March 25, 2003

A really neat person who used to write for this site had a section of her column that was called, "Miscellaneous Thoughts and Random Observations" and I guess that is what best describes today's Nonsoapy.  I'm just going to ramble.

It's been a really weird week.  It's Spring Equinox energy, of course.  New beginnings, the seeds of hope and promise planted, coming off of balanced days and nights (equi - nox, baby).   Usually, around the equinoxes, I get interesting omens and signals, but lately, it's just been really, really odd. 

First, I've had a total change in sleep habits, mostly since I went to low carb eating a month or so ago.  I usually sleep lightly and can easily wake up at whatever pre-determined time I need.  I haven't used an alarm clock in literally years.  If I need to be up at 6am, my eyes will open at 5:55am without fail.  If Eric stumbles in at  2am after a night of deep thinking, deep drinking and porch sitting, I'm awake immediately and also for a good while.  Since I started low carb this time (and I've done it before without this happening), I fall into sleep like I'm dropping off a cliff.  I sleep hard and deeply and dream, but seldom remember it.  I wake up with the vague feeling of what I dreamed, but not the details.    Never the details.   I miss knowing my dreams.  The good news is that I only slept about 6 hours last night and I feel well rested.  That is definitely a change, so I know I'm doing some power sleeping. 

Something I haven't much brought up, not only because it didn't really come up in conversation, but because it's a little stigmatized.  We have, or had, a rat.  I do think it's only one, despite what I'm sure exterminators would say.  (We aren't talking pets here).  Rats moved in last summer.  Eric threw some D-con under the house, closed off all of the under house openings and after a few days of horrid smell, there were no more rats.  Then there was Bob (named for Phoebe Buffay's rat).  Bob would not be denied.  Bob would chew his little way through whatever blockages Eric would put up, including wire mesh, metal and heavy wood.  He'd go away for a while after Eric blocked the way, but pretty soon, I'd find bread with the ends chewed out, pretzel bags that drizzled everywhere and his favorite, Capri Sun packets sucked dry as a vampire's victim.  Bob got high off of D-con.  It was his cocaine.  Maybe meth, because he'd get really busy afterwards.  I tried to co-exist with Bob, but he was ruining too much food.  He was also getting quite bold and had absolutely no qualms about hanging around in the kitchen during the day when we were very active.  It weirded me out to come in and having him jump from the top of the fridge (his perch) to the cupboard and scurry behind the stove.  I didn't mind when he knew his place and came and went like Santa Claws, but acting like we were roomies kind of bugged me.

I have a bit of a bad experience with rats, but only in retrospect.  This is the first place I've ever lived (and we have a nice house, nice neighborhood, not at all scummy) with rats in the house, but my family home had rats under the chicken house.  Every year, my mother, father, grandfather and I would have a "rat killin."  I presume this is primarily a redneck thing.  My dad would detach the vacuum cleaner hose from the vacuum and attach it to the exhaust of the car, then run the other end under the chicken house.  Next what happens is a sight to behold.  My dad guns the engine of the car a few times, sets the emergency brake, then lets the car idle.  Noxious carbon monoxide fumes flood the underneath of the chicken house and hundreds of drunken rats come running out.  The four big folks of the family then begin popping the little suckers with .22 rifles.  I can't believe we all lived through it.  One year, my mother decided to go after one that snuck under the house and it bit her on the webbing between the thumb and forefinger.  Fortunately (I guess), it wouldn't let go, so she rode to the hospital with the rat on her hand (they saw her right away) and they were able to test the rat for rabies, so she didn't need the cycle of shots.  So rats are a bit of an iggity for me.  We've had them as pets, which didn't thrill me, but they were basically inoffensive, although rodents have a sorry lifespan as pets in my experience. 

So there's Bob, but that's not the awful part.  Evidently, Bob had babies.  Bob didn't just have babies, Bob had babies  in my broiler under my stove.  *sigh*  It gets better.  Katrina made bread Saturday night for ritual.  >:<

Bob's babies were vocal (no Bob to be found).  There was a rattish (adult mouse sized) holocaust.  I don't think I need to say more.  You can imagine the rest a lot more pleasant than it actually was.  Ew.  Suffice it to say, it took me a few minutes to figure out that the squeaking noises were not coming from inside the wall and the smell was not from my lack of oven cleaning.

