tobermory's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rat Redux So I seem to recall journaling about a rat problem in my alley some time ago. Well, it’s baaaaack. A few weeks ago I saw a rat scurry under my car then go under the fence and into my neighbor’s garage. I’ve been waiting for a chance to see my neighbor to let him know that he’s harboring critters, but in the winter I don’t see him as much as I do in the summer when I’m out in the yard more often. As I was coming inside last night I saw him and gave him the bad news – he seemed somewhat nonchalant. He mentioned that he’s seen a few mice – perhaps he was thinking that I was mistaken in what sort of rodent I saw. Steve had come out by this time to see if I needed any help with the groceries and he wound up hanging out by the fence talking to our neighbor about the Bears game while I went inside to start warming up some stew for dinner. Apparently while they were out there having sports talk a rat scurried into the garage. HAH! That will teach him to doubt my rat spotting abilities! Apparently he’s lived a somewhat sheltered life and hasn’t actually seen a rat before last night so I think he might have been disillusioned about how bad the problem in our alley can get. I’m hoping this means he’ll call the Chicago Rat Czar and get something done about this because I don’t want them to start multiplying when it gets warmer and surprising me when I lift the lid on our garbage can. I think the big problem is that his garage really an old carriage house kind of structure and it’s kind of a disaster area – a haven for pests. Maybe this is the motivation he needs to clean it out and organize it. I wonder how he’s going to break it to his wife. I bet she goes apeshit – I know she’s always worrying about their wiener-dog tangling with a rat and getting bitten or contracting some sort of parasite. I think they should borrow the neighbor’s Jack Russell terrier, Jackie (how original), who has supposedly killed about three rats and a couple of squirrels in the past year with nary a scratch on her. Whatever they do, I hope they do it soon. TNT has started to show reruns of House, the medical drama, so Steve and I have jumped on the bandwagon. I like it but I just can’t stop thinking about Hugh Laurie as the idiot Prince Regent from the BBC comedy Black Adder and I have a hard time taking him seriously since he’s carried over some of the same mannerisms from one character to the next. Plus (and yes, I know it’s tv so some exaggerations will exist) I can’t help but think that he’s a little unprofessional despite his outstanding diagnostic skills. Also, they show some awfully graphic surgery and treatment scenes - I have to spend a good portion of the show with my hands over my eyes. In the episode we watched last night some poor sap was getting injections in his spine and even though I covered my eyes I could still hear the grunts and groans. Ick. I’m going to measure myself tonight and use it as a start point to see if the diet and exercise program is working. I know I probably should have taken these measurements back on January first, but oh well…. I’m going to take then in the following places: calf, upper thigh, upper arm (for these three I’ll have to use moles as a guidelines so when I measure again I can make sure I take the measurements at the same places), and waist. If I’m not too horrified by the measurements, I might even post them. Resolution Diary: 3:11 p.m. - 2006-01-17 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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