Where’s an aardvark when you need one??

WARNING: BUG STORY FOLLOWS. IF YOU ARE AFRAID OF BUGS DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

I kept noticing an ant here and an ant there in the baby bathroom (the one between Little Gronk and Bubber’s rooms, where Gronk bathes and brushes his teeth). We tried to figure out where they were coming from; they seemed to group around the light switch and medicine cabinet. Then we thought they were coming from behind the mirror, but Mike slid it out and there wasn’t a horde behind it. We finally just bought ant traps and put two in the cupboards and two in the windowsill (which I’d previously sprayed down with vinegar).

I checked the ant traps the next day and didn’t see any visible swarming. I shrugged and we went about our business.

I checked the traps again the day after (yesterday) and there were a few ants around the traps. Meh. Maybe the problem wasn’t as bad as we thought. Maybe they’d all died off already. Right?

Ha! I live in Florida; who are you kidding???

I noticed a swarm of ants by the toilet. Wrinkling my nose in distaste, I moved a trap from the windowsill directly into the thickest stream of ants.

Two hours later I peeked in to see how Killing the Ants was progressing. There were a few more ants around the toilet.

… oh, and a line of ants crawling down from the windowsill. Is that where they were coming from?

… and there’s a line of ants crawling down the side of the bathtub. Is that how they’re getting to the toilet?

… wow, that’s a rather heavy stream of ants. Like, a lot. And they seem to be disappearing … under the bath mat? Let’s move it aside and take a look-see . . .

This led directly to the following text from me to Mike:

“OMG OMG OMG THEY WERE ALL UNDER THE BATH MAT OMG”

I plopped an ant trap directly into the stream, whimpering under my breath. And then, out of curiosity, I flipped the mat over.

And SCREAMED at the HUNDREDS of ants thus revealed.

OMG OMG OMG.

At this point I had to pack up the baby and the cat for Rajah’s annual checkup. I sprayed a vinegar barrier across the bathroom floor so they wouldn’t infest any other part of the house and ran for my life.

A few lessons:

– When you have hired a pest service for comprehensive control, don’t be afraid to call them.

– When said pest service tells you – on Monday – that they can come out at the end of the day on Thursday, politely losing your ever-loving sh*t at the operator will result in a visit from the branch manager at seven thirty in the evening.

– Don’t put out ant traps if you have professionals who you can call. All that did was sing the siren song of sweet succulent food to the horde of ants outside, all of whom invited their mothers and uncles and cousins and neighbors to come inside and partake. Gah!!!

P.S. Today most of the ants in the bathroom are dead. There are about 20 live ants – a great improvement over 200. They’re coming to spray again tomorrow. *spit*

P.P.S. Yes, I *know* it could have been spiders or snakes or roaches or the evil red bitey ants that infest Florida. These were relatively harmless. That doesn’t mean I have to like it. Nor does it mean I can’t do the Happy Dance upon their demise.

Spaghetti sauce

It’s a good thing I was home with only Rajah to hear me, because I freely admit to using Language Unsuitable for Polite Company:

That’s right, I managed to shatter a jar of spaghetti sauce all over the bottom of my pantry.

If Mike had been home I would have swallowed my pride and asked for help. Do you know how hard it is to mop up handfuls of sauce and tiny glass shards while leaning over a beach ball? Or maybe a bowling ball – he is SOLID, y’all!

Six weeks to go. I am READY. (Well, I’m not sure new parents are ever really ready, but we’ll do our best!!)

A Haiku to my pinky toenail

Pretty painted nail
Cruelly ripped away from me
OW OW EFFING OW.

It was a good toenail. I shall miss it.

Geico strikes again!

There is a land called Passive Aggresiva and Geico is their king.

One of the companies with which we do business called up and asked if they could buy us lunch today; we’ve recently sent them a number of client accounts and they want to say thank you. So I hammered out the details with Veep, Big Boss and the company rep and sent an email out to the team explaining the situation and asking them to send me their meal requests yesterday afternoon so I could call in the order this morning.

Now, it turns out that Geico is scheduled to be out of the office today. What, pray tell, do you think was his response?

1) Replying to my email by ordering something that will keep for a day. It’s a barbecue place that sells smoked meat by the half pint or pint, so there’s quite a lot of choices that would suit.

2) Replying to my email with something along the lines of, “Oh, come on! They HAD to pick the day when I’d be gone?” At which point I would have advised he proceed according to #1, and we’d all go about our merry way.

From what you know about Geico, I think you can guess that he went with . . . .

3) TOTALLY IGNORING my email, but sending out a SEPARATE email to the whole team reminding everyone that he will be out of the office today.

Let’s hear it for Door Number Three!

I actually debated with myself for a while about whether I should go to his desk and point out Option #1. Then I was quite irritated with the necessity of doing so, because GEICO IS A GROWN MAN IN HIS FIFTIES. SERIOUSLY. MAN CAN’T ORDER FRICKIN’ BARBECUE WITHOUT MY HOLDING HIS HAND???

*snap* *snarl* *growl* *grumble*

BTW, Mike thinks I’m being unnecessarily hard on Geico in this specific situation. I freely concede that I’m already irritated with him because he’s suddenly decided to start parking in the spot I’ve used since we moved to this building last October. Jerk.

Medical bleg: Why has my body stopped working?