So that sucked.

I took Nathan in for his first profession haircut last weekend.  I always have cut the boys' hair, largely for financial reasons.  All pedicures and e-bay playing are off  until I get our budget in better shape.  So are other extraneous expenses such as "store bought" haircuts.  I'd always given him a bowl cut before, but people kept mistaking him for a girl, which was bugging Eric.  I took him out to the thrift shop with me to look for school shirts for Dylan and pants for Delena.  As we were leaving, I saw that the little Korean shop where I get my hair cut (when I do) was open and empty, so I spontaneously took Nathan in ($6 a cut).  A woman named Theresa and a guy named something, pfft, I dunno, run the shop and they are very nice.  He took one look at Nathan and said, "Why you give him a girl haircut?  I give him boy haircut, make him real man."  Nathan was perfect.  He looked down when he needed to, tilted when he needed to, didn't flinch at the clippers and the guy made him look about 2 years older.  :-)  When he was done, he said,  "Now you take pictures, send to Gramma, tell her you real boy now."  It was wonderful and Nathan looked great.  He asked me to take pictures of him to put on the computer, so here y'go.  Click to make them bigger.

Here's the serious one

Here's the real one

I want to specify that I was not making fun of the way the barber spoke, I was only quoting him.  I am amazed when people ridicule people not of American descent who speak broken English.  Yeah, I'll admit, it bugs the crap out of me in a customer service situation when the language barrier is, well, a serious barrier, but when I hear someone speaking broken English to me, I'm thinking more along the lines of, "Hey, they are bilingual and *I* am not" unless you count a few words of Spanish and the useless ability to say, "Happiness is a warm puppy" in Latin.  Pfft.  They're one up on me, so I'd better show a little respect.

Took pictures of the pets for you.  Here is my pig a week ago:

And here he is now:

As you can see, he has a good reason to have that sneaky look on his face.  That boy's been up to the Devil's work.  Actually, one of Sage's Darlings and a wonderful EOS reader sent me this beautiful set of piggies!  Aren't they so awesome!!  :-)  (Thanks, friend!)

These are the turtles, God and Q.  God is Q's bitch, as we suspected, even though God is bigger.  God is a red-eared slider and Q is... a not red-eared slider.  We've had them for about 7 years now.

This is KC, short for Kitty Cat.  She's the world's skinniest cat with the worst catnip addiction ever.  Eric says she's a bag of bones held together with worms.  She's 12 and very, very sweet and unobtrusive.  I was going to take pictures of Creep, the brute cat of Josh's, but he's out tomcattin' at the moment.

This is my poor, old, cataract-ridden, 17-year-old puppy, Dixie.  She still wags her tail, so I'm not ready to have her put down yet.

This weight loss thing sucks.  I committed into it for Equinox on Saturday and set my beginning point for the Monday following (yesterday).  I had to get a paper notarized for my mother's estate and express mail it out and I had nothing but my feet to get me there.  I walked Dylan to school, then walked the other direction to a Mailboxes Fake Etc to have the paper notarized.  I figured I could just express mail the thing from there, but the lady told me it would cost $24!!!  She tsk tsked and said it was because gas was so expensive.  I told her if I was express mailing it to Kentucky, trucking it there probably wasn't going to get it there the next day, so I doubted gasoline was an issue.  I told her I'd walk it to the post office for $10.  Of course, the post office was about 2 miles in the opposite direction, so I trudged the stroller down there and got it sent out for $13.65.  Then it was trudging home, about an hour and a half of trudging.  >:< 

Today, I was walking Dyl to school and it dawned on me that I was never going to get any exercise done at all unless I lengthened my walk home from school each day.  Fortunately, I'd given Nathan a bag of pretzels and cup of juice before we left, so after I dumped off Dyl, we walked for an extra half hour.  It sucked then too.  It makes me think of when I weighed 130 of total muscle and ran 3 hours every morning, 5 on weekend days.  I hated every single step, but did it for "the body."  How much do I want to do something I hate.  One thing I do know is that if it happens inside the walls of this house, it just won't happen.  Something else will always catch my eye, some shiny thing to get me out of it.  If I make myself walk the long way home, at least I'll have good cardio 5 days a week.

Peaceful love to ya,

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