-Austin, talking about the four inch gecko/salamander-esque lizard that has gotten into our house.
I don't appreciate lizards inside my house. Let's rephrase that a little more accurately: I hate lizards in my house. But Austin has a point, and here's why:
I was downstairs on my computer last week and I heard Austin say "Oh, crap!" as he went up the stairs. Since he didn't call for me, I stayed put, wondering what was going on (if it was something about the kids, I was pretty sure he would've called for me). I heard a small racket for about thirty seconds and then he rushed down the stairs and outside.
At this point I got up to determine whether Austin was doing some sort of home improvement project and had severely injured himself. Instead, I found him coming back in with a bath mat, looking a little sheepish. Apparently, it was crossing his mind not to mention to his wife that he had just pinned a medium-sized black snake down in the upstairs hallway with the Swiffer, and then captured it and took it outside with the bath mat.
So, there you have it, the gecko (or whatever it is) is a lot cuter than a three foot long rat snake.
P.S. We suspect that the snake got into our attic by climbing the big trees that hang over our roof, and dropping onto the roof. It's anyone's guess how it got into the living space, but I am insisting that we get that investigated by a pest control somebody in the very near future.
And yes, we are
Showing posts with label vignette of the day. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vignette of the day. Show all posts
Monday, April 25, 2011
Sunday, April 17, 2011
The most ridiculous bedtime ever
A few weeks ago Tucker had his first sleepover with his friend John. John's parents were going to a late-night event at their church so John came over to start his night's sleep at our house and be whisked away in the late evening when his parents were on their way home.
Tucker was beside himself with excitement. He ate a banana and about two bites of vegetables for dinner, and incessantly asked when John might arrive. I told him half an hour. He asked how long half an hour is. I told him about the time it was going to take Austin to come downstairs and eat his dinner. Tucker then started inquiring fervently about Austin's progress in the shower and what foods he was going to eat, as if rushing Austin through these events was going to make the time go faster.
John arrived and Tucker was ecstatic. We let them stay up an hour playing, and Tucker achieved new levels of hyper. He wanted to play with everything, with John at once. John was a little overwhelmed by Tucker's attentions, but held his ground pretty nicely except for when the ferry operated by Tucker was attempting to knock out John's train on the train table, and when the dinosaur came to attack him. A timeout helped Tucker regain a sliver of composure, but not much.
Both boys were in their beds in Tucker's room by 7:30 pm. As I walked out of the room, I wondered if they would fall asleep before John's parents came back to pick him up (at 10:30 pm). For awhile it was in question, but they did end up falling asleep at the reasonable (in such circumstances) hour of 9 pm. In the intervening hour and a half, Austin and I were treated to quite an earful. I don't know if I've ever heard such a long conversation between a two year-old and a three year-old boy. I wish I had had a recorder to immortalize their soliloquies.
John: My parents are gone.
Tucker: They're at church.
John: But I can't see them.
Tucker: Let's look out the window and check.
John: But we just looked out the window.
Tucker: But we haven't looked out the window again now.
John: Okay.
Mostly they talked about whether the lights should be off or on, and whether it was night-night time or not. But most of the time it sounded more similar to a "Who's on First?" skit than a conversation. One child would be speculating about whether Austin was in his office, and the other would be talking about the lights. Then it would shift and one would muse on whether it was, in fact, bedtime, while the other narrated what they were seeing out the window. Tucker is very sad he cannot have sleepovers every night. But don't worry, we read about Froggy's sleepover every night instead.
Tucker was beside himself with excitement. He ate a banana and about two bites of vegetables for dinner, and incessantly asked when John might arrive. I told him half an hour. He asked how long half an hour is. I told him about the time it was going to take Austin to come downstairs and eat his dinner. Tucker then started inquiring fervently about Austin's progress in the shower and what foods he was going to eat, as if rushing Austin through these events was going to make the time go faster.
John arrived and Tucker was ecstatic. We let them stay up an hour playing, and Tucker achieved new levels of hyper. He wanted to play with everything, with John at once. John was a little overwhelmed by Tucker's attentions, but held his ground pretty nicely except for when the ferry operated by Tucker was attempting to knock out John's train on the train table, and when the dinosaur came to attack him. A timeout helped Tucker regain a sliver of composure, but not much.
