Toby...Bearer of Gifts

I came in the door two days ago and there sat Toby in a perfect sitting position. I looked his way and said, "Hi Tobe, what's up?" Then I did a double take.

Both he and Maggie are set to go to the groomers a little later on today. Both are so hairy they look like the proverbial dust mop without the handle. So it was a bit hard to see what was hanging out of his mouth but I was pretty sure it was a tail of a......

Oh.

My.

God!

What have you got? He came over to me wagging his whole body, he was so proud of what he had found. A treasure especially for me. Or maybe he figured he slayed a dragon he certainly acted proud enough. He proceeded to drop his plunder at my feet. There lying lifeless on the floor was a limp, slightly soggy, black mouse. "EWWWW! Gross!" I started doing the 'ooh it's a mouse' dance across my kitchen floor yelling for Dwight to come see what Toby found!

Well of course he came rushing in; I mean who wouldn't at the sound of my shrieking. He looks calmly at the mouse says, "Oh good boy Toby, look what you found", as he's reaching down to pet him and actually put the poor animal at ease because with my shrieking and hopping around like a maniacal escapee from the mental ward the poor dog thought he'd done something wrong. He calmly picked it up and went to send him on the proverbial water slide to his burial in the city sewer.

He loves to show me up like that. But don't think I didn't note he used needle nose pliers and plucked him up by the tail.

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Last night as I walked into my kitchen the wall of decomp hit my nostrils right about the area between the kitchen and dining room. Seriously, it was like an invisible wall. Now all day long I had been in and out of the kitchen and I'm sure the dead mouse had been bloating all that time. But it seems to reach a critical moment before the stink seems to begin to waft off of their decaying little bodies. And where was his chosen final resting place? Underneath our refrigerator of course. When Dwight came home he had to move the heavy appliance out once again (and it hasn't even been a week since the last time) and pick up his bloated, black little carcass and give him a burial in the sewer. What the mice find fascinating about the area under the fridge as a good place to die is beyond me. Unless it's warm from the fan blowing. And each time the fan came on it blew more of that fascinating odor known on CSI as decomp out into the air. At least he wasn't lying in 'dead guy juice' or in this case 'dead mouse juice.'

The DCon, I reported recently, that we laid all around the house is disappearing at an alarming rate. In each specially chosen area where the pets can't get it we have opened pouches and poured a little out. The mice have gone after it like it was a feast and even going into the bags to fetch more. But we've had to put more out and it keeps disappearing. So, where are the dead mice going to die? We know of the fridge, obviously. But they all aren't going there to die. You know what's going to happen don't you? I'm going to start smelling rotting, decaying corpses that I can't find to dispose of and we'll have to try to cover up the odor until the bodies dry up.
One night as I went in the laundry room to check on the rate of decline of those little green morsels our mice find yummy I discovered nary a pellet, crum or SACK! Perplexed I envisioned a giant rat, not mouse, running off with the nifty packet to show his family back at the proverbial nest. "Look honey at what I found!” This was rather disconcerting. Cautiously I called my hubby who was out of town. "Um, dear, the mice are eating the pellets like it's the best food in the house."

"Good, glad to hear it. It means the little bastards will begin dying!" he says with a deep throaty, muhaha ha ha kind of laugh.

"Yes", I said timidly, "but have you ever heard of them eating the packet too?"

Again more laughter only this was more of a delighted kind of glee reserved especially for me when he knows he has the perfect opening for me to look stupid. In between tears of hilarity he manages to get out, "no, I took the packet nitwit!"

I was glad he wasn't here to see me breathe a huge sigh of relief, which I did: away from the mouth piece. I was also glad he wasn't physically here or I might have killed him. Then CNN would be reporting from my location as police and news helicopters flew overhead trying to talk the crazy woman out peacefully. My friends would be gathered at the local cafe talking about how the furry little mice finally pushed me over the edge but my poor husband was at the wrong place at the wrong time. Pity the poor SOB.

One thing's for sure...I'm not coming out peacefully. I may have to blow my house up just to get rid of those goddamn mice!

Make God Laugh....Tell Him Your Plans...

This picture was taken almost 18 years ago when we made a move to our location now. And it was one of the happiest days of my life. It was on November 4, 1989 and fortunately for us the weather cooperated. This is our whole family posing by the real estate sign that said sold. We were first time homeowners and extremely excited about it too. I have this photo framed at my desk as a reminder of happier times in my life. I was sailing on cloud nine that day, sore from moving, by high none the less.

It was a major move for us. In fact it was life altering for everyone in the family. It meant leaving our hometown and all our family, including our friends, great neighbors, great doctors who were family friends and a good job. To taking a plunge from the big city to a small town and a new business and try to make it work. It meant uprooting our three kids from 7-11 years old from their schools, grandparents and cousins. It was a pretty emotional time but one I was really looking forward to. For me it was a much needed adventure in my life. And even though through the years we talked many times of selling everything and going back home we never did, we stuck it out and sometimes not for the better. Maybe we should have thrown the towel in years ago. And somewhere along the way Kansas City stopped being home and Chillicothe took its place. I'm not sure when that happened. Along the way most of the extended family members died and our hometown of Parkville changed dramatically. Even after the kids grew up and moved away we still talked about moving back but this time it was a lot less serious. Usually it was a passing comment during frustrated moments. Nothing really serious. But life has a way of pulling the rug out from under your best laid plans. Sometimes I think God just likes to fuck with me for a good laugh. I must be one of his preferred individuals for entertainment purposes. He and I are really going to have to sit down and have a nice long discussion when I go back home. What's that saying, 'If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans'? Yep, that's the one.

