Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Out of Balance

The Balance Test of What Is "Normal" when standing on one leg with hands on hips:
   Ages 40-49     42 seconds with eyes open, 13 seconds with eyes closed
  Ages 70-79      22 seconds with eyes open, 3 seconds with eyes closed
                             No cheating!

Monday, September 28, 2015

Rodent Control

 I stopped at Lowe's today and invested in a supply of mousetraps.  We have had no signs of mice for 10 years, when our new 4-month old kitten, Maybe, caught a mouse as it emerged from beneath the oven door.  I keep our fall decor Indian corn in a mesh bag in the basement.  During the few years when we were catless, some of the corn would be nibbled off the ears.  But for the last decade, we've been able to use the same corn.  Until this year.  One ear was completely stripped of its kernels.  Well, down in the cellar, who cares?  But the mice moved upstairs, a whole litter of them apparently.  Oddly enough, they haven't gnawed into any of the sealed cartons or boxes of food. Everything else is in the refrigerator so the only thing they've nibbled on is the tomatoes I've left to ripen on the kitchen counter.  It appears that Maybe has retired from catching mice; she only stares in the direction where she senses they are, quite accurately too.  I suspect the mice are eating her catfood at night.  Her dish is cleaned out in the morning, unusual for her.
    In the past few weeks I've collected all the unused traps from the basement, the cabinet and even in the outdoor shed.  I've challenged myself to bait and set them and even remove the little coffins from the counters after they snap, but there is no way that I can bring myself to remove the carcass from the traps, so mouse and trap goes into the garbage.  So I ran out of traps.
   Today I bought different versions of the mousetrap.  They are by TOMCAT, and one set of traps is billed as disposable and the other as reusable.  They are guaranteed to kill mice, have a one-touch set, and offer clean disposal.  They are plastic and almost attractive.  The disposable traps contain the trapped mouse after it triggers the spring, and you can throw it away without ever laying eyes on the body.  The reusable model is black plastic, and after the mouse springs the setting, you can release its body by pressing the lever on the closed, opposite end, or else throw the whole thing away.
     Right now, I have 3 traps set, baited with peanut butter.  I have a minor panic attack whenever I hear the loud snap.  I'm hoping the mice have all been eradicated, or have moved away.
      I have the thought that when Pope Francis said that there was a place in heaven for all God's creatures if that would  include mice, and if so, how will they react meeting those who killed them.  And what about termites and cockroaches?

Sunday, September 27, 2015

Documentation

 I got up early this morning and the house was cold.  I wrapped myself in a blanket and turned on the TV to the early news, as usual.  The meteorologist said it was so chilly that he had turned on the heat in his house.  AHA, I thought and turned the heat on.  What a breakthrough!

And then this happened

  I had a dream that I sawed a black and white rat in half with a wooden stick.

Social Interactions

   Since mine are rare and sparse nowadays, I probably pay attention to those which I used to ignore---back in the days when I had regular contact with more or less normal human beings, who welcomed social interactions.
    I was on an outing the other day, a rare enough event, a medical visit, unfortunately not rare at all.  I had in my possession a Handicapped hangtag, fully legitimate too, from the Town of Pittstown, valid for my passenger.  On the way home, we stopped at Walmart, and I pulled into the nearest handicapped parking slot, as close to the store as possible, wanting to lessen the walking distance. As I got out of the car, a tall, white-haired woman who had parked in the aisle across from me called out that I had parked wrong.  Actually, I was in the lined part that I think is meant for lowering wheelchairs.  I started to turn back, thinking I'd move my car over a few feet, but a man approached from further down the parking lot, and told me I was fine, that I didn't have to move my car.  I'm so darned polite these days that I'd already thanked the white-haired woman for her input, and now I thanked him for his.  He then crossed over to where the woman was, and started telling her his opinion.  I didn't stop to  listen, just walked into the store.  When we came back out, my car was just as I left it, no problems.  The worst that had happened was that during the brief exchange, Dave had entered the store and zoomed off out of sight in the motorized shopping cart, and to locate him, I had to ask a clerk where the Printer Ink section was.
    Almost as exciting a conversation as when he was getting a haircut and I was reading the newspaper.  A man came in and sat next to me, and evidently glanced at the paper.  "Is Yogi Berra dead?" he asked. I answered yes, that's why everybody on TV is recalling his quotes.  He didn't watch TV, he said.  I handed him the newspaper so he could catch up.  He took it, but said he didn't read the papers either.

