Amber of the Moment

We live in a third floor apartment. You would think that this would mean that we would be spared from mice. I mean, they aren't getting in through the windows! Unfortunately we seem to have attracted a number of the little bastards. Matt was the one who first noticed one peeking out from behind the TV stand in the living room.

From there we bought some traps (mice like peanut butter more than cheese) and tried to contact our building manager. It took a long time for him to get back to us which was incredibly frustrating. We caught 7 mice in total (in a week) and four in one night! What the heck!!!! One of them died less than a foot away from me while I was checking my email! Seriously not cool.

When we managed to talk to the manager he said that they would have pest control come to our apartment and check things out. Of course, this conversation happened at about 9 pm at night and the manager said that "maybe" the guy would come the next morning and if he hadn't arrived by noon to call and let the manager know.

Needless to say, I was skeptical that anyone would arrive. So what did I do? I tempted fate. I woke up, sat around in my pajamas, didn't brush my teeth, hadn't showered (I didn't work until 3 pm), well you get the picture. This guaranteed that the pest control guy would arrive! And he did! Immediately I began shuffling around, concerned about the appearance of my apartment. Why didn't I expect him to come!? He is going to judge me!

For the most part our place is pretty clean and he must have seen a lot worse... Right? I'm sure all the other mouse infested homes looked like the one in the picture. I awkwardly made small talk with the pimple faced exterminator (see, I can judge too!) and he got to work looking for entry holes. He said it was pretty clear that if our apartment on the third floor was having issues then there were issues in other apartments. The mice were traveling around through the radiators.

I never know what to do when service people come to my place. Am I supposed to sit and watch them? Chat? Let them do their work unattended and risk them stealing something? Call a therapist and speak to them about my paranoia that an exterminator is going to steal something? What do you do? I have the same problem when the cable guy comes. I decided to wash my dishes because I would still be a presence and able to see and hear what he was doing but at the same time I could impress him with my cleanliness. See! It's not MY PLACE that is the true problem. It's the guy next door with his toxic waste collection!

Since the guy left we haven't seen any more mice in our apartment. I think he was pretty successful with blocking the hole. However, I do occasionally hear them scritch scratching and trying to get in. Or is that my paranoia again?

Wally Lamb is the author of one of my favorite books: She's Come Undone. Obviously I couldn't resist buying his newest novel. I think I like his novels because he writes about people who have real problems. This novel is quasi-fictional and deals with two fictional characters dealing with the very non-fictional massacre at Columbine high school.

The main characters are a teacher at Columbine and his wife who is the school nurse. He is away dealing with the death of a close relative when the massacre happens and his wife is one of the people who was in the library but managed to survive by hiding in a small cupboard. The rest of the book details the aftermath of this event on their lives and those around them. His wife develops chronic long term post traumatic stress disorder. They decide to move. Therapy is involved. He works numerous jobs to try and keep up with therapy costs and the loss of her income since she is no longer capable of working.

I have to say that I liked the book but it's a tough read. It was a bit hopeless, sad and futile. I also didn't really care for the ending it. I had one of those, "Really!? That was it?" moments. I also wasn't crazy about the subplot about the husband's family history. I have to say that a lot of research went into creating this book and probably someone more interested in American history would enjoy it more.

It's a long book so there were definitely a few quotes that caught my eye.

"Religion's just a well-oiled, profit-driven denial of the randomness of it all."

"It reminded me that they were more than just their scholarly shortcomings and gripes about the workload. Each had a history, a set of problems. Each, for better or worse, was anchored to a family."

"Our ancestors move along with us, in underground rivers and springs too deep for chaos to reach."

"A woman who surrenders her freedom need not surrender her dignity."

If you've never read a book by Lamb I would recommend you bypass this one and read one of his other novels instead. It seemed like he probably put the most work into this one, however, it seemed to lose some of it's heart in the process. Or maybe there is such a thing as too much tragedy happening to good characters.

It might be a cop out but I did another slide show. There are just so many pictures though and this makes it easier to show them all. I couldn't find a nice background for it so even though the candle doesn't really have much to do with Halloween, it will have to do.

Through some sort of miracle I had Halloween weekend off. Since it's possible I haven't complained to everyone in the world, my work schedule sucks a lot. Need proof? I work until 11pm on Christmas and then I get New Year's Eve off but work at 7 am on New Year's Day. Yeah.

Anyway, I don't want to open that can of rage right now. Asia doesn't really celebrate Halloween (other than in a watered down, bastardized form) so I was pretty excited this year and decided to go all out. Steph and Alisse hosted a party at their place and I helped with a lot of the preparations. I carved a pumpkin, helped decorate, decorated a gingerbread house, helped make a million orange and purple (they looked black) jello shots and I made a spooky Halloween themed appetizer for the party. Here's a slide show of all the hard work.

Last Tuesday I had the evening off so I was able to participate in Name That Tune. Matt opted out (probably since he isn't very helpful but also because he was busy filling out law school applications) so it was just us four girls. We had a big plan to seduce the team that usually wins first place, however, they didn't show up. This forced us to use our other talents besides our feminine wiles.

As it turned out, we are pretty awesome. We got 2nd place and 2nd place gets a prize! More importantly, we kicked our rivals butts! I really felt like I contributed this week. I was able to instantly identify this obscure song:

But we did need Matt this week- there was a Forrest Gump Soundtrack category and he loves that cd. If he'd been there we might have won first! Next time... Next time! (BTW- I got my haircut that day. I don't think I like it but I usually hate my haircuts.)

We are doing some epic Halloween type things- stay tuned to see all the ghoulish stuff we created. My costume is almost finished and it's time for our Halloween party!! What are your plans for Halloween?

I have just been really busy. My schedule for work is a bit unbalanced so I was working a lot last week. I've had some time off and that has been used to frantically prepare for Halloween. I am really excited! Asia doesn't really do Halloween so it's been awhile since I really celebrated it. Steph is hardcore into stuff like I am so we're being pretty ambitious. Maybe it will backfire? Anyway, look forward to some updates about our Halloween tasks soon!