Sam

Sam sat in his home, with his rather large family gathered in front of him, gathered in another interminably long and tedious family meeting.

"Ok," Sam said tiredly.  "We've already covered this.  Betsy," he said, looking at his niece, "you already got your privileges, you got them a two months after we moved here.  And you, Ebony, got yours as well a few weeks later.  We all know that was only right and fair, and you can get away with anything that my son, Tommy could have from the beginning."

Sam sighed, and looked to two adults sitting in a love seat on one side of the room.  "Uncle Adam, Aunt Steve, I'm still just not quite sure you two really should get all of those same privileges, it might cause too many problems.  I'm fairly sure you should, but I'm just not quite ready to—"

A noise from the other room cut Sam off, and he glanced angrily at a closed door.  "Norman!  Cut that racket out!  You can't come out of your room until you start behaving!  Now keep those two girls quiet, and don't make me come in there!"

Sam turned back to Adam and Steve and was about to continue speaking, when some mumbling started. He glared at the other child seated in front of him, young Ashton.  He admonished the child, who wore a simple yellow shirt and cut-off shorts.  "Ashton, you wait your turn.  I haven't figured out how to handle these two yet, much less someone like you!"

Turning back to the adults, he spoke once more.  "Now, I'm prepared to accept that you want and deserve some of the same privileges, but we cannot allow—"  Sam's sentence transformed into a frustrated growl as the power went out, struggled to come back on, and settled for a barely lit brown-out.

"What am I supposed to do now?!" He cried.  "I can barely keep the lights on in here, much less figure out how to settle the problem with these two!"

Just then, Sam's wife, Lady, grabbed a flashlight, turned it on, and held it upwards, reflecting the light off the ceiling to illuminate the entire room.  "Sam, dear, calm down.  We have been through far worse than this before and we came out of it alright, remember?"  Sam grudgingly nodded.  "Good," Lady continued.  "Now do you remember why we moved out here, away from our former homes, to live here together under this roof?"

Sam nodded.  "Yes, we were tired of being mistreated."

"And why did our nieces and nephews and aunts and uncles all start moving here?"

Sam grumbled, "They were tired of being mistreated, and thought things would be better here."

Lady stood up, walking over towards Sam.  "That's right, dear.  They were tired of being mistreated, which is why we all came here.  Things aren't the best right now, no, but they will get better in time.  But throughout and despite that, we cannot allow ourselves to forget the best parts about ourselves."

Sam glanced at his aunt and uncle, sitting quietly on their love seat, and then over towards Ashton, waiting hopefully for some attention.  Lady glanced at him, pride in her eyes despite Sam's hesitation.  "Give it time.  Remember how much you fought against Betsy and Ebony, when they brought up their problems?  You hated it then, but now you take it for granted that they should have and deserve equal rights and privileges.  This will be the same, in time. "

Sam nodded slowly, and opened his mouth to speak once more.

"Bikeride"

Lincoln has learned a new word, rather quickly this time.  "Bikeride."  Not "bike ride," but real close together where it sounds more like some kind of foreign dessert than the individual words.  Two days ago he went for his first "ride," where he runs alongside me on my bike.  Once we switched to his long leash rather than the short one he uses for car rides (it buckles in, it's fantastic), he was thrilled with it.  Ran like the wind about half of a mile down, then came back, only veering slightly for a beagle that only appears if there's another dog on the road.

I asked him today if he wanted to go for a "bikeride" and he went crazy, running back and forth from me to the door until I was ready, then led me to the shed for the bike, and straight on to the gate.  He even was eager for the harness.  Then we were off.

And not even halfway down the driveway I was off, of my bike in this case.

Apparently in his excitement, Link completely forgot about how he had learned fairly quickly "stay to the right of the bike and go straight" and decided to weave  like crazy back and forth, making me have to veer, hit the breaks, and hit the driveway.

Thankfully, I have a dirt driveway, and this was not in the rocky portion, it wasn't even the muddy one, surprisingly.

After we were back on our way, he continued to forget how to stay to the side, and wore himself out.  We went the same distance we had last time (after which he was tired, but still capable of running).  On the way back, however, he was too tired to run at all quickly, which gave him time to decide to try to veer off suddenly to inspect the mailboxes.  By the time we made it back to the driveway I was about ready to pick him up and haul him back, but he finally made it back inside and immediately splashed his water dish across my freshly mopped kitchen floor.  I suppose some of it made it down his throat, but I'm not sure.