Saturday, September 19, 2015

Another Drop in the Bucket

      Pretty soon I'll need to bring in the Spider Plants, about eleven of them, and subject the now healthy-looking plants to nine months of miserable confinement in the depths of the basement, from which they will emerge pale and emaciated next spring, if all goes as routine dictates.   In order to clear a little space, I tried to reinstate the cellar-cleaning process I began this spring.  I realize there is some market for metal, so last evening out went a number of curtain rods, large and small, two old metal shovels, a broken tool, a piece of plumbing hardware, an old badminton set with metal posts, some metal mop and broom handles and some other unidentifiable pieces.  I put them in a cardboard box on the edge of the lot.  This morning, all that is left is the box.
      A while ago, I watched an episode of "Hoarders" where the affected woman went out to the dumpster and pulled off any of the trash that was metal, insisting it should be recycled, that people were desperately poor and would willingly claim it.  She must be right.  I guess one man's trash really is...oh, you know the cliche.

Friday, September 18, 2015

Crossing the Bridge

     That sounds so symbolic.  I know all the good little doggies cross the Rainbow Bridge to their Forever Homes, but I'm referring to the Valley Falls Bridge.  And by crossing that bridge, I don't mean driving over it, but walking across it.  Time was walking across the bridge was a common occurrence for us.  We used to walk to Dwyer's Pond for ice skating, though since my sister and I didn't own skates, we must have just watched. Some years later, a younger group of kids was enroute to the pond when a child ran to the woman in the house next door crying that her daughter was "stuck on the bridge."  The mother thought that her daughter had tried to climb over the rail and under the bridge like the boys used to, but she found out that it was her daughter's tongue that was stuck to the iron railing, the result of curiosity and a dare.  She took off in her car with a teakettle of hot water, and solved that problem.
    When we were really young, I remember walking to Brackley's house with my brother.  I think his parents must have thought it a good idea, the time we were recent citizens of the Village.  The sidewalk over the bridge then had a lower and narrow curb alongside it. My fear of heights made me walk across that first day on the very narrow side curb.  I didn't want to be close to the rail of the bridge.
    Later on, the bridge was just a place to walk.  We walked kids we were babysitting over it just for another place to go.  I remember a few times we walked home from the movie theater in Schaghticoke at night, after the show, the times when we could get a ride over, but not a return trip.  During our high school years, it was a common practice for boys in cars, from neighboring vicinities, to cruise around and talk to girls through their  rolled down car windows, and the bridge was the ideal place for a confrontation of that sort.  A little exhilarating, but perfectly safe, back in those days.  No one, of us anyway, ever got IN the car, or were even asked to.  And of course we walked to the Schaghticoke Fair---nobody ever had a car, and all the fathers worked.  When Ben Geren opened a small grocery store in his home, we would occasionally shop there if Sammy's was out of a certain product.
    Some of the kids, boys naturally, used to climb over the rail of the bridge and lower themselves down onto the beams underneath where pigeons nested. What they did to those pigeons is best left unsaid.  Another boy was a springtime visitor, carrying a bag of kittens, ordered by his parents to dispose of them.  I suppose  the requisite rock was also in the bag.  I never asked or wanted to know.   One interesting thing about the old Valley Falls Bridge was the stairway.  That was a favorite adventure, a good place to occupy the walking skills of the kids we were watching; all kids loved climbing.  The all-metal stairway wound down along  the west side of the bridge for the convenience of the mill workers, and there were many who utilized it regularly.
     By the "old bridge," I mean the one built in probably the 1940's or maybe even the 30's.   The original bridge, before our time, was lower and carries a sad connotation for our family, as it was the bridge my Uncle Joe's only child, Joseph, fell from and drowned at the age of eleven.  Tragically, the boys he was playing with ran home, frightened, and hid in their bedrooms, afraid to tell what they had seen. Or so the story went, along with the speculation that they might have contributed to his fall, but that was of course a possibility that was never pursued, not in those days.
   I crossed the bridge today.  I walked across it.  I don't know how long it has been since I last did so, but it was a long time ago.  It seemed a shorter walk somehow. Probably the last time I crossed the bridge there was a sidewalk on either side, but  I had to return today on the same side I walked over on.  So I missed some of the view.  The view of the trees along the river, toward where I live, borders on the spectacular, even though this September is still green.  I don't know when my next walk across the bridge will be---we'll cross that bridge when...
 

