And here’s another chronicle in the ‘Jen’s life is weird’ saga.
But first, the happy news that the cover of HP 6 is out. *love* So only a month till the next LKH book, two months to KOH, and four months to HBP. And most of the year before the GOF movie, but that’s ok 😉 And if you know what all those mean, you’ve read this blog too much, hah.
Sooo, on with the wackiness:
Sunday afternoon I got up late because I could (though I should have gotten up early and started studying orgo, as usual) and headed into the kitchen to make some lunch. In the course of doing that, I realized that a canister of stuffing that was on the bottom level of the shelf next to the fridge had lost its lid. So I went to search for it, and realized that said lid was actually in pieces beneath the shelf. It took me a moment to figure out what that meant, because I noticed that the bulk pack of ramen noodles that has been sitting under the table in the kitchen for over a year (remember the grocery strike here in town, anyone? honestly, it’s ok, they have so many preservatives they’d probably last years more) periodically replenished, and minding its own business, was EMPTY! I mean, ten or so packages were just gone. At first I thought, well, maybe my roommate was exceedingly hungry and she ate all of them, which I of course immediately knew was silly. So I looked around the kitchen, just to see if they’d somehow migrated somewhere else, and lo and behold, I see a package sticking out of the crevice between the wall and the dishwasher. I go to investigate, and sure enough, the package has been chewed, and there are several more wedged back there!
Unfortunately the crevice is terribly situated so that it’s nearly impossible to put anything in there to clean it out, but I’ll try. So yes, some animal had managed to pull every single one of the crinkly plastic packages out of the box (where they were squished and partly under plastic, I want to add), across the wooden floor, shred some of them up, and stuff them in their little hideyhole, all without waking me up. Jeez. Greedy little buggers.

So I put in a maintenace request, not quite sure if that was the thing to do, but a guy came in yesterday and left some bait under the sink, where there’s a hole leading to the dishwasher intake. I’m glad he did it (and he said he would order a door sweep as well, to stop up the gap between the back door and the floor, and hopefully keep other little creatures from entering) but I’m worried that a) I’ll freak out when/if I see a little dead mouse on the bait (which is silly, really, since I see dead mice all the time around here at work, but come on, dead things not in science context are a little gross) or b) the mouse or whatever it is won’t die on the bait and it will just start decomposing behind the dishwasher. Ew. I suppose if we notice something noxious in that general vicinity there will be another request, this time for removal of the dishwasher. Not that we use it much anyway, but what a pain.
So alternately I hope and dread to find a mouse under the sink (and it’s sooo silly how I freaked out last night when I heard a noise coming from the kitchen, and I looked, but just as I opened the cabinet I heard a scratching noise, so I took my hand off the handle. No mouse, but there could have been) because then it will hopefully be the end of it, but then I have to clean up. Boo. But then I worry if I don’t find it, you get the icky scenario detailed above. Ew again.
Luckily ramen noodles are cheap and I have replenished my supply. Rest assured they will not reside on the floor anymore. I wish no critters in my living space! I feel like such a girl, to be frightened by noises or death. Ah well.
I always thought that my life wasn’t all that exciting, but then I have times like this. That same day, about an hour before I was to head out for my mother’s first art show of the year, just after I realized there was a mouse in the house (remind me to tell you about the mouse in my parents’ house, the ridding of which I slept through), I was inundated by emails telling me that spam had been stopped on my site. This is good, except that when 300 spam comments are moderated, that means 300 emails saying so show up in my inbox. What a pain.
Happy now, Alex? Lots of news.