Not a Fan

I cannot tell you how fucking sick and tired I am of the NBA play offs. I'm sorry to drop an f-bomb on you in the first sentence of my post, but I'm pretty sure that the Boston Celtics have been playing the Detroit Pistons every weeknight for about 6 months straight and I. Have. Had. Enough. Of. This.

Unfortunately for us both, the love of my life is a crazed Boston sports fan, whilst I on the other hand, couldn't possibly give less of a shit about sports. He doesn't paint himself up or dress in a Leprechaun outfit or anything (although that would be pretty amusing given that he is a giant swarthy, Portuguese guy), but you can bet he does everything in his power to make sure he never misses a game. There are serious problems under this roof when there is overlapping like the kind we are experiencing these days when basketball season runs into baseball season and the Celtics are playing at the same time as the Red Sox.

For me the Celtics being in the playoffs this year is kind of like that movie Groundhog Day. The one where Bill Murray wakes up every morning and relives the same day over and over and over again. This is very similar to my experience lately of coming home every single night of the goddamn week and seeing the Celtics and the Pistons on my television.

We couldn't even escape them on our vacation. We flew out of Detroit to save about $400 on our airfare and drove up and stayed at a hotel near the airport the night before our flight to Orlando. I left the room for like a second to go to the bathroom and when I came out the fucking Celtics were playing the fucking Pistons. They haunt me.

You can imagine I'm sure my reaction then when last week MDH was able to score two tickets to tonight's installment of the never ending Celtics V Pistons game in Detroit. The man actually expected that I might go with him to the game. What a silly!

It was all I could do to restrain myself and decline politely. I begged sweetly off with the excuse that I needed to do our post vacation laundry and didn't want to drive to Detroit after a long work week, rather than scream at him that I as far as I was concerned the Pistons and the Celtics could all die in a fire.

Of course that's a bit harsh. I really don't wish that on anyone. I merely want them to lose interest, as I and any other reasonable person have done, and stop playing. Take a fucking break guys.

I have really been looking forward to having this time to myself. Funnily enough since MDH was going to watch the game in person I had planned to spend a completely basketball free evening and behold what my typing fingers have produced.

Anyhoo... since I'm obviously in the mood I will share with you some other things that I am also not a fan of:

1. The woman at the post office drive up mail box who sat in her car obliviously putting stamps on all of her envelopes while a long line of cars piled up behind her.

2. She is probably married to the guy at the drive up bank teller who waits until he is at the thingy to sign his check. I hate him too.

3. My neighbors whose cat I always used to see roaming around the neighborhood and twice caught shitting in my window box who have now been passing out fliers to help them find their missing cat. Oh boo-hoo. If you were really that worried about the welfare of your cat you wouldn't let him run around outside in the first place. I'm sure he probably shat in the wrong window box. (I realize there are those who would argue that it is more natural for cats to roam around free outside, but the risk you take is that there is a 100% chance that some shit will happen to them; hit by car, virus, animal attacks, fleas, ticks, you name it. Inside cats have more than triple the life expectancy of outdoor cats. That's a fact Jack.)

4. Returning from our vacation and realizing that before we left, in an effort to save energy, my darling had unplugged all of the power strips in the house, including the one that our cable box is plugged into. Hence none of the shows I had set to record on the DVR did so. Shows that included the season finale to Grey's Anatomy. Mother fuck.

In other more cuddly and happy cat news - I found this baby picture the other day of our cat Turtle. It's his picture from our vets adoption website. He weighs almost 17 lbs now and looks like a freaking mountain lion.

UPDATE: 1:09AM - I wrestled with the imagery of the words "die in a fire" and decided to go with it because for some reason it seemed funny to me. Upon further reflection I realized that there was no way possible that someone as timid and sweet natured as me could have come up with that all by myself and then remembered a post from several months ago that I am going to blame for this violent inspiration. The Guv'ner makes everything seem funny.

I'm Calling from a Pole Outside Your Window

Since becoming an adult I set boundaries with my family that have allowed me great freedom that not all of my friends are able to enjoy. I have the ability to say "No. I'm not coming." when invited to family gatherings.

You're probably jealous, I know.

