July 2009

I Wanna Be A Whale

This little gem was too good not to be passed on.

Recently, in large French city, a poster featuring a young, thin and tan woman appeared in the window of a gym. It said:

“THIS SUMMER DO YOU WANT TO BE A MERMAID OR A WHALE?”

A middle aged woman, whose physical characteristics did not match those of the woman on the poster, responded publicly to the question posed by the gym.

To Whom It May Concern:

Whales are always surrounded by friends (dolphins, sea lions, curious humans). They have active sex lives, they get pregnant, and they have adorable baby whales. They have a wonderful time with dolphins, stuffing themselves with shrimp. They play and swim in the seas, seeing wonderful places like Patagonia, the Bering Sea and the coral reefs of Polynesia. Whales are wonderful singers and have even recorded CDs. They are incredible creatures and have virtually no predators other than humans. They are loved, protected and admired by almost everyone in the world.

Mermaids don’t exist. If they did exist, they would be lining up outside the offices of Argentinean psychoanalysts due to identity crisis. Fish or human? They don’t have a sex life because they kill men who get close to them — not to mention, how could they have sex? Therefore they do not have kids. Not to mention, who wants to get close to a girl who smells like a fish store?

The choice is perfectly clear to me; I want to be a whale.

P.S. We are in an age when media puts into our heads the idea that only skinny people are beautiful, but I prefer to enjoy an ice cream with my kids, a good dinner with a man who makes me shiver and a coffee with my friends. With time, we gain weight because we accumulate so much information and wisdom in our heads that, when there is no more room, it distributes out to the rest of our bodies. So we aren’t heavy, we are enormously cultured, educated, and happy. Beginning today, when I look at my butt in the mirror I will think,”Good gosh, look how smart I am!!”

While the cat’s away….

From my name, I’m sure that you can deduce that I live in the city of Miami. Like many other cities across the country, many, many homes are currently in foreclosure. It just so happens that the house next door to us is one of these homes.

Currently, the grass is growing up pretty high. It’s somewhat of a haven for mosquitoes. Granted, we have a 6 foot privacy fence, but those don’t deter critters. We haven’t made much of a stink about the maintenance of the house because, well, for the most part, we can’t see it. But, and there’s always a but, something happened to change our point of view.

Let’s rewind the clock about a week. Lovey* and I had just returned from vacation. Road weary from our 45 minute trip (yes, that’s sarcasm), we entered our abode with plans of putting things away and then resting. First stop, the kitchen to put away the remaining booze.

As I enter the kitchen, the first thing that I notice is that my package of bread is on the floor. Mind you, this isn’t a big loaf of bread, it’s a small package of round sandwich bread all healthy and stuff. And it’s on the floor. Which is not where I left it.

I picked up my bread and wondered why the heck it was on the floor. Lovey took the bag from me and deposited it in the garbage. On the way to the garbage can, however, he noticed that there were some holes in the bag. A mouse. Grrrr.

Now, let me say this. I run a clean house. Yes, it’s dusty occasionally and there may be a fur tumbleweed because the dog perpetually sheds, but overall, we’re clean and I have never seen a rodent in the house in the 4.5 years that I’ve been living there.

We don’t see our new “house guest” anywhere so we proceed to unpack. Not long goes by before Lovey hears some rustling behind the dryer and it is there we find the culprit. The bread bag chewer. The mouse turd dropper. And it’s a tiny little thing. But still, it is not welcome. So we set a mouse trap for the little bugger.

Turns out that it got in through the dryer vent and chewed through the hose! Determined little bastard. Apparently, someone disturbed its habitat next door so it came to see what else it could find. Well, my dear mouse, a mistake you have made.

Don’t go all PETA on me here. Lovey decided he would try to shoot the mouse with his BB gun. My only thought was ‘man, that thing is gonna EXPLODE!’ Fortunately, he missed and the mouse went back to hide. Woo! No cleaning up mouse guts!

A trip to Home Depot for a new dryer vent proved uneventful and we were fairly certain that the mouse had gone back outside, so the vent was installed, the trap was set, and we basically forgot about it. All of this happened on Saturday.

No sign of mousey on Sunday.

Monday morning, I was up early, getting my workout on downstairs. While I was letting the dog do her thing outside, I went to do my thing inside. I turned on the bathroom light and nearly shit myself as what to my wondering eyes did appear? A little brown mouse trying to get out of the toilet. Awwwww. FLUSH!

(Did you think I was gonna pull that thing out of the toilet?!?!)

One courtesy flush later, I was still a little scared to sit on the toilet. Who wants a wet angry mouse to bite their ass?

I think they can swim. I wonder where it ended up. Wherever it is, it has a great mouse story to tell its friends.

FIRST!

Welcome to my new home.

I’m going to try to keep this updated, particularly through football season (Go Stillers!), but don’t yell at me if I slack off. 🙂

Not every post will be football related, there will also be plenty of things I just need to get off my chest. You know what really grinds my gears?!?!

Hang on, it’s gonna be one hell of a ride!