Snap!
I woke up a few days ago, early. Sat up in bed and listened. What’s that? A noise, coming from the hallway.
First thought, “Where’s Chester?” Just like that he walks into the bedroom, jumps on the bed and lays down.
I’m suspicious.
I go into the hallway. Sure enough, he’d chomped the drywall and the baseboard. Nothing serious, superficial really, an easy repair. I shuffle back into the dark bedroom. The glow of his yellow eyes. He’s looking right at me. Does he know? Will he associate a scold with the misbehavior? Doubtful. I crawl back under the sheets, try to push him aside, to make room. (Imagine trying to move a sixty pound sack of rocks). Happy Wife murmurs, “What’d he do?”
“Go back to sleep, dear.”
We got our first dust of snow the other day. An inch, possibly more on the east side of town, nearer the mountains. Followed by melting, and then freezing, and then ice, and then cars in the ditch. That was a gray and angular morning. The clouds were so low the mountains were invisible. To look outside you’d have thought we lived in Nebraska. Nothing against Nebraska. It’s just the first topographically featureless state that jumped to mind. I could have said Kansas or Iowa. Eastern Wyoming. Florida!
Lately, there are other sounds in the house. Thin metal bars crushing the backs of mice — Snap! I bait the traps with Almond Butter. The All-Natural, No-Stir, Crunchy kind. Mice can’t resist it. I’ve no idea how they’re getting in the house or why they’re particularly bad this year. Global warming? Killed two beneath the kitchen sink and two in the garage. I threw the four corpses in the snow. The Ravens and Crows will recycle them.
I can’t find my balance at work. That’s a topic of a post all its own, if I cared to talk about it, and I really don’t. I don’t want to hasten the passage of years, who does. But let me tell you, I am anxiously looking forward to the day when we can start spending the money we’ve saved — the past 30+ years — instead of continuing to add to it. Ah, you say, we should consider ourselves fortunate we can still add to it, no? Of course; I’m not saying we’re ungrateful for the past, just ready for the future.
I’m only half kidding when I tell people I’m turning into a democrat. Single payer health insurance – count me in. Preservation of ALL social security benefits, ka ching. To hell with markets for health care and privatizing social security. It’s not that I’ve lost my conviction to self-interest, to the contrary! I just want what’s legally mine (social security), and would like never again to hear, Thank You For Calling Premara, Your Call Is Very Important Us.
Read recently that the rate of death of middle-aged white Americans is on the rise. Specifically, ages 45-54. That puts us in the clear.
But just barely.
When the researchers took a closer look at the death rate among middle-aged whites, they found that those with only a high school education or less saw a much larger rise in death rate than those who went to college.
Well, there you go. If further study should find that years in school is proportional to longer life, I expect to be the one turning out the lights.
Gotta go. Just now heard another Snap! come from the garage. Sheesh. Effin’ mice.