<p>A couple of thoughts:
Bats . . . we’ve had a couple in the house and were told that if you open a window and close the doors they will sense where the opening is and leave. It has worked.</p>
<p>Racoons . . . living in our tree in the front yard. Dangerous, absolutely adorable to look at but ever since the move-in I’m very careful when I let my small dog out at dusk or early morning. Apparently their little hands which look so human-like don’t have fingernails but razor sharp claws. They are so common here that animal control won’t budge so I’m just going to start charging them rent.</p>
<p>GMom, will be thinking of you today. Have gone through something similar that stretched out for months, someone leaving every week, it’s painful I know. The spitballs and creative xeroxing are good ideas but I’d suggest trying to keep a zen approach and if that fails then definitely resort to whatever gets you through the day. Good luck, we’ll all be sending good thoughts your way today.</p>
<p>As for raccoons, we had one in the neighborhood that was quite bold, coming into the screened porch thru the dog door. Trying to get at the dog food I imagine. Was afraid one of the dogs would start to mix it up, and we’d have a vet bill on our hands.</p>
<p>No bats in our belfry, but we had bees who had created a hive in our compost bin where the top was not on quite right. At first we couldn’t figure out why they were all hanging around especially near the water spigots, and it was a little hairy trying to turn the hoses on. Then we noticed them around the compost bin. Contacted several people who wanted $400 and up to come and take them away, and by that time, there were so many they swarmed into a tree (not all of them) and sat there for a couple of days, then took off to find their own compost bin. Meanwhile we were still left with the bees and hive that remained, so we took a shower curtain (thank you Google) and threw it over the whole bin, placing bricks around the base to hold it down. The built-up heat finally did them in. I was a little sad to see the foraging bees returning to the hive and not being able to find their way back in, and hoped they found their friends who had taken off.</p>
<p>hummmm… honey tree…I’m just a little black rain cloud…
can you tell that I don’t wanna leave 100 acre wood just yet?</p>
<p>fairy-tale wedding is fine but where are the letters today in the google banner? I can barely see the last “e”?</p>
<p>Alas, there was no honey…</p>
<p>I can’t even see the G O O G L !!</p>
<p>What the heck are you guys talking about???</p>
<p>I had a basement bedroom and therefore always had SPIIIIIIDERS. I lost many a night’s sleep as a child after killing a spider, petrified that the spider’s friends were going to come and get me in the middle of the night. Picture a skinny bespeckled stringy haired 10 year old lying wide awake in bed with a can of bug spray in one hand and a heavy shoe in the other. Yup that was me.</p>
<p>Hmm
Must have mis-stated something or at least left the wrong impression – I’m here with the rest of the skeleton crew until June 30th. I think there will be less than a dozen people here in 400,000 sq ft of office and lab space. Seven of the Eight buildings are completely empty and this building will have a few people (me and a couple of other clinical people) on the third floor, a facilities person and HR person on the first floor and that should be about it. The last of Legal and Finance departments leave today. I’m supposed to be off-loading my ‘work’ to my Deerfield, IL based replacements. So that kind of goes in fits and spurts. </p>
<p>Wondering if I will really be free this summer…but the hoped for replacement job has been slow to materialize. I’ve heard that there’s legal reasons they can’t talk to me yet. So I will remain bouncy and optimistic and try not to wreak too much havoc…The next Investigator Meeting (that I would have gotten to go to if I weren’t on the termination list) is in Lima, Peru in August. Boy, I would have loved that. I’ve always wanted to go to Machu Picchu – and D1 would have loved it (maybe??) too.</p>
<p>So it goes…</p>
<p>That still sounds pretty rough emotionally, good luck. In light of the possible replacement job maybe you should just go with the zen and stay away from the copy machines.</p>
<p>smarty are you happened to be Roz Chast but haven’t told us?
<a href=“http://www.sparehed.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/atoz.jpg[/url]”>http://www.sparehed.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/atoz.jpg</a>
there were sure something of laying awake thinking about spider in some of her books.
her childhood self look fit in your description p-p-p-perfectly!</p>
<p>Dang it all I KNEW there was a reason why I always liked that woman’s work.
She’s my sister-in-phobia!</p>
<p>Ok launcher moms only a couple of weeks left. My s is done with his drawings, 4d final, 3d final, big ah paper. He has at least one English paper and a couple little papers and 2 d final to go. By done I mean he thinks he’s done. Still needs to do the crits. We are going to get him mid may. I think this semester went better for him. He says he can’t wait for next year. Ugh, but his dog is sick. Not sure yet how sick. I came home to a mess on floor and a pacing panting agitated old dog. I will call the vet tomorrow. I’m not telling him about the dog until after finals. So loveblue don’t mention it to your d. I don’t really know if it’s anything serious yet.</p>
<p>don’t tell me it’s the corgi he was holding. </p>
<p>I know it is a wrong thing to say at the moment
but
we took over-night bus to Chicago because it was like half price of jetblue
( hey, cleveland greyhound station was one of the cleanest and nicest, fammom. I wanted to go to Rock’n roll museum but layover was too short. nothing to eat near the station, business-y area (was Saturday) what’s wrong with them midwest?)
in the bus I was reading and the passage mentioned about passport and gawk!!