We told him our plans, more than once I might add and he laughed so hard he created great thunderstorms in our life.

Dwight's mom died back in 2005 after being in a nursing home with Alzheimer's for four years. His dad is 86 years old and over the years since her death he's been on a steady decline. Each time we'd see him he'd make it a point to tell us he had been to the doctor and he was healthy and there wasn't a thing wrong with him. He look like he'd died, kept losing weight and couldn't walk very well but his mind was still pretty good. "I'm the picture of health!" he'd remind us. I kept thinking, "Jeez what doctor believes that?" In retrospect we see that he was afraid, if we knew, we'd stick him in a nursing home. And the irony of the situation is that now he really is in one. If we'd of known exactly how bad he was, steps might have been taken to get him help to stay in his own home longer. But that's not going to happen.

Back in late January he fell down the steps at his home and laid there for more than a day before we found him. I wrote about it in depth here as my very first post call Nursing Home Blues. So the saga of the nursing home still goes on. My husband and I usually take turns going down to the city to see him. The last time was Dwight's turn. And when he came home after two days he had made some major decisions. Some of those life changing decisions like we had made in 1989. I didn't even see this one coming and I'm usually the one that smells them coming or at least I get an inkling. Nope. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. I was blindsided.

We had talked on several occasions about what to do with Harold's home in Liberty but it was just between us as husband and wife. A few weeks after he'd gone into the hospital the neighbors would come over wanting to know if we would be selling the house That was when Harold was so bad we didn't think he'd make it out of the hospital alive. But he's been progressing each day and getting stronger. Not strong enough he will ever be able to live in that house again, but he is progressing just the same. Still we've discussed what to do with his house. Dwight came home and I was a bit surprised at what he had pretty much decided would need to be done while he was there alone surveying the situation. In other words he spent time wondering and then spent time in each room and area of the house. Determining what needs to go and what needs to stay and the minor repairs to be able to bring market value to that house.

The original plan was he would go back and work in the city. He'd been thinking of getting out of his line of work to some extent and possibly going back to his original job as they told him they would be having some openings when cooling season picked up along about May. His plan was to live in his dad's house through the week and I'd stay here, this way we'd keep both homes. At least as long as Harold was still alive.

Apparently after his last trip and talking with his dad he has suggested that the house may have to be sold. The POTENTIAL plan is to liquidate both homes. Ours and his dad's. Plus consolidating the two houses contents as much as possible. This means deciding what to keep from both homes and possibly buying another one. If he can get work at his old job his plan is to move as close to KC as possible. You cannot begin to fathom what a HUGE job this will be. And nothing in our life ever runs smoothly. It usually just crawls along until a change comes and then it picks up speed like a locomotion. That's what happened in 1989. All of a sudden it was a done deal and time to move.

I tried to prepare but I still wasn't ready for us to begin moving when the day came to move things. As I was in the basement preparing my birds to be moved my entire living room and dining room furniture disappeared. I walked upstairs to my bedroom and the only thing left was a chest and it left as I was standing there. For some reason this unnerved me. I felt as if I had lost all control. What control I felt I needed over that situation I don't know. I called my sister crying saying, "It's all flying out of the house! If you want to see us before we leave you better hurry down!" I felt like I'd never see all of my things again that somehow it would get lost between there and here. No matter how much you prepare and how organized you try to be you still have no clue where your crap is for months.

So the possibility is very real that all of a sudden I'll be leaving Chillicothe. Maybe not for many months but no matter when it happens, or if it happens, I won't be prepared. And I'll need to figure out what must go and how to get rid of it. I know I'm too old for a move that takes one or two days. AND I'm too unorganized. Not only do I need to decide what in my house needs to go I have to decide what must go in the other house. Then how to get rid of stuff, give away, garage sale or auction? That means repairs on the homes and then real estate agents. I hate listing my house with a realtor. Of course people come in to look and since I'm a really private person I always feel violated after they're gone. We've even talked about auctioning it off and being done with it just to avoid involving a realtor.

Actually I never expected to go back to the city. And maybe it won't work out that we do, but it is certainly looking like it right now. And it won't be quick, it will be a long drawn out affair. There is one thing about moving, it forces you to get rid of some of your crap. And we're pack rats. Plus his parents were also pack rats AND collectors. They collected things they erroneously thought would be worth money in the future. Not true. Plus they inherited another couples home and contents nearly 20 years ago which they integrated a lot of the contents of that house into their own. You can really have too much stuff. Then it becomes shit. Makes me think of George Carlin's act about your stuff and other peoples shit.

I'm probably making a mistake writing about this stuff too soon. But it's so overwhelming that writing about it is kind of like purging a bit. This way I have more mental room to ponder about it.