Raccoons are dealing crack in my attic

You know how some people don't want to go to the doctor because they just know it's going to be bad news?  We don't want to put our extension ladder up to the roof for the same reason. In spite of the fact that our good neighbour Neil was pretty sure he saw a family of raccoons shinnying up our drain pipe and then entering our roof.  AGAIN.

Last night, as I was typing this, I heard bigger-than-squirrel noises coming from our eaves.  Which means we're going to have to grab that extension ladder and go up and take a look.  And I just know that we're not going to like what we're going to see. 

Raccoons with switch blades, dealing crack. 

That's what we're going to find.  And holes in our roof.  Ginormous-freaking holes that will have to be repaired.

This spring, I was focused on combatting dandelions - not varmints.  I was planning that kind of attack.  Now we have to evict a raccoon colony from our roof.  Can we use Indiegogo or Kickstarter to raise funds for this?  I know!  I could turn it into performance art!  I'll film it in B&W and use subtitles.

We totally would have had the funds to do the roof this year if we hadn't had to pay if I weren't so freaking honest and demanded that David claim all the income he made from self-employment this year, thereby owing a nauseau-inducing tax amount to the CRA.  Damn me and my wanting to support better education and healthcare in our country!  What the hell is wrong with me?  Why couldn't I just LIE like everyone else?

We headed to bed, but the party above us was so loud that David decided that he'd to take a look.  Naked.  In the dark.  He wanted to suss out the situation and see if he could spy the raccoons out the back window, you know, surreptitious-like.  Instead, he found himself in the middle of the dark attic, hearing close-up raccoon noises that made it sound as if he were surrounded.  Naked.  In the dark.  By raccoons with switch blades dealing crack.  Then,  as I lay in the room below all this, David lost his mind.

The pounding and growling began... 

BANG!  BANG-BANG-BANG!   BANG!  BANG-BANG-BANG!
GROWL!!!  

A Stomp-esque musical number from my vantage point. It went on for a good 7 minutes. I'm surprised that Rissa didn't wake from the pandemonium.  Eventually, David returned to bed.

"Are they gone now," I asked.

"No."  There was a pout in his voice.

"Still in the roof?"

"They are partying over-top of the light fixture.  I'd bang and then they'd skitter away, but then they'd come right back. Taunting me... Banging back...  'Oh yeah!?!  You're going to bang at us?  How about this!?!' "

He put his head on my chest.  "We're going to have to go up with the ladder, aren't we?"

"Yep."

ps.  So we got the ladder out.  It became immediately apparent that the raccoons had eaten their way AROUND the boards that we had placed over their old entry points.  Note to self: find extra money to put sheet metal on the eaves when we fix the roof.

Best trip to the gynecologist ever!

Visiting a dude whose job is to stick his hand up your hooha is not my favourite thing - (unless that dude is my husband) - but I don't dread it.  I don't get all freaked out about it.  I usually sit back with a magazine while I'm waiting... sometimes I read during the exam.  Somebody has to stick their hand up there, right?  It might as well be a person who's trained to do it. 

Although I do wonder why dudes become gynecologists.  It can't just be for the free vaginas.  As a young medical student, I'm sure that in the abstract, having a day filled with women showing you their wares would be titillating and all... but in reality - I'm betting you end up getting a whole lot of wrinkly-ass vag in your face, and I'm pretty sure that not everyone weeds around the garden if you get my meaning.

But I digress...  My most recent trip to the "lady doctor" was fantastically satisfying.  It wasn't like he gave me a leering grin and said "Oh, I like what you've done down here," before he whipped out the Hitachi Magic Wand or anything...  He told me... wait, I'm still bursting with feminine pride here...  He told me... that I have a small uterus.  NEVER in my life have I been told that I have a small ANYTHING. And now it turns out I have a small uterus.  AND small ovaries.  Petite even.  For a gal who has been at least a size 10 most of her adult life - I never thought my incubator and eggs would be defined as small.  I blushed and said in a modest tone as I waved my hand demurely, "Oh, stop... you just say that to all the girls."

So maybe that's the trick, I just need to visit specialists who concentrate on the inner parts of my body.  Maybe my appendix, too, is diminutive!  I could have copies of an MRI kept in my wallet that I could take out when I'm feeling dumpy.  Yes, I may have armpit pudge, but look at that spleen!!

Synchronized Soccer with Rissa

Rissa's playing soccer this summer.  She and David went out to buy equipment.  She came back with shin guards, snazzy cleats and... nose plugs. You know, for all those underwater games.

I threw a look at David.  He shrugged.

Rissa put on the nose plugs and complained that they didn't feel right.

"I don't think that these will stop me from breathing.  Air is totally going to get in."

"Try breathing in through your nose," said David.

Rissa tried and went cross-eyed.  "It still feels weird."

"That's because you're wearing them backwards."

She put them on upside down, now looking like a small bull with a ring through its nose.

"No, not upside down," said David.  "See how this is kind of nose-shaped?  Try wearing it like that."

"OH!!!!  That makes SO much more sense," she said  before trying out some synchronized swimming moves.  Soon as this is an Olympic sport, she's going to kick ass.

Sure-Fire Cure for feeling like crap

I think I understand why those little jewelry boxes had those pop-up ballerinas in them.  Minature ballerinas make you feel good. You want a sure-fire cure for feeling like shit?  Go see the Pre-Ballet routines in a dance recital.  Seriously.  Bad moods cannot survive a toddler in a tutu NOT doing a dance number.  Tow-headed, brunette, skinny, rotund - doesn't matter the size or shape of the kid - as long as they're under the age of five, crammed into a frilly outfit and smiling onstage, you're golden. We should put those toddlers in a box so that you can look at them whenever you need a hit of joy.