It's no longer an issue as my parents and most of the rest of my family have scattered over the years to various parts around the US. Back in the day though, we all lived within a few hours drive from each other and most of us lived in the same city.

It began with a career in retail when I was in my early twenties and I had the best excuse ever that no parent of a 20 year old could argue with:

I have to work.

It's an especially effective excuse to use on the parents of young adults who are simply thrilled, and quite proud, to have you the hell out of the house, let alone working and supporting yourself. I became the go-to girl for taking over my co-worker's holiday shifts. No problem. You would like to spend the holidays with your family and I would not. Sure! I'll cover for you.

Over time the expectation of my absence or limited attendance at family gatherings was set.

Later, when I started working office jobs I began to plan my own events well in advance of any family gathering my parents were hosting (it was always at their house) and could say, "Oh shoot! I already made plans but I can stop by for awhile." Everyone wins.

I never quite understood why my attendance was so important anyway.

My extended family is huge. My father has 7 brothers and sisters and 10 step-siblings who all have large families of their own. So my parents house on holidays was always brimming over with aunts, uncles, cousins, 2nd cousins, boyfriends, girlfriends, fiances.

It was a noisy, alcohol driven mess and to me not much different than being in a crowded bar, surrounded by merry drunks, when you are sober, unsociable and don't know a soul (not that I knew what that was like back then, except for the unsociable part). Sure the greetings are terrific, I love the hugs and kisses, and I'm certain my family loves me as I do them, but after the exuberant hellos, I was also pretty sure that nobody noticed or gave a crap if I was there or not.

Invariably I would end up just following everyone around and clean up after them, like the dude with the giant shovel at a circus.

Once when I was a teenager with no work excuses I tried a little experiment. I did all of the greetings and huggy stuff that was expected and then took off to the basement with my walkman (remember cassette tapes?) and it took over two and a half hours before anyone noticed I was gone and came looking for me. It was my mother, asking me to take out the trash.

My little sister, wise beyond her disability and years, disliked the noisy family gatherings too and could often be found holed up in her room with her TV at top volume and the door shut tight in an effort to drown out all the noise and escape from the cigarette smoke. She got free a pass from it I guess because she had Down's Syndrome and a nervous condition. Lucky!

My dislike of family gatherings probably started the year that I sang on Christmas Eve in the children's choir of the Methodist church down the street. We weren't members of that church, or any other, but they let me sing there. I don't remember how old I was, but I had my first solo so it was important that I be there.

The same night my family was all gathering at my parents house. My mom came to see me sing, so my dad stayed at home to open the door and greet everyone and take over my mother's duties as hostess for a couple of hours. Well he did a hell of a job.

Every year my aunt Jess, who lived far away, would send a ton of presents for me and my little sister that came in the mail weeks before Christmas. They would sit there, beautifully wrapped, winking at us. We were allowed to open two of them on Christmas Eve. One of our own choosing and the other of Mother's choosing because it contained new pajamas to wear for the Christmas pictures the next morning. Mother was in cahoots with Jess and knew what was in every one of them and enjoyed teasing me about it to no end.

This particular year she gave me hints by telling me the initials of one present that was enormous and oddly shaped. Enormous and oddly shaped presents, especially when beautifully wrapped are the ones I think we all tend to want to open first and get the most excited about.

To my mother's delight, by the time Christmas Eve rolled around I was whipped into a frenzy and nearly frantic with anticipation.

She took me to my Christmas choir concert, leaving Dad alone in the house tending to all of the family guests. Namely, my cousins, whom despite the efforts and protestations of his visiting sisters, my aunts and the mothers of the unruly tots, he allowed to open our presents from aunt Jess. All of them.

My mother and sister and I returned home to find a living room full of joyous mayhem. Wrapping paper and ribbons in shreds falling like confetti, my cousin J lounging empirically on MY Red Bean Bag Chair (the BBC), my little cousin D playing with MY Cher doll and my cousin T holding a pair of "I Dream of Jeannie" pajamas up to her gawky frame as if about to try them on. All of them having a grand old time. It is a vision that (obviously) still haunts my dreams.