Both boys were in their beds in Tucker's room by 7:30 pm. As I walked out of the room, I wondered if they would fall asleep before John's parents came back to pick him up (at 10:30 pm). For awhile it was in question, but they did end up falling asleep at the reasonable (in such circumstances) hour of 9 pm. In the intervening hour and a half, Austin and I were treated to quite an earful. I don't know if I've ever heard such a long conversation between a two year-old and a three year-old boy. I wish I had had a recorder to immortalize their soliloquies.
John: My parents are gone.
Tucker: They're at church.
John: But I can't see them.
Tucker: Let's look out the window and check.
John: But we just looked out the window.
Tucker: But we haven't looked out the window again now.
John: Okay.
Mostly they talked about whether the lights should be off or on, and whether it was night-night time or not. But most of the time it sounded more similar to a "Who's on First?" skit than a conversation. One child would be speculating about whether Austin was in his office, and the other would be talking about the lights. Then it would shift and one would muse on whether it was, in fact, bedtime, while the other narrated what they were seeing out the window. Tucker is very sad he cannot have sleepovers every night. But don't worry, we read about Froggy's sleepover every night instead.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Appliance woes
I don't think you want to be one of our appliances these days: you may be the next to go.
First our fridge broke.
Next our oven exploded.
And then our heat pump went out.
Hopefully bad luck comes in threes, not fours or sixes, because Austin and I are both done with broken appliances. So far we've only gotten one of three fixed successfully (the fridge.) When the repairman came to look at the heat pump that was installed only two years ago, he muttered ominously that though the part that broke was under warranty, the labor charges are not. He said he'd go back to the shop and advocate for us because the labor on that repair is really expensive.
As it happens, I'm about to take the kids and visit my favorite snow bird in Florida, leaving Austin for the second year in a row without heat. (Last year when I went to Florida with Tucker, we were out of electricity for several days from a big storm.)
Thankfully we have the wood stoves, and the heat upstairs, so it's not as big an issue as it could be, though when I came downstairs yesterday morning it was only 53 degrees. Molly enjoyed jumping in the kitchen just as much as usual, and Tucker complained about cold hands once. Otherwise it was business as usual.
First our fridge broke.
Next our oven exploded.
And then our heat pump went out.
Hopefully bad luck comes in threes, not fours or sixes, because Austin and I are both done with broken appliances. So far we've only gotten one of three fixed successfully (the fridge.) When the repairman came to look at the heat pump that was installed only two years ago, he muttered ominously that though the part that broke was under warranty, the labor charges are not. He said he'd go back to the shop and advocate for us because the labor on that repair is really expensive.
As it happens, I'm about to take the kids and visit my favorite snow bird in Florida, leaving Austin for the second year in a row without heat. (Last year when I went to Florida with Tucker, we were out of electricity for several days from a big storm.)
Thankfully we have the wood stoves, and the heat upstairs, so it's not as big an issue as it could be, though when I came downstairs yesterday morning it was only 53 degrees. Molly enjoyed jumping in the kitchen just as much as usual, and Tucker complained about cold hands once. Otherwise it was business as usual.
Friday, January 14, 2011
The people you meet
Yesterday Austin sold an extra filing cabinet on Craigslist. He finished redoing his office (he knocked a big opening into the wall overlooking the stairs, made a fold-down drafting desk, found an unused cavity in the wall for a small closet, and added a comfy chair). But the big filing cabinet was a space hog so it needed to go the way of all things: to Craigslist.
We've met some neat people on Craigslist, but none quite so unique as the gentleman that came to buy the filing cabinet. He told Austin he was going to use it for food storage. Austin replied that he had thought of using it in the same way (the metal would keep critters out of any food if we wanted to store stuff in the basement like a makeshift root cellar). The man might have thought he and my husband were a little bit more on the same page than they actually were. He started to explain a doomsday scenario connecting Hezbollah in Colombia and the fall of the dollar and insider knowledge regarding the US Treasury department, to the need for filing cabinets for long-term food storage.
Sometimes you just have to say "Huh," and scratch your head.
We've met some neat people on Craigslist, but none quite so unique as the gentleman that came to buy the filing cabinet. He told Austin he was going to use it for food storage. Austin replied that he had thought of using it in the same way (the metal would keep critters out of any food if we wanted to store stuff in the basement like a makeshift root cellar). The man might have thought he and my husband were a little bit more on the same page than they actually were. He started to explain a doomsday scenario connecting Hezbollah in Colombia and the fall of the dollar and insider knowledge regarding the US Treasury department, to the need for filing cabinets for long-term food storage.