My groin, to be exact, but I didn’t think it was a good idea to put that in a post title. I promise this is a PG-rated problem 🙂

I’ve always been fairly flexible. I can touch my toes easily; I can sit with my legs straight and touch my head to my knees without much effort. (I know — that’s gonna be a thing of the past in a few months!) And I’ve never had any problem with butterfly stretches for the groin.

Until now.

Well, technically – until a few weeks ago. One night I noticed that the left side of my groin was just. . . stuck. When I put the soles of my feet together in butterfly position and try to press my knees down with my elbows, my left leg will go a few inches and then STOPS. It feels like there’s something where my thigh connects to my pelvis that’s BLOCKING my leg from going down; some ligament that’s slipped out of place or a muscle that’s seized up or something like that. If I put my right leg straight and work only with the left side of my groin, I can start with a position PAST the stop-point, but I still can’t move THROUGH that point and it doesn’t work if I try to draw my right leg back up.

I didn’t yank, pull, twinge or otherwise mangle the area in question that I remember. I kind of want to just shove on the damn thing until it pops free, but I know that’s probably a really stupid idea.

Help! Do I need to go see a physical therapist? Does anyone know what the hell happened??

I know how to shoot, thank you. Now kindly %*#€ off.

I really need to work on bringing out my inner bitch.

I tried out a new range over the weekend. It seemed nice enough — clean, well ventilated, with targets included and nice thick barriers between lanes — but it also came with That Guy.

Who happened to be one of the range officers.

I made the mistake of being friendly to Captain Knowitall. When he came by to check and see if everything was okay, I made the offhand remark that everything was fine, only my bill drill wasn’t as good as I’d like (shrug). Next thing I know the good Captain is in my shooting late, handling my guns, trying to correct my grip (“push-pull!”), and yammering the whole time about what an EXPERT he is at teaching, how he’s trained police and SWAT and Army — everyone but the Marines, because they know everything, right?

I should have told him politely but firmly that I didn’t want instruction at that time. Or less politely to mind his own business.

But he was so excited to “help” me and so enthusiastic about teaching that I just couldn’t figure out how to do it without being rude.

Sigh. I’ll be better prepared next time, you can be sure. I did mention it to the front desk and they apologized and said they had some problems with him. Oh, and I heard him doing it with other people after he mercifully left me alone, so it wasn’t just me he singled out for benevolent tutelage.

In all fields, it’s usually wise to ask people if want help and/or advice before liberally dispensing it. Doesn’t that go double when the recipient has a loaded gun in her hand?

Or is this the downside of an armed society being a polite society — difficulty telling Captain Knowitall’s to go pound sand?

Little steps forward

Eleven months.

That’s about how long it’s been since I had my one perfect, glorious, graceful run of four miles.

It’s been ten and three quarter months since my feet started hurting with what I thought was plantar fasciitis.

Ten months since I started resting for a few weeks before trying again.

Seven months since I first called the podiatrist.

Six months since they stuck me in an MRI machine. Six months since the podiatrist put me on strict exercise and footwear bed rest.

I’ve cried, cussed and despaired along the way. And gotten good ***damn sick of my Crocs flats. But it paid off.

As of this week I’m allowed to start the elliptical. If no pain develops then next week I can try the treadmill.

There’s a 5K in three months that’s got my name on it, baby!!

Protected: The adventures of Geico!

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Fun with contractors!

Whether or not you believe in God, it should be pretty obvious that He (or She, or the Great Pumpkin) has one hell of a sense of humor.

My job seems to be going out of its way to make me do the things I hate.  Whether it’s writing a resume for my boss (I HATE RESUME WRITING) or comparing Internet packages and moving quotes (those are Mike-jobs!), I’m being forced to do in my professional life what I try to avoid in my personal life.

Such as deal with contractors.

It’s ironic that the same week I left this quote at Breda’s —

Wow. Lesson to Lissa: Leave the house alone. Do not mess with the house. The house always wins.

— I find myself stuck with shoddy contractors at the office.

Technically I don’t KNOW that they’re shoddy, only that they do shoddy work.

Such as building the kitchen wall ABOUT TEN INCHES TOO SHORT. The wall is currently level with the top of the cupboards.  That means not only that the counter will actually be TALLER than the wall, once it goes on, but there’s no room for a backsplash.  Charming!

Oh, but it gets better.  Whip out a tape measure, and it turns out they also built the wall FOUR INCHES TOO CLOSE to the existing wall.  Oopsy!  So . . . the fridge won’t fit.  So they have to CHOP OFF THE LAST CUPBOARD and replace it with a narrower cupboard and take off the granite countertop and CHOP FOUR INCHES OFF IT and polish and seal it and put it back.

Are you kidding me?  Are you freaking kidding me?  This is what you do for a living, and you can’t be bothered to check your work against the plans?!?!

Throw in the carpet that wasn’t delivered on time – because it wasn’t ordered until two weeks after it was supposed to be delivered – and, well, it’s been a helluva week.

P.S. At least all these mistakes aren’t wrecking *my* budget.  If I ever get work done on my house – any kind of re-modeling whatsoever – I’m tape-measuring every dimension of that sucker every single night.  BECAUSE APPARENTLY CONTRACTORS CAN’T BLOODY COUNT.

Protected: The Story: Part II

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