I forgot to pack his passport!! bus don’t require ID but airport would!!
I got my drivers license but his HS ID won’t do and he is over age by whole year!!
with cold sweat I started writing up worst case scenario.
I, with limited day off and pile of work waiting for me would fly, leave him with bus ticket that would take one whole day and two nights to get home. (I knew of this because I searched the schedule and from there, connection/layover is awful and cost is more than flying)
how am I gonna tell him?</p>
<p>^it was the first day of the trip. I didn’t tell him til possible last minuets. all the while I would call ticket agency, airport itself and TSA, send e-mails begging and to create paper trail. ended up asking some copy from his app file at admission of the school we were flying out from to prove he is not a terrorist.
^^ all behind his back with putting up cheerful trooper attitude as usual when I do college spying trip.</p>
<p>they stopped, asked questions, patted searched scanned. after nail biting 30-40 minutes or so, let him go.
all my friends said, I should not be keeping adult son’s passport. and all the more he should be launched far far away from me…
If he is living at elsewhere, driver’s license is just something he’d carry wherever he goes. how all other adult urban non-driver to do? do they get non-drivers’ ID? it might need to be done soon.
or
learn to drive! (horrors!!!)</p>
<p>point of the story is,
it is better not to tell if you can not better the situation.
live with the lump in the throat and keep it cheerful.</p>
<p>Hi bears it’s not the corgi, it’s the sad old mutt cattle dog beagle who is actually his dog. We are at the vet now and of course the dog is acting like nothing is wrong. But none of us slept last night, except the corgi. Maybe it’s sudden onset doggy dementia. It was terrible. He paced and cried and acted like he didn’t know us at all. No sleep for the wicked.</p>
<p>it doesn’t make me feel much better. aghhh
how are the cats? do they care?</p>
<p>the cat has lived with dogs since she was a kitten, so she acts like one of the pack, and is interested in them. We are back from the vet, diagnosis unknown, but he is acting like his old old dog self, wags his tail when he sees me, happy for the car ride, had a nap in the car while I treated myself to breakfast. Nothing like a great big fry up with crispy bacon after a sleepless night. We got some anti-inflammatory pain meds from the doctor, he got to come back in triumph as being the only one who got to go on the outing. Everybody sniffed him all over, including the cat, and its back to business as usual. It would all be so much simpler if dogs could talk.</p>
<p>I think they do, we just can’t hear it.
I lost pets-o-count of switts hoesehold.
did Rasputin die? or you had only one cat to begin with?
hummm bacon…
I am stuck at work with only box of Traderjoe’s bran flakes and 2% milk for company… for my own good… bacon…</p>
<p>Switters, oh no, we don’t want dogs to talk! I feel guilty enough looking at those eyes; those eyes that want walkies now, or to share my food, or to sleep on my pillow, etc. Why is this sounding like the Princess and the Frog? Did I make promises I’ve forgotten about? </p>
<p>And one of mine is neurotic. His barking is bad enough!</p>
<p>But switters, if it helps you diagnose and treat your dear old doggie, I will listen to my neurotic one talk as much as he wants! Good luck, I hope he feels better soon and you can all rest and await your son’s return.</p>
<p>sounds like the dog poisoned himself, switters. Not the official view of a trained vet but the view of experience of the “mother” of many pets that have eaten things t hey shouldn’t have. If it were florida I would say the dog had eaten a skink (poisonous lizard)…Our cats ate skink tails once and clearly felt like they were on psychedelic drugs. They yowled, vomited and looked at us with glazed eyes…jumped and circled the couch. Perhaps your dog found something toxic (mothballs?) and being sick saved it from death. Hopefully no relapse. </p>
<p>Good luck…we only have the one cat which, according to the vet who gave her an exam during her spa/vacation at the local vet during the racoon incident, has the body of an 8 year old. The vet asked three times if she really was 15…“unbelievable …what do you feed her?”. I reply, “whatever she can catch supplemented with Friskies…no expensive pro-plan for my cat…” …vet assured me that the cat is almost certain to live past 20. Oh Dear! what will my husband say who wanted the cat dead at age 3…imagine having a cat with us longer than our children? </p>
<p>My poor launchee…I call and he says things are awful…someone stole his backup hard drive with his final projects (computer science and drawing combined)…he left it in the studio (so his fault) but what a horrible thing to happen. Signs have been posted …but unlikely to be returned…what’s it worth $250 or less? for a terabyte of memory but hours and hours of work. Most kids are returning home at the end of next week but he has asked to stay through until close to commencement so he can finish the project. It seems his teachers will give him an extension. Tough lesson. Luckily he has a near photographic memory (why o why doesn’t he just major in math and no one can steal his brain?) so he just needs the time to reprogram.</p>
<p>Oh boy, your poor son. Thank goodness for the extension but what a pain to have to go through. I’m so sorry. Hopefully it’ll go quicker the second time, that can happen but what a shame. </p>
<p>I have a message for BEARS, MESSAGE TO BEARS…MESSAGE TO BEARS
You have to clean out your private message storage as I have one more final message to my lengthy missive to send. I’ve saved it so let me know when you’ve deleted some things and I’ll send it.</p>
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