Of course my mother privately berated my father mercilessly and made him apologize to us. Apparently, the beautiful presents from aunt Jess were mesmerizing my cousins too, and naturally they wanted to open them. My dad also has a hard time saying no to his family. I had to be a good sport about it and not complain, but the next morning I was still sore (I guess I still am, eh?) and refused to open my presents from Santa. Of course I opened them eventually, begrudgingly.

Anyhoo... the point of this post - and the reason for the title of this post(from an old Jake Johannsen comedy bit): When my friends are suffering through holiday gatherings with their various families in various locations around the US, I am usually safely at home and available as a support line. I'm like a holiday family gathering crisis center. 1-800-LadyHelpMe.

One year my best friend Amy called me in the middle of hosting the family of her ex-husband Assface at her house for a July 4th extended gathering. She called me from her bedroom closet, as she was curled up on the floor, crying. Sobbing really. Her house guests were unruly and she wasn't allowed to say anything or put anything to rights because Assface refused to allow her to do so. He didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings.

After 3 days of soaking wet bathing suited adults and children sitting on her sofa, chocolate covered children wiping their mouths on white seat cushions, and backwoods hoo-haws not knowing how to or refusing to use the garbage disposal so that her dogs were constantly digging into the trash barrel and carting around chicken bones, poor Amy was at her wit's end. Or so she thought.

The final straw, resulting in her fetal positioned, tearful phone call to me from the bedroom closet, the only refuge she was able to find in her own home, was having gone into the one bathroom in their home and finding shit, as in human feces, smeared on the wall.

She has called me from any other number of family gatherings at her mother's house when she gets together with her own family as well. Not from incidents with feces, although I'm sure she's wanted to throw some, but more from a controlling (pre and eventually post) menopausal mother throwing inappropriate and hurtful barbs. The shit on the wall was really the climax of the family gathering incidents and will most likely, hopefully, never be topped. In the age of cell phones, she has been known to call me from her car or other various locations where she has managed to escape.

It has become the tradition between Amy and me, at the end of the last phone call we have before she leaves to spend a holiday gathering with her family, for me to say, "Call me from the closet if you need to!"

I am happy to help.

Above is a picture of me, in better days, when the presents were all mine and I was too little to get drunk or hold a broom. Somehow I still managed to look irritated.

Icky Mouse

I got the little fucker that was rummaging around gnawing the wooden handles off the utensils in my gadget drawer.

We'd been living like wild animals for the past two weeks with the contents of the gadget drawer dumped temporarily in a paper shopping bag on the dining room table. Every time I needed a bottle opener, corkscrew or foil cutter I had to root around in that goddamn paper bag - can you imagine my anguish?

I replaced the contents of the drawer with a paper towel upon which I placed a brand new no see, no touch mousetrap baited with a generous wad of organic peanut butter.

The no see no touch trap is a thing of beauty.

The mousy goes into the holey and the trappy is immediately swiveled shutty. I don't even know how the trap kills the mousy and I frankly don't give a shit.

I get to live oblivious to the suffering of vermin, just how I like it.

The only way I know a mousy has been detained in the trap is because the little hole is closed and the paper towel has been ripped with little tiny claw marks. The paper towel was my idea. I'm just tidy and wasteful of paper products like that. That's how I roll. Get it? Paper towel? Roll?

Ahhh... Anyhoo...

I also noticed there were little tiny bits of black plastic mousetrap all over the drawer. And No it wasn't poop. I had MDH check. I think the mouse may have struggled and tried desperately to claw his miserable way out, leaving behind little mousy shavings of death. Not that I care.

Good.

Riddance.

Fucking Mice

I want to go live in a hotel.

Last night when I was putting away trivets and such after dinner (the lamb was deelish) I opened the big giant gadget drawer under my cooktop and discovered a rather large pile of wood shavings strewn about my gadgety cookery things and my clean kitchen towels and potholders. Motherfucking mice had eaten the bamboo handle to one of my tea strainers.

I found a dead one in the garage the very day we moved in. Of course it was completely disgusting, but after I finished screaming I kicked it into a flower bed (and then avoided watering or weeding in that bed forever afterwards) and didn't worry much about it again. Until several months later in the fall when I picked up the box of trash bags I keep under the kitchen sink and discovered a rather large but neatly stacked pyramid of cat kibble. For a split second I was astounded thinking that somehow the cat had done this and that over the years he had been hiding his genius.

