Thing that happened to me today #23

Have not been blogging in a while, so I will fill in on a few things:

First, in case you have been looking for a mouse update, the mice are finished (I think). We practically tore our kitchen apart trying to figure out where they were hiding to no avail. Tried the live trap thing for several days and it didn't catch squat. So we had no choice. We had to go with the old fashioned snap traps that kill them. Hated to do it, and I still can't believe that Sandy went for it, but as I said, we had no choice. The darn cat was useless and we could hear them scuttling around in the kitchen at night, just gross and unsanitary to say the least. The first night we put two traps out and we came down to a dead one in the morning. It was huge (probably chock full of nuts). The trap did its thing and although I wasn't there, it seemed as if it was pretty quick (and dare I say painless?). The other traps bait was gone and eaten (malfunction I think). Since we knew there were two (at least) we did it again the following night. This time it didn't go quite as smoothly. I hate to describe this, but if it helps anyone decide whether or not to do this themselves, at least maybe they will have a better idea of what might be in store for them. Anyway, the next morning we came down to a sprung trap on the floor and leading away from it a trail of blood heading towards the living room....yum....and no mouse to be seen. So I start looking around the living room and finally I find the thing under the entertainment center against the wall. I thought it must have suffered awhile, then died of its injuries, but all those thoughts were erased once it moved. Damn (side note - the darn cat STILL could not catch an INJURED mouse). So I grab a produce bag, the kind you might stick your broccoli in at the grocery store, and put my hand in it and head towards the mouse as if it were a pile of dog crap that my dog just laid in the one neighbors yard that was outside on his porch at the moment (this happens all the time but I digress). So what does the mouse do? It takes off running. Clearly hobbled and hurt it still had some spunk. I did finally corner it on another side of the room and tried to grab it, and after a bit of fighting I managed to get it in the bag. What do you do now you ask? Well the first thing Sandy says is you can't let it suffer in that bag, you have to do something to ease its misery. Man this was terrible. So I take the bag outside to the nice concrete steps outside and..........swung that bag around as hard as I could and slammed it onto the stairs. Did I mention that this was terrible yet? It was one of those moments where you just don't know what to do, and you do the first thing that comes to your mind. Anyway, it did the deed, the mouse was instantly motionless, and sparing you anymore gory details, lets just say I could tell it was dead. So, if you ever get a mouse in your house (or 3), think twice about how you plan on ridding your house of the unwelcome guest(s). Please fill me in if you have any better ideas. The kitchen has been silent since.

Also, over the weekend, I installed our new storm door. I trashed the old one when we painted the house and we purchased one of those new ones that is all glass and the top half of the glass slides down bringing a screen down with it (it hides away rolled up in the top when the glass is up). Very cool door. Installation went perfect, saved myself $150. The guide was like a book with lots of intricate steps, but if you pick through it carefully, it's not that hard. Proud of myself to say the least.

Now I am coming down with an upper respiratory infection and have been doing the coughing/sneezing/runny nose thing for two days. Always comes at the wrong time (not that there is a right time), but my brother Jon is coming into town this weekend, going to see Rush at the Excel Energy Center on Sunday night, etc. I just want this to pass fast, although colds like this hardly ever do. Can't we just find a cure for the common cold already?