...the next chapter

i called my friends that raise rats, snakes, mice and dogs and asked them what i should do with these suffering little babies. they said they have this stuff that you put in a container with them and it puts them to sleep and they die (they work in a rat lab). so i was going to go get some from them when they called back and said they'd feed them to their hungry snake. so i took them...in a girl scout thin mints box... to feed to their snake. and the snake lived happily ever after.

so it turns out, i'm not just a rat killer...i'm a mother rat killer. a baby was out looking for its mom tonight. it was so new, it's eyes weren't even open yet. i asked my husband to take it to the curb. then, after taking my daughter out to see it, i told him he could put it in front of the exhaust fumes for a few minutes to kill it. he asked if we could put it in a cage and feed it a bottle. i explained to him we're trying to get rid of the rats, not save them. so they decided to take it to the field and try to give it a chance. but by the time they got outside to take it, it had already died. so now is the quest to find the rest of the nest before they stink up the garage with their little bodies. anyone want to come clean out my garage? i'll even let you keep the little rodents.

later...i just went out and found the nest of two more babies, crying. i accidentally crushed the back legs of one and so he was dragging himself around and the other was barely alive. next to them was the skeleton of their mother, i assume. they must have been living off of her body. i don't think i'm going to sleep very well tonight. i better take extra sleeping pills tonight. i can't wait to tell you about my dreams tomorrow.

the joy of killing rats

lately we've had a bit of a rat problem. the pest control guy placed bait packets inside each side of the garage door. well, it's been working...on the mice. we've had about 4 dead mice in the rose garden in the past week and a half. although, grateful that i had not personally encountered a rat, i was a bit bummed out that we were not killing them...at least any that we'd found. so yesterday, when we were heading out to run errands, my daughter walked around to the driver's side of the car and said, very calmly, "uh, mom...there's a rat and it's alive". i rushed over to shove her away, since her curiosity always seems to take over and a rat on poison just does whatever. the electrician working on the pool across the street came walking towards us at this time and i asked him if he could help me with a rat. i handed him a shovel and he picked it up and threw it on the curbside lawn of our neighbors. it died very shortly after that, leaving their lawn guys to clean it up today. i was a little jittery from coming face to face with a live rat, but ecstatic about killing one. i'm all for lab testing on rats...they can have mine.

after a very exhausting day with children, my daughter discovers little bugs crawling around the living room. i don't think much of it until she later finds them swarming in the kitchen. I then find that they are even more abundant in the laundry room. so after an hour of trying to kill all the bugs and clean them up i was "sweating like a pig", except i really was sweating. after putting the girls to bed i found more and more of what i find out are actually rice weevil and unkillable. they have a little horn and a hard shell. so no matter how hard you smash them with a shoe, they don't die. raid is my best friend today. and this is what my new pets look like (i've got extra if anyone else needs a friend):

if i believed satan created anything on this earth...which i most certainly do not...i would believe these to be his creation.

hpv vaccine...pro or con?

so the big controversy is whether giving the hpv vaccine (a vaccine to help prevent the hpv virus which causes cervical cancer through sexual contact) to young girls is promoting pre-marital sex. i was watching oprah and they were discussing this and the reasons that it's a good idea. evidentally, 85% of us will be exposed to the hpv virus (through skin to skin contact). 95% of our bodies will fight the virus off.

i was really against this before watching this because i don't want my daughter to think it's ok to be having sex, but now that i've seen it, i agree with it under one condition. i would only want her to know that it may help prevent cancer later rather than telling her it's for an std. i think it would be a good idea in the case that, heaven forbid, she's assaulted someday.

texas wants to make this a mandatory vaccine for girls starting at age 9. i do think this is young, but it was also mentioned that it's not as effective when you're older. so, as long as we can tactfully and effectively teach our girls that it is for their good, but not be too explicit, i think it's a good idea. my only drawback now is, since it's in a way boosting the immune system, will it actually be a negative thing for my girls...being prone to lupus?

i smell a rat?

for some reason, i was thinking about all the cliches that compare us to animals and wondered why that is...since i'm sure we were doing these things before we ever noticed animals doing them. here are some of what i'm talking about:

-sly as a fox
-i'm not going to be your guinea pig
-i smell a rat
-sweating like a pig
-fat as a cow
-blind as a bat

you get my gist. i mean i don't know when it was that men found out bats were blind, but i can assume it was not before there were blind people around. shouldn't we say "that cow is as fat as henry". and, seriously, were pigs the first to sweat? i doubt that.

the reason rats smell is that they pee on everything as sort of a personal resume for other rats. so when we use the term "i smell a rat", we are saying we suspect someone of covering something up, when rats actually use their scent to share information about themselves, such as their sex, species, age, social status, reproductive status, and individual.

anyway, that was just something i was thinking about this morning. i think of unusual things while i'm watching dora the explorer.