Over the river and through the woods….
if only that’s the way our trips to grandmother’s house would go. But no, our most recent sojourn to Mimi’s place was a lot more like “over the Throg’s Neck and through the puke.” Allow me to explain.
On a sweltering summer day, I decided that it was high time for me, stay-at-home-mom that I have become, to take the kids to grandma’s house for a relaxing visit and swim in their pool. Ha! Loaded all three kids, all of the swimming and relaxing and distracting accoutrements each of them required and added the two dogs. Our own loving and beloved spaniel mix and our current foster puppy, who I am now convinced is not a Golden Lab and Beagle mix as we were told, but a Pit Bull-Jack Russell cross. He is very affectionate, but – well, yesterday I turned around and he was standing on top of the kitchen table. Anyway, said foster puppy was highly reluctant to enter the mini-van, so I added all sorts of toys, treats, bones, etc to entice him in. And yes, I did take water and food away from both dogs about an hour before we were scheduled to leave, to avoid any bodily function disasters. On the dogs’ part, anyway.
10 minutes into the trip and just as we entered the bumper-to-bumper traffic that precedes the Throg’s Neck Bridge, an unmistakable and overwhelming odor wafted through the van. Everyone under the age of 21 began screaming, crying and mock-retching while I exploded into an unprecedented (even for me) string of expletives. Everyone in that car can now make sailors blush on four different continents (not that they couldn’t before).
Pile of dog poop on the back seat, quickly followed by and even larger pile of dog puke. I jumped the curb, pulled onto the median and no, our 6 year-old Honday Odyssey mini-van is not 4-wheel drive, so I had no idea if we’d ever make it out again. I found some old newspapers and plastic bags and with 6 trial-size bottles of Purell, managed to clean up the worst of the mess. Got back in the van, fought our way off the median and into traffic. Every other driver was screaming at me and honking their horns, and I screamed back, until my youngest said “I know why they’re yelling at us! The back door is open!” Yeah, mom of the year drove over the Throg’s Neck with the rear hatch wide open. Luckily, no children, animals or prized possessions were lost, though their innocence certainly was.
- so sweet…now
Mouse update: dead and flattened mouse seen in location of release. Ironically, flattened mouse appeared to be running back in the direction of our home. Don’t tell me he didn’t know a good thing when he saw it!
There’s a mouse in the bathroom, what I’m-a gonna do?
Well, hysterical screaming is appropriate in any and all circumstances, but I did have a child in the house and was doing my best to not freak everyone else out. I was taking a shower when I noticed a thin strip of something hanging down from between the top of the glass and the railing that holds the glass in. Thinking it was like waterproof stripping or something, I moved in closer to see what my next home repair project would be. This is what I saw:
- ewwww!!!!!
Clinging on for dear life — that mouse was shaking! As was I. Hubby wasn’t home, so I couldn’t run screaming to him, th0ugh I did leave a screaming message on his cell. I couldn’t figure out how I could handle our Chinese Dwarf Hamster (which is really just a tail-less field mouse) but get so creeped-out by this run-of-the-mill North American field mouse. He did see me naked and that is kind of gross — a peeping mouse — blech! And just when I had screwed up my courage to grab him by his disgusting pink tail — he pulled it in. So I put the cat in the bathroom and told her to be a cat.
Lemme outta here!
So child and I fled the house, to the barn, where we are surrounded by all sorts of rodents and other creepy-crawly things. Hubby pulled the mouse out by its tail, with a pair of needle-nose pliers (or so he says — I know he used my tweezers). He released the small beast in the woods at the end of our block. I am wondering why we keep all these predators in our home if none of them will — predate?
Let the healing begin
- it’s getting better
so this is what it looks like today.. getting better and feeling better — or maybe I’m just so distracted by my latest mouth trauma. I can’t figure out how the doc is going to find the stitches in order to take them out, but my mother, in her infinite wisdom, told me, “that’s their problem!” I’ve got two vicodin left, won’t dare take them — I’m saving one for the removal of the finger stitches, the other for the removal of the mouth stitches. I have no idea of how many stitches are in my mouth. The doc told me “don’t worry, no charge for the additional frenulectomy I had to do.” I would have liked to have said, “don’t worry, I won’t be suing you for not telling me you were going to do a surgical procedure before you did it!!!” But I couldn’t because I had a mouthful of metal instruments stuck down my gullet. I’d post a pic of the mouth but I can’t open it – if I see another container of yogurt, I might barf. But I hope not, since I can’t open my mouth and….I just really grossed myself out. Bleh.
snoeberry 