Rissa - the scarf dance
circa 2004

Rissa - the pom-pom dance
circa 2004

Rissa - up to no good
circa 2004

Sunday was Rissa's end-of-the-year dance recital.   After 9 years of dance, Rissa knows what she's doing.   In between Rissa's four maternal-pride-inducing dance numbers, I sat for almost three hours watching other people's kids.  You know the ones.  The ones who can't dance, who look like their parents forced them into boot camp, the kids with no rhythm... 

But amidst the crap there were toddlers.  In tutus.  Abandoning choreography.  There were the toddlers who were orange birdies in their bird nest (there's always some sort of number with a bird's nest), there were the ones who were red robins - who'd had little wee felt spots placed on the floor so that they had a spot on which they needed to stay, there were teeny, tiny prima ballerinas - many of whom did NONE of the choreography and spent their time waving to the audience and galloping across the front of the stage.  I actually tear up watching these kids,  They give me such joy. 

That cute factor doesn't last.  When you have a 9-year old fucking up the same choreography?  Nowhere near as cute.  Just pisses me off.  I want to heckle them. "WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN DOING FOR 9 MONTHS OF CLASSES?  SLEEPING?!?  GET OFF THE FUCKING STAGE!"

ps.  baby chicks in a box work as well.  You cannot remain grumpy when there are baby chicks in a box.  Especially if you pick up each of those baby chicks and hear them "peep-peep" at you.

Rissa killed it dead!

Rissa murdered my hair dryer.  It was a crafting catastrophe.  One minute she was melting crayons on a canvas - the next my hair dryer was the victim of too much "on."  We suggested she use the heat gun.

"That sounds dangerous."

"No, not if you use it correctly.  It's meant to be super hot."

"And a hair dryer isn't?"

"Not THIS hot.  A heat gun will lift paint off of furniture - a quality you don't usually look for in a hair dryer."

She and David went out to buy me a new hair dryer, and then what did she do?  She immediately tried to use the brand new hair dryer to melt crayons...

"Did I not tell you to use the heat gun?"

"Yes, but I'm worried that I'll melt my arm off.  I'm worried it's like the cornballer."

"You will not melt your arm off...   Don't point it at skin though."

Rissa's eyes got VERY wide.  "I don't think so.  The words NOT SAFE are coming to mind Mummy."

Anticipating the demise of a brand new hair dryer, I decided to give her a heat gun demonstration.  I turned it on.  It hummed to life.

"Ooooooh," said Rissa.  "It's purring.  Sounds so quiet and non-lethal.  The regular hair dryer is louder.  I thought when you started it up it would sound like a chainsaw!   You know...

Ring, da-ding-ding-ding-ding..."

When Rissa saw how quickly the crayons  melted, she quickly became a heat gun covert.  Her eyes took on a gleam.  She brandished the heat gun.  "What else can I melt?"

"Whoa there Tex!  This is when we make a rule that you only use the heat gun when there's an adult around."

Dandy Dandelions

Ahhhh.... dandelions - those delightful, yellow harbingers of spring.  I know they're weeds, I know that their root structure rivals that of a willow tree, but damn they're pretty!  A hillside of them, from a distance, makes me happy.  I love taking up one of the flowers when it's gone to seed and blowing it as I'm walking on a country road.  Sends me tripping back to my youth.  It's only when you see a dandelion up close, when  you're trying to stop their infestation into your own lawn, that you see that they're evil.

Like say, when you look upon your own backyard and count them.  By the dozens.  And then you calculate the amount of time that you'll spend, bent over, attempting to yank them from your lawn.  And, because you have lots of actual grass in the lawn already, battling said dandelions, the weeds then decide to fight back, grow bigger roots, branch out.  You can't get a clean yank when there's a root the size of Ron Jeremy in your lawn.  Even with a special weed thingie, to loosen up the soil.  'Cause you can't just go in once, you have to go down around the entire plant, multiple times, but nobody ever does that.  You try to save time, so you pray that that single stab with the upward twist will be enough, but instead you hear the crunch of the root as you pull the evil greenery from the ground,  leaving the end of that stinkin' root below the grass, dormant for a time before it bursts forth, yet again, ready to spread it's fluffy payload all over the lawn in probably 8 days' time.

I've heard tell of a water-powered weeder from Lee Valley Tools that tunnels around weeds with a shot of high-pressure water - thereby ensuring easy weed removal.  Takes twice or three times as long but removes them.  One. Weed. At. A. Time.   If I start today, patiently using the regular weeding tool that doesn't cost $49.95, by September I might have a clean lawn. 

The luck of the Amish

Rissa, at the best of times, can make words sound nothing like they're supposed to.  Last night she made a weird-ass shape around her belly button, said "DRACULA BELLY BUTTON!" and then dissolved into giggles.  David and I were mystified as to what vampires and belly buttons had to do with one another.

"DRACULA belly button?"  She only laughed harder.

"Not DRACULA belly button!  TRIANGULAR belly button."

"Did you not hear DRACULA belly button?" I asked David.

"That's what I heard."

"THIS shape," Rissa said - indicating the weird-ass finger shape she has around her belly button, "has NOTHING to do with vampires."

"I think that we can safely say that TRIANGULAR belly button makes no more sense.  Can you at least try to make sense?"

"Your ears don't work!  If it were a DRACULA belly button then there would be fangs."

"Fair enough."

"The other night Daddy and I were listening to the radio and this hip-hop dude said he was going to Get Lucky Tonight."  Rissa explained.  "I said 'He must be Amish."

"What do the Amish have to do with being lucky?"

"I didn't ACTUALLY say the AMISH.  I said the IRISH, but Daddy heard it as the AMISH because I did it with an accent."

"The luck of the AMISH makes NO sense."

"Exactly," says Rissa.