Sometimes you just have to say "Huh," and scratch your head.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Christmas dilemmas
These days I can’t seem to complete a trip to the gym without nursing Molly in the childcare room. This makes trips to the gym inevitably longer than expected, but what doesn’t take longer than expected these days?
The women who work in the childcare room are across the board fun and welcoming. I enjoy our few minutes of adult conversation while I’m marooned in a nursing chair. Today the topic was Christmas.
One lady shared her three Christmas dilemmas. The first is trying to convince her three year-old son that Santa will be able to come down the chimney even though the couch is pushed up against the fireplace (to prevent their one year-old from repeatedly climbing into the fireplace.) Apparently the son is still not convinced so their furniture will be rearranged on Christmas Eve.
Secondly, she has put all the presents under lock and key in interesting hiding places to prevent said three year-old from wreaking havoc. I have never met this little boy but he sounds a bit like a terror—she describes him as “high energy”—and has shamelessly been opening any package he can find, even if she is in the same room.
Her third dilemma, the one that has her really stumped, is how to properly convey to her son that there isn’t a religious meaning for Christmas. “We’re not religious people,” she said, “So I’ve tried to tell him that Christmas could be any day. That people just picked that day to celebrate Christmas for political reasons. It’s just an arbitrary day; it doesn’t have any meaning.” This apparently leaves her son in a muddle, muttering confused statements about which days are which. Her husband tells her she is using two many words and trying to explain too much. But she is concerned. After all, his grandparents are religious—the boy might figure out that under the hubbub of presents and wrapping and sugary treats that the holiday is actually celebrating something more than Santa Claus and a mystical idea of generosity and love.
The women who work in the childcare room are across the board fun and welcoming. I enjoy our few minutes of adult conversation while I’m marooned in a nursing chair. Today the topic was Christmas.
One lady shared her three Christmas dilemmas. The first is trying to convince her three year-old son that Santa will be able to come down the chimney even though the couch is pushed up against the fireplace (to prevent their one year-old from repeatedly climbing into the fireplace.) Apparently the son is still not convinced so their furniture will be rearranged on Christmas Eve.
Secondly, she has put all the presents under lock and key in interesting hiding places to prevent said three year-old from wreaking havoc. I have never met this little boy but he sounds a bit like a terror—she describes him as “high energy”—and has shamelessly been opening any package he can find, even if she is in the same room.
Her third dilemma, the one that has her really stumped, is how to properly convey to her son that there isn’t a religious meaning for Christmas. “We’re not religious people,” she said, “So I’ve tried to tell him that Christmas could be any day. That people just picked that day to celebrate Christmas for political reasons. It’s just an arbitrary day; it doesn’t have any meaning.” This apparently leaves her son in a muddle, muttering confused statements about which days are which. Her husband tells her she is using two many words and trying to explain too much. But she is concerned. After all, his grandparents are religious—the boy might figure out that under the hubbub of presents and wrapping and sugary treats that the holiday is actually celebrating something more than Santa Claus and a mystical idea of generosity and love.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Coming into the 21st century
I workout at the local YMCA, and am always careful to lock everything up and not leave things around. It's a friendly place, but I remember that one time as a kid that my mom's keys got stolen at our YMCA in Vermont.
Anyway, I like to jog on the treadmill and then lift weights, but it means I have a great music player hanging around while I lift, and it's a pain to have to move it every time I move stations (there are three separate, connecting rooms that make up the weight room). I usually end up carrying it, and leave nothing to chance.
When I say "music player," I actually mean a Sony sports walkman. Yes, a walkman. One that plays cassette tapes. It still looks shiny and yellow and black and REALLY nice. I think of it as really nice, as a really desirable object to steal, if stealing was your thing.
It dawned on me the other day what an anachronism that walkman is. If it was stolen, who could it possibly be resold to? Realistically, it is probably one of those things a thief would laugh at (that, or wonder what it was).
In other news from the YMCA, I had a bizarre interaction with a nice elderly lady in the locker room. This woman goes regularly to "Happy Ducks" the senior aquatics class that meets at just the time I always end up working out. We have a nice routine of smiling at each other and saying "have a nice day." Well, out of the blue she came up to me and asked if I liked jokes. I said that I did. And then she proceeded to tell me the dirtiest joke I've heard in several years. I would share it, just to express how bizarre the whole thing was, but the joke is really not fit to be repeated. I'm still not sure what I make of it, except that I think she wanted to impress or befriend me????
