I Really Can't Stay

Okay, uncle, uncle, uncle. I admit it, I hate bitter cold weather. I wish I was in Florida right now enjoying that summer weather that they call winter. January and February, that's when Florida is nice. Not too hot, not usually too cold, just right. Seriously, if I could swing it I would spend these two months in Fort Lauderdale. The dogs hate the cold, at least Chandler does. Mark hates the cold, but then again he hates most things. I don't mind cold weather, but not the bitter, face hurting, finger freezing stuff. Last night I walked the dogs and I was reintroduced to just what 'wind chill' actually is. The wind blew right through my summer weight pants as if I were out there in my tighty whiteys. My eyes started tearing up and the tears started freezing, then my cheeks burned as only an arctic wind can burn. Don't get me wrong, I still would hate living in Florida. I hate the ten months of heat and humidity, the bugs, the critters, the fleas, there is a lot to hate about it. I am thinking about maybe a small motor home. Something that I, Mark, and the dogs could take down south for those two months. Yes, that's a great idea. Me in a small enclosed space made out of aluminum with Mark and two dogs for eight weeks....   Hmmmm... on second thought, the cold isn't too bad if I wear my flannel lined jeans and wear five layers under my winter coat.

But No Fava Beans

Every time I open the door to the backyard, the dogs run out there as fast as they can hoping that they can catch a rat. The dogs know where the rats go. Along the fence that divides my yard from the neighbor who does no yard work, back by the gate to the alley, and in that little hole under the porch next to the sewer. The place I am concerned about is the hole under the porch. That's where the porch rat comes in. My porch is mostly enclosed but not sealed shut, so the rats just dig a little under the wall, and come on in. That's where my battle with the rats starts. I tried rat poison. One rat ate a bit of the poison, dropped dead in the yard, and was picked up by Scout. I freaked out. After wrestling the dead rat out of Scout's mouth, I threw out the rest of the poison. I then switched to a rat trap. I put a piece of cheese in it and set it out on the porch. The next morning I had a dead rat in the trap. Great, I thought, so I re-baited the trap and set it out again. This time a rat visited, ate the cheese, and left without setting off the trap. It's not as if the trap doesn't have a hair trigger, it does. My bruised finger proves that. Next time I baited the trap with something stickier, macaroni and cheese. Again, the rat got the bait and didn't set off the trap. It seems that I have the most clever rat in Chicago, a rat that has figured out the science of rat traps. So far for bait, I have tried salami, mashed potatoes, brie cheese (stinkier and sticky), and bacon fat drizzled across the trigger mechanism. The rat really loved that bacon fat. It hit the trap within hours of my setting it out there. Licked it clean after somehow setting it off without getting caught. I am not sure what my next move will be. I don't care how smart the rat under my porch is, I can't have it living there. It smells like rat piss under there. So I'm going to get a larger, more lethal trap, and douse it good with that drizzled bacon fat the little beast loves so much. Maybe I'll set out a tiny little glass of Chianti next to it, for the discerning rat.

Serial Cereal

When I was a kid, I ate cereal almost every morning. It would range from Frosted Flakes to Wheat Chex, Cheerios to Corn Flakes. Except for Life cereal (I hear it killed Mikey.) and Captain Crunch, which sucked, I liked all cereal. The problem arose when I would get to the bottom of the box. You almost never got a full bowl of cereal from the end of the box, and my mom would never allow us to throw that last bit of cereal out. So we would have to combine what was left of our favorite cereal with the newly opened box of our second choice. Sometimes it would work out okay, such as Frosted Flakes with Kellogg's Corn Flakes. You could simply add a few mounds of sugar on top to counter the lack of sweetness in the Corn Flakes. Cheerios and Fruit Loops could be combined with little fall off in fruitiness, but never Cheerios and Corn Flakes. And Frosted Flakes with any Chex product was disgusting. The biggest problem with combining the last of one box with fresh cereal from a new box, were the crumbs. You had to be very careful not to dump all those crumbs into the bowl, as they would float on top of the milk and could gag you as they went down your throat.

My mom would be proud of me this morning. I had three boxes of cereal open with not enough in any of them for a full bowl. So, I combined Frosted Shredded Wheat with Corn Chex, and some Fruit Loops. It was horrible, but I ate it all. Well most all of it. Scout helped mop up the milk and crumbs at the bottom of the bowl.

Piss and Vinegar

I don't know what it is, but when there is fresh snow on the ground my dogs go crazy. They run out into the frozen fluff and chase each other around the yard. When I bring them back into the house, they are still full of piss and vinegar, running from one end of the house to the other, tumbling, and causing general mayhem which Mark does not appreciate. That brings up another thing, where the hell did the term "Piss and Vinegar" come from? I get the piss part, my dogs are always full of it. But vinegar?

Walking the dogs around my neighborhood, I've noticed something. Chicagoans are afraid of dogs. Last evening I was walking Scout, still full of piss and vinegar, and a lady walking on the sidewalk towards us walked off into the snow covered grass just to get away. I was holding Scout tight against me, but that was not enough. I see it time and again, people cross the street to avoid us. They turn and go up the next block, or they just turn around and go back the way they came. If I see somebody coming towards me with a dog, I get happy. I want to meet that dog, I want to talk to it and run my hand through dog fur. I seem to be in a minority about that. So I have learned to step out into the street when somebody is walking towards us, as a courtesy. But the truth is that Scout only wants to say hello and give you a big kiss. Chandler, however, is not so friendly. He can get very angry that you had the nerve to walk through his territory. Chandler is one scary boy when he does not know you because he is usually full of piss. I don't know about the vinegar part.