And it's Not Even 6:00 A.M.

     When I can't sleep, as is often the case, I get up and turn on the computer, and read or write stories. Since I no longer have any deadlines to meet or any reason to be up and out early, I don't mind being sleepless, and find it rather comforting to while away my time, alone in the kitchen area. But this morning I was not quite alone. Maybe had stayed in because she'd switched her focus from staring under the oven door to peering under the dishwasher. After all these years, almost a decade, of having a mouse-free house, two mice have met their doom inside our house. I've heard if you see one mouse, that means there are a lot more, some very high number which I can't recall. A hundred, could be. So we let the cat stay in our living area.
     While at the computer, in the very early morning hours, I heard a crash. Maybe had leapt up onto the sink, and a few nearby items went flying. As I ran to the sink, Maybe jumped down. She knows she's not supposed to be there, and strictly obeys that rule, usually. I looked into the sink and saw a mouse, which, I say with shame, always makes me scream. I'm not really scared of mice. The mouse ran along the counter and out of sight. I tried to get the cat to pursue it, but she slunk away, afraid of being in trouble for being on the counter, or more accurately, in the sink.
      I hadn't had breakfast yet, usually a blueberry waffle, but the thought of using any dish or appliance that might have had mouse contact made me lose my appetite anyway. I'm not a fastidious housekeeper by any means, but rodent leavings are a different story. I grabbed the spray bottle of anti-bacterial cleaner from the counter, and a few old towels and started cleaning everything in sight. I loaded the dishwasher with everything that could go in it, including a few items that probably shouldn't. I threw away the old bread, washed the breadbox and the wall behind it.
      Then I remembered seeing a package of unused mousetraps in the storage area of the family room and retrieved them. Before settling down again at the computer, I set a mousetrap, the old fashioned kind with the lever. I may have set a few traps back in the old days, but I have to say it seemed like a new experience for me. First of all, the tension is very strong, likely to snap a little mouse right in two, I thought. I also had the thought that it was capable of severing a human finger if one were unlucky enough to land in its grip. I did incur a side-snap and a bruise on the side of my right middle finger, but no major damage. I dabbed a bit of peanut butter on the target and slid the set trap into the freshly sanitized area behind the breadbox.
      It's still early and I went back to the computer, researching some improbable fact or such. Not twenty minutes later, over the sound of the dishwasher, I heard a snap, quite a loud snap. Aha, I thought, and waited. But I did not hear the sound of silence, but of a thrashing around. Death spasms, I thought, and hoped. But no, the sounds persisted--10, 20, 30 minutes passed, and more. Not a sure hit, must be the mouse has a paw caught, or maybe two paws. I had visions of the mouse crawling out on its back legs, with bloody stumps where it had gnawed off its trapped front paws. Nothing happened. Except the sporadic thrashing sounds.
      I've got to do something. I go outside, find a large bucket, turn on the hose, half-fill it with water. I put on a pair of rubber gloves, locate and don a face mask (from a pack David sent us during some kind of epidemic). I gingerly pull aside the breadbox. I try not to look but can't help but see that the mouse is caught by its arm and shoulder. I reach in with my gloved hand, and deposit mouse and trap in the bucket of water. That should do it, I think. But no again. The wood in the trap is made of some type of light wood, balsa maybe or just a light pine. Anyway, whatever wood it is floats. And the little mouse is using it like a surf board, holding its head above water, and using its other legs to swim around.
     WHAT WOULD YOU DO NOW?