Anyway, I like to jog on the treadmill and then lift weights, but it means I have a great music player hanging around while I lift, and it's a pain to have to move it every time I move stations (there are three separate, connecting rooms that make up the weight room). I usually end up carrying it, and leave nothing to chance.
When I say "music player," I actually mean a Sony sports walkman. Yes, a walkman. One that plays cassette tapes. It still looks shiny and yellow and black and REALLY nice. I think of it as really nice, as a really desirable object to steal, if stealing was your thing.
It dawned on me the other day what an anachronism that walkman is. If it was stolen, who could it possibly be resold to? Realistically, it is probably one of those things a thief would laugh at (that, or wonder what it was).
In other news from the YMCA, I had a bizarre interaction with a nice elderly lady in the locker room. This woman goes regularly to "Happy Ducks" the senior aquatics class that meets at just the time I always end up working out. We have a nice routine of smiling at each other and saying "have a nice day." Well, out of the blue she came up to me and asked if I liked jokes. I said that I did. And then she proceeded to tell me the dirtiest joke I've heard in several years. I would share it, just to express how bizarre the whole thing was, but the joke is really not fit to be repeated. I'm still not sure what I make of it, except that I think she wanted to impress or befriend me????
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Didn't know this still happened any more...
I've been checking in on my poor, sick car everyday this week, and everyday it was still sick. Jimmy, the mechanic, told me that it'd be done by Friday. I called on Friday night just before closing and it wasn't done. He said that he just needed to get it down off the lift and test it then we could pick it up. He said it'd take a few minutes but he'd call when it was ready.
Of course, dinner came and went, and still no word. Oh well. Right?
Actually, he ended up calling at 9 pm, still at the garage. He said it was ready and that I could just come and pick it up this weekend even though the office was closed and there's no way I could pay till Monday. He wanted me to drive it all weekend to see if the problem had been successfully fixed (this is after all the sixth time it's gone into the shop).
Wow. I mean, I'm sure we have a bill of several hundred dollars to pay on Monday... and he gave us permission just to take the car? That is really neat. I know we live in a small town, but I am really impressed. He has our business for life.
P.S. Also, so far so good, my car has been running reliably since yesterday... keeping my fingers crossed.
Of course, dinner came and went, and still no word. Oh well. Right?
Actually, he ended up calling at 9 pm, still at the garage. He said it was ready and that I could just come and pick it up this weekend even though the office was closed and there's no way I could pay till Monday. He wanted me to drive it all weekend to see if the problem had been successfully fixed (this is after all the sixth time it's gone into the shop).
Wow. I mean, I'm sure we have a bill of several hundred dollars to pay on Monday... and he gave us permission just to take the car? That is really neat. I know we live in a small town, but I am really impressed. He has our business for life.
P.S. Also, so far so good, my car has been running reliably since yesterday... keeping my fingers crossed.
Friday, June 5, 2009
This is the car saga that never ends
My car is getting lonely. It has been spending a lot of time at the mechanic's. Actually, to be exact, it has been on five separate trips to three different mechanics over the past three weeks, and it still is not fixed. Supposedly this time it will be different... I guess we'll find out on Monday.
My car is not having a subtle problem. The problem is that when it first starts up, when you press the gas pedal, it doesn't go. So, I pull out onto the road, and suddenly the car won't move forward. Big problem. Thankfully the problem goes away after a couple of minutes, but I have taken to driving around parking lots several times before going onto the road and other such tricks, to avoid us getting killed.
So, we took it to the first mechanic, who had it for a full week. He replaced the computer in the car. But as I pulled out of the shop at the end of the day on Friday, the car wouldn't go, and I glided back into the parking lot. I did make it home, but back we went to the shop first thing Monday.
Apparently my car only dislikes me because mechanic #1 couldn't get it to hesitate for him. We took it home and crossed our fingers, but soon found ourselves at shop #2.
Shop #2 diagnosed the problem, but said that it only could be fixed by the dealer's $15,000 computer that could reprogram things.
Shop #3 (the dealer) claimed that there is no such error code as my car gave Shop #2. They couldn't find a problem with the car, and wouldn't run any diagnostics based on my or the other shop's information.
So we call Shop #2 and they said that actually they COULD fix it, but they just thought it was a recall issue and the dealer would have to. But wait, since it's not under warranty, it doesn't matter.
Are you confused yet? Annoyed? Me too.
I'm just so thankful that between Austin's spray truck for work and Helen and David last week, that Tucker and I haven't been stranded at home much at all.
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