I'm dreading tomorrow's "bikeride."  Definitely not taking him to Sparky's place, way too much asphalt and way too little soft grass there.

The Raccoon Returns

I know it's been a long time since I have even touched this blog, and I apologize for that.  My time and urge for creativity has been taken up by other projects, such as a gallery show and another long term project I still have in the works.  But more on that another time (if you're lucky).

This past fall I had a couple of encounters with raccoons, namely them waking me up at four in the morning, pissing me off.  After that, I had a small rat problem, during which a single mouse was caught as well.  The final solution involved a barricade in my air duct, blocking the passage, while leaving a pair of glue traps on the side from which the rats accessed that portion of the duct (which led straight to my bedroom, robbing me of sleep as they tried to eat a hole in the metal).  After the rats disappeared, I simply left the barricade and associated trap in place as a preventive measure.  I spent the next few months checking it periodically, eventually letting this drop off completely as there was nothing to find.

Yet another time there was a drunken, injured, sick, or simply stupid bat flying around my front door, freaking out both my dog and myself.  This is why, when over the last week or so I heard high pitched squeaking sounds, I assumed that it was from bats outside, as for a number of nights my window next to the bed stayed open.  It only would happen at night when I was in the bedroom, so I thought nothing more of it.

Until it happened when the window was shut, and I could finally tell that it was not coming from outside.

As per standard reaction, I immediately grabbed my knife and flashlight, and followed the dog (who was going crazy) out to the other room.  My first thought was "crap, the bat's inside," especially as the dog himself was looking up at the ceiling in confusion.  Then we both realized (thanks to the cat, to be fair) that it was coming from the vent.  I opened it up, shined the flashlight in (shone the flashlight?), then told myself that I refused to deal with it just then, and put the vent cover back on.

What it was, as it turned out, was a mouse stuck to the glue trap, along with three additional mice who had already died (I assume, I did not check to be sure, but the live one was obviously alive, so I assumed that the others were dead).  There were also the hairs of some larger animal, neither mouse nor rat, stuck along the barricade, though the traps themselves were not overly disturbed and there was no additional sign of the creature.

I tossed the traps out, replaced them, and cleaned out the hair.  Last night, nothing happened.  Tonight, I heard some sound (I was watching a show online with Sparky, wearing earphones, so I cannot say what exactly it was), followed the boys out, and heard a panicked squeaking.  I did not check the trap as I felt it safe to assume it was stuck, then went back to the show.

There is no mouse stuck in the trap, and the squeaking stopped by the time I went back out to take the mouse out of its misery (and so I would not have to hear it all night), but there was another big tuft of hair in the duct.  Looking online at my most likely suspect confirmed both that they do eat small animals and the colors of the hair (they were an inch to an inch and a half long, with light and dark bands with frosted tips, vaguely wavy), so I am fairly confident that I have three things, one of which is a big hole in the duct-work, and I know exactly where it probably is.  Another is a gap in the siding that I was not aware of.  And finally I have a raccoon stalking mice in my air ducts.

Of course, it is entirely possible that I had a raccoon under my house and then sealed up his escape hole, and he is simply starving and trying to find his way out.  I will have to consider that possibility.

Now I am faced with a dilemma.  If I assume that the raccoon is finding his way in and out and I seal any gaps, I could be trapping him in there, or I could be keeping him out.  If I assume he is trapped in there, and I open it, I could be letting more things under there.  Furthermore, regardless of that, if I (or rather, Sparky, as I am claustrophobic) seal up the hole in the vent, I could be keeping him out or trapping him in.  In which case he will either die in my ducts, which would make me feel guilty and create a horrible stench, or he will create a bigger mess by breaking his way out of it somewhere, or even figure out how to come up out of the vents themselves into the house, giving me a heart attack, giving the cat a heart attack, and giving the dog a new playmate, which the raccoon would not be happy about and would then hurt the dog.  All said, that is a low possibility, but I am learning not to underestimate these things.

I'm making myself dizzy and uncomfortable.  Time for bed.