starring Eddie Murphy or Brendan Fraser. But for the time being, he was on my counter....hauling ass. He hauled is little furry butt right into the top of my oven. I've since been baffled by his choice in escape routes. It would not seem wise to use any sort of major kitchen appliance as a getaway vehicle. But I've never been able to escape anything, so what do I know?

Of course, Steven was out-of-town and unable to handle this little rodent problem. And Brooklyn was completely unwilling. So that left me to deal with it. At first, I tried to be civil with the rat. I thought, WWWDD? (What Would Walt Disney Do?) If there was only some way I could exploit this thing for millions of dollars. Maybe this was not a disgusting rat eating breadcrumbs off my kitchen counter, but a mouse with a dream. Maybe he was planning on cooking me breakfast or tidying my house. Soon, I realized this was highly unlikely. I had no eggs or pancake mix, and he would not be able to push the vacuum cleaner with those tiny little paws. I decided that he had to be murdered.

I planned on being humane by purchasing "no kill" traps and sonic sound things, but that crap didn't work. I didn't have the heart (or stomach) for sticky traps. I could not get old-fashioned snap traps to work without hurting myself in the process. And...I'm about to confess something...one day....I stole a cat. I borrowed the cat really. And she was already in my yard, so technically she was trespassing. But it was pointless. Turns out, I catnapped the laziest damn animal next to Brooklyn on a rainy day. She was a napper, not a mouse hunter.

So I moved on to poison. It worked for the girls in 9 to 5, the evil queen in Snow White, and it worked for me too. Rat problem solved. But now we've got a new problem -- Mr. Squirrel. How do I know it's a squirrel? Context clues. He sounds very acrobatic and busy. He's much more motivated than a rat. Plus, he's very punctual. He keeps a set schedule every single day. At 7:15 a.m., he starts to scratch and gnaw in the attic and he actually moves in a set path throughout the ceiling. By 9 a.m., he's done. This is his schedule, every single day! Now, everybody knows that rats don't have enough pocket space to carry a watch, much less a map and compass. But squirrels do -- why do you think they have those bushy tails? It's not for balance, it's cargo space.

Yeah, I know. It could be something else. But I'm not Discovery Earth, I don't have a film crew capturing the goings-on of my attic. There could be another rat up there, or a wayward penguin. Maybe a drunk and confused Rip Torn, looking for his house. Hell, it could be that cat that I kidnapped, suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. I really don't know what's up there, and I don't care. This stupid freaking thing has been waking me up every morning for 4 days now and it must die. With any luck, after a few days and a few handfuls of poison, it'll be nothing more than a dead lump of furry regrets.

Splendor in the Grass

My dad is sick, so I mowed my parents lawn out of the sheer goodness of my heart (read- my parents guilted me into it. Ugh, why don't I have a brother and/or why don't my parents own a goat?!?) I'm really crappy at mowing lawns. I can't get the lawn mower started at all. Someone else has to start it for me, which means I have to do the front and back lawns all at once cause I can't let the mower shut off. The real problem is the shaking. I've got kinda puny arms, so lawnmowers and weed trimmers shake the crap out of my arms. I overcompensate by holding on with a death grip. So needless to say, I've got blisters on my hands.

The mowing actually went pretty well until the very end when the lawn mower started making strange sounds. Maybe it was running out of gas, maybe it was tired? I'm not really sure. I'll admit, I have rarely ever mowed a lawn, so I'm not up-to-date on my lawnmower sound diagnostics. I only had a small section of the yard left. And you know the section of the yard I'm talking about. It's the small patch of grass on the side of the house where it connects with the neighbors crappy little patch of grass. You both secretly hope the other one over-mows so you don't have to, but that rarely happens. So I half-assed finished the job and put the mower back in the shed.

Then I saw Brooklyn. Apparently, she thought it was a good idea to roll in dog poop, followed by grass clippings. Basically, she tar and feathered herself.

So now I had to give Brooklyn a bath. It's actually pretty easy to give Brooklyn a bath at my parents house. When they had their master bath remodeled, I don't think they planned on creating a dog spa utopia, but they did. They have a very large walk-in shower with swinging glass doors and stone floors. So once a dog gets trapped in there, they can't get out. The shower head is removable, so no matter what corner they try to hide in, you can squirt them down easily. My favorite thing about giving Brooklyn a bath in that shower is, without fail, she will attempt to open the door with her paw at least once during the bath. She walks up to the glass door and rests her paw against it. It never moves. The problem is that I don't think Brooklyn knows how to push. I think she assumes doors work by merely placing your palm against them -- like in Star Trek. She doesn't get the whole pushing thing, or she's just too lazy to push...I'm not sure which it is.

In the middle of Brooklyn's bath, I heard a loud KABOOM!!! My initial reaction was that it was the lawnmower exploding in the shed. It was not. It was the Blue Angels practicing for the air show this weekend, and they got a little close to the house. Hopefully, they didn't get too close. I would hate for them to notice the crap job I did on the lawn.