Sunday, September 13, 2015

Endless Apples

    Sisyphus has nothing on me, not when I'm staring into a bowl of apples.  The more of them I peel, the more they seem to multiply.  It's not exactly rolling a boulder, but it does appear to be an endless task.

Back to What

 "It's late September and I really should be back in school."  But not really, not any more,   Though the month of September still brings with it that achy, yearning, unsettled feeling. My mother used to refer to that kind of nervous anxiety as "the new-school feeling."  She suffered from it, or rather endured it, all her life, dating back to the hardship of her school days when poverty and misfortune were considered sinful and deserving of contempt from the more fortunate.  Unlike today, right?  Anyway, this will be the third year that I haven't returned to school in some capacity.  I still get that unsettled feeling, culminating I suppose from past experience combined with nostalgia.  Possibly it would go away if only the school year started in January or April or some month not associated with the end of things.

Saturday, September 12, 2015

Of Mice and .....

...well, you know.  It's that time of year in the rodent world, time to start preparing for winter. Maybe has been crouching on the kitchen floor in a hunting stance and staring under the oven door.  She's begun her second decade  now, and I don't know what's going on in her head; almost exactly ten years ago, when she was still a kitten, she caught her one and only mouse (as far as we know) as it came out from under the oven drawer.  So it could be she's reliving past dreams of her youthful glory, or else there really is a mouse presence there.
    I pulled the drawer out from under the stove, and checked.  I saw no signs of mouse infiltration, if you know what I mean.  Maybe was very interested in the area though, so I left the drawer, with its content of pans and lids, out for a while.  She kept staring, and eventually crawled into the space, and lay down there for a while. So far, nothing. I'll probably replace the drawer today.
  Earlier in the summer, I'd re-stained the outdoor shed with some leftover redwood paint from the basement, and, wanting to do something outside today while it's still nice weather, I took  the broom over to sweep off the grass and webs that had already begun to accumulate on and near the shed. I opened the doors to it, and swept inside.  A box has been in there for over four years now, filled with a few board games and a number of nicely framed pictures.  Time to deal with it, I thought, and carried the box out to the nearby picnic table.  I placed the box on top of the table and leaned over to remove  a picture, and then another.  At that, I found myself staring closeup into the eyes of an immobilized mouse.  She just sat there, inches from my face, and stared.  Until she heard a scream that is, a scream that came from some primal source within me.  Because I'm not really afraid of mice.  At that, she took off, and I saw the reason why she'd stayed in that nest of grass. Inside  it were seven little pink squirming baby newborn mice,   I just walked away and left them there.  This morning the box is still out there, on the picnic table.  What lies within, I don't know.
   Does anyone need some picture frames?  They're really nice.

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Cookies

     Seven cookie entries, all first place blue ribbon winners:  sugar cookies, butter cookies, oatmeal cookies, chocolate cookies, chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter cookies and snickerdoodles.  (The peanut butter cookies were topped with  Boston Red Sox roasted peanuts straight from Fenway.  Yesterday I was told by the gifter that the peanuts  were spoiled, but none of the food judges died, as far as I know. I think the peanuts were just a little under-roasted, so slightly chewier than the norm, not lethal at all.

Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Rules of the Road

That red splotchy area of gravel, by the entrance or intersection of the new bridge in Schaghticoke, what is its significance and why is it there?  The part in the raised concrete bed, I get that, but the rest of it????

Dwindling Down

"Oh, it's a long long while from May to December, but the days grow short when you reach September..."

Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Fair Warning

    He is a Town Justice and he has as many as fifty cases on court night. He has been judge for twenty some years and where the cases he once heard were primarily traffic offenses, now most of his cases are drug and domestic violence cases, with most of  the latter attributable to drugs.   He advises us to always keep our doors locked, and if anyone comes to the door, don't open it; if they don't go away,  go get your shotgun.