Soon I realized that not only was our cat much dumber than he had let on, he was also slower, older and fatter than I cared to think about. Also probably quite humiliated as undoubtedly mice were casually strolling by him relay style back and forth from the cupboard to the other side of the room to his dish in order to amass such a stash while he watched helpless and ashamed. In Ollie's defense though he was pretty old, nearly 18, and not in the best health. He developed some pretty serious liver problems the following summer and we had him put to sleep.

Then we got Turtle. He's our current kitty and quite the mouser. He's young and spry which helps. It still disgusts me that I need to have such a cat and by the way it's certainly not why I got him. I can always tell when there's a mouse in the house because he pursues it with so much intensity that he won't sleep or eat. He will stare at the baseboard under the dishwasher for days on end and I have to shove him a little with my foot to get any dishes in or out of there. Most normally Turtle is where ever I am. When he is not I know we've got a problem.

In the fall and winter months we probably have a mouse every 2 months or so. And what are you supposed to do about them? I don't want to put down poison because then they'd all be dead but also stinking up my house for eternity. I also don't want Turtle to bite into a poisoned mouse. You'd think that working in the veterinary business would cause me to use a live catch trap, but no. I want those suckers to die, die, die. Quickly of course. Until last night I want them dead but not suffering. Dispatched quickly and painlessly. Today is different.

Flashback to a couple of falls ago:

After I discovered the kibble pyramid I went to Lowe's and bought an expensive battery powered trap to electrocute them. It was kind of space age and used about a hundred batteries, but I liked that I didn't have to see or touch the mouse. According to the package directions a light would come on to tell me there was a mouse in the trap. I envisioned being able to, in one clean motion, flip the trap open with the tippy tip of my pinkie finger and wing the body into the neighbors bushes without ever having to touch or look at it.

After I loaded all the batteries I placed it in the cupboard under the kitchen sink behind the box of trashbags, but sticking out enough so that I could see that blinking light. I checked it every day for a week and got nothing. And then the week after, of course when my husband was out of town I smelled that smell. It's unmistakable as anything but dead critter. I'm embarrassed to say that I let it go for a couple more days because the thought of a dead mouse is more disgusting to me than a living one. Why didn't the god damned light blink??? Shit!

I finally got up the courage to poke the trap with a stretched out coat hanger so that I could see if there was a tail sticking out the back end of it. There was. And not only that, but the fucker had been dead for so long that it had begun oozing out decaying body goo that was now all over the cupboard for me to wipe up. Shit, man. Fuck.

Here is exactly what I want:

• I want my husband to come home this very minute and take care of this mess for me.


• I want all the mice in this house to magically disappear.

Since there was no one at home to hear my demands (if a tree falls in the forest, etc.) I had to calm down and create my own plan of action.

The plan involved the grill-set oven mitts that go up to your elbows, the extra-long grill-set hot dog tongs, an entire can of Glade Clean Linen room spray and a kitchen towel tied around my face. My Ninja-like flip and wing plan didn't work. The trap didn't open that easily and dead body was stuck and wouldn't allow itself to be winged. I also realized as I was standing at the edge of our property by the neighbors bushes in broad daylight (daylight is always "broad" when you are trying not to be seen) that their dog was standing 3 feet away looking right at me. Thankfully he was too stunned to bark at the crazy shuddering lady with the oozing trap, hot dog tongs and brightly checkered Crate & Barrel kitchen towel covering her face.

I ended up throwing the entire trap away, along with the tongs, mitts and towel. I believe that this entire process took about 5 or 6 hours and when it was finished my hair had gone entirely white.

Back then I was disgusted and afraid. Today I AM PISSED OFF. Back then they were invading the place I store trash bags and dish soap. Today they are invading a place where I store the tools I touch every day and use to handle the FOOD I feed my FAMILY.

Today I am open to any (realistic) suggestions that involve death with as little mess as possible. From now on suffering is allright with me. This is war.

PS, I've been using the spine-snapping plastic traps baited with peanut butter, but the mice are now able to get all the bait without snapping the trap. Motherfuckers! Seriously, what else have you got people?