Fat Mother F-star-star-star-er

The war against Unwanted Roommate Jim is not over. The asshole's gotten bold: yesterday I had my friend Emily over, chatting and hanging out in broad daylight, and suddenly she looks over into my kitchen and squeaks.

"Oh my god — I just saw your mouse!"

I swore some and went over to check, but by then he'd slipped under the stove and out of sight. I set a trap and settled back down. We could hear him randomly chewing at the wall at intervals. We both agreed that he must have been really hungry, to so creep out in search of food at such a dangerous time.

This evening as I was settling down to knitting and the Facebooks, I heard movement and turned around just in time to see a fat brown mouse scurry across the main living area and into the kitchen. I followed him just quickly enough to see him slip under the fridge, where he promptly started up with the loud wall-chewing. Bastard.

Building manager has been notified, and will look into getting a handy man out at some point to move the fridge and patch up whatever hole is back there. Which means I have to clear the fridge out so that it's not impossible to move. Heavy thing is my fridge.

All I want to do is get my hands on that rodent and squeeze its eyeballs out. Animal rights be-damned.

In other news, apparently what I needed most to get out of my recent funk was a night of drinking. A lot of drinking. My company's Christmas party was Saturday night, at a Mexican restaurant with a karaoke stage in the back. I drank a lot of margaritas. I sang myself hoarse (even though the karaoke jockey cut me off for two of my songs!), and didn't end up with a hangover despite my best efforts. Good show. And now suddenly I'm feeling really good about myself. It's like magic, killing the sad brain cells.

Okay, enough talk. Time to get back to my knitting — I have a hat that's due Saturday night, and have to decide if I'm going to knit another thing to be due Sunday or if I'm just going to buy something nice for this person. Oh, and I guess at some point I should get some sleep, too.

Try Not to Breathe

Unwanted Rodent Roommate Jim woke me from the verge of sleep the night of my last entry, a crunching gnawing sound coming from the closet. I tore my entire yarn stash out, trying to find him. No mouse, but I found the droppings, along the edges of the baskets, so I knew I'd hit jackpot. The next day I bought a vacuum and cleared out the rest of the crap on that side of the closet, searching, and finally, finally found the little bastard's port of entry, a hole in the corner of the closet, leading to the outside. It's now stuffed full of plastic bags, with a heavy object against it, hopefully a good enough deterrent to hold me until I can finally get a mesh and some spackle and truly cover it up.

One benefit of the rodent: it gave me the impetus to go back again into my yarn stash and reorganize. Oh, and finally buy a stinking vacuum, so I don't have the borrow the neighbor's. Thank you, Jim. Now go to hell. Or at least to the house down the street.

When I'm not chasing down mice, I've also been, finally, watching Mad Men — it's on Netflix Instant Streaming now, so I figured I might as well see what all the fuss is about. I'm halfway through the series so far, and I have to say: I don't get it.

Well, okay, I get it a little, but I don't get what makes it so incredibly compelling and exciting. I keep watching it mostly out of curiosity — I do want to know what happens next, but only mildly. The characters are pretty stock, the historical setting is presented exactly as you'd expect, there are no jaw-gaping surprises. Even the central protagonist, Don Draper, is an idealized "product of his time", predictable in his internal conflicts, only dealing with them in a slightly idiosyncratic way. (Or perhaps it's just that he reminds me of someone I already know, so I've got that been-there, had-him feeling.)

But really: I already knew people of the early 60s were misogynistic and racist. I already knew housewives were bored and advertising execs were supposed to be drunken womanizers. Give me something that surprises me, an insight into another time. Don't try to paint a darker picture of the nostalgia I don't have for a time I didn't know.

I'm not saying it isn't a well-done show — it's certainly smooth, researched, and provides just enough intrigue to be worth wasting an hour or two of your otherwise-eventless evening with — but it doesn't live up to the hype at all. I dunno, maybe shows like Battlestar Galactica and Sports Night have raised my bar of expectations too high. Or maybe a lot of people just have a relatively low bar. But I don't think it's a show worthy of rearranging my weekly evening schedule around.



I try not to think about it, but it's hard not to when I let it stare me in the face all the time. My heart is still broken — broken too many times, not just by the culprit we expect, I'm finally realizing that. I'm not sure how to pick up the pieces from that, not sure how to let go of the ... anger? hurt? so that I can be whole again.

It's not as overwhelming as it used to be, and that's good. I've got one wing now: it's time to see if it's enough to take flight on, and rise above.

Last Pitched Effort

The war against unwanted roommate Jim is not over. He was quiet for a while, but the last few nights I've been wakened in the wee hours by a rustle here, a crackle there. I thought I was going crazy, imagining things, especially since it didn't seem to be coming from the kitchen area but instead the walls against which my bed is pressed. Was he living in the walls? Creeping around under my very bed? I couldn't tell, and I still haven't seen the bastard.

And then tonight, tonight, the little fucker got bold. He decided he needed to crunch crunch crunch in broad electric light, while I was sitting there watching TV. I tracked him down to the corner by my stereo, probably hiding in or behind the box containing my old computer. Amazing. It's next to the kitchen, sure, but I can't imagine that there's any food or anything lingering around there for a small furry creature to enjoy.

At any rate, this discovery prompted me to finally move that box downstairs into storage — I should have done that months ago — and to finally order one of these — also something I should have done months ago. Traps haven't worked, poison hasn't worked, it's time to take this battle into the 21st century.

Package is due to arrive on Wednesday. I'm giving it until Christmas to prove its worth.

Of course, if this doesn't work, either, I may well just have to napalm the place and call it a day. Or maybe just ask to borrow one of my neighbors' cats: that might be saner. It's a toss-up which I'd choose at this point.

War Takes Sacrifices

I had hope that my days of battling with kitchen rodents was done. A few days ago I came home to a new strip of metal at the bottom of my door, effectively blocking off the gap between it and the carpet, and a message assuring me that this should keep future intruders out.

Unfortunately, it also serves to keep current intruders in. Last night I was awakened by the now-too-familiar sound of crunch-crunch-crunch. I must have been foolish enough to let a coffee bean spill to the floor one day while I was filling my grinder. Dumb mouse, don't you know I won't care that you're there so long as you don't eat loud food?

At any rate, since the trap with peanut butter (and a coffee bean) that I've had out since the last invasion, when I returned from my New York/Cleveland trip, I knew it was time to break out the good stuff. A new trap has been set, this time with a precious glob of Nutella. Fingers crossed on this one. I need my sleep.

And yes, tonight when I get home from work and Krav, I will do a thorough cleaning of the kitchen, to get rid of any other exposed foodstuff that may be scattered about. Sigh.

On a side note: I had no idea that these guys were still around doing things. Re-stumbled on them last night before bed, and now I'll have to back through five years of archives to see what new things they've been up to.

But here is what my favorite was, back in the day: