I’ve had a bit of a hectic few weeks since the start of September and I realized I haven’t update you, my Internet Friends, on everything that’s happening. And I haven’t gotten updates from you either! How are Emily and Angie and Genevieve’s kids doing with the start of school? Are FilmiKudhi and Saira’s babies teething yet? Is Shelomit prepared for another horrible Boston winter? And so on and so forth!
Oh my, so much has happened! In a not-exciting-but-just-irritating kind of way.
I saw two mice in a row within 24 hours, which means I probably have like 20 living in my walls, yuck. That was 2 and a half weeks ago, since then I have had a campaign of trying to get ahead of them with hiding food in plastic containers, buying 3 different kinds of poison in an effort to entice them, clearing out all shadowy storage areas, etc. etc. Plus, it’s just gross to think about all the time, right? “here I am, sitting in my living room, and all around me are vermin”.
Also, the weather changed very suddenly which means I had to either kill or take inside all my outside plants, and that was kind of a mad rush. I bought a big compost bin mostly for this purpose, plus also now I can compost my kitchen scraps!
Oh, and we had to get the Boiler Man out to turn our heat on and he said there’s a part of the boiler we should probably replace, but then hasn’t gotten back to us with a quote so I am living on tenterhooks about that.
And as part of the Mice War, I needed to clear out my back porch area so I could store more things in plastic containers back there instead of having them sitting out on counters, which meant I needed to move my dollhouse from the back porch to inside, which meant I had to find someone to take away my elliptical from the guest room so I could put the dollhouse there. Finally accomplished that on Monday, but it was another stressor.
Oh right, and also my chest of drawers died! So I had to take all my clothes out and have them piled about the bedroom, take the broken chest to the alley, go to the Habitat for Humanity resale shop and buy a new one, and then find someone to deliver the new one because MY DANG CAR IS 2 INCHES TOO NARROW. And I still haven’t fully finished that project, because it arrived without handles and I just got the new handles I ordered today and still need to put them in.
Plus my housemates were gone the first 3 weekends in a row, so I was on catsitting duty and also lonely. And my parents were gone 2 of those weekends as well, which is always a little weird feeling.
Oh, and I signed up for a new volunteer thing! Delivering food boxes from the local food pantry on Saturdays. I love it, let’s me see the neighborhood and do something very basic and necessary, but it’s also physically exhausting. Why do so many low income seniors live on the top floor of walk up buildings??? It’s very difficult for the poor food delivery volunteers, will no one think of us???
But mostly, mice. It’s the kind of thing that takes up a remarkable amount of brain space for no useful purpose. I’m sitting here trying to focus on typing this and just thinking “mice mice mice”.
dontcallitbollywood 
Ouch! So sad about the mice. Such things always make one paranoid. I have the same thing with spiders or moths during the summer months. Just hate them!
Well, the second year of Uni has started, and beyond annoyed I won’t be able to see PS-1 on the big screen, but hopefully will be able to see the second part since it is slotted for summer 2023. Got sick during my second week at school, just the flu thankfully. Then, the lower part of my right leg, up to the ankle, began to hurt so I must have twisted or accidentally hit it with something. Now it is better, but the last few weeks have been a kind of rollercoaster.
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Oh! Is that why you were able to do the watchalong? If so, you should be mildly sick all the time, so you can stay home and do watchalongs.
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Your housemates’ cats don’t chase the mice? My brother-in-law had mice so he adopted few cats and the problem vanished (they have other problem now – the cats weren’t neutred and now are like 20 or more, but yeah no mice)
I love your new bureau. Was it expensive?
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My housemates do not have mice, because they have cats. The mice all stay hanging in my unit. So naturally, my housemates are lobbying hard for me to get a cat. But I REFUSE!
The Bereau was cheap! I got it used from a charity shop.
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Update about my son’s school life – do you imagine today was the first day of school here? The holiday started on June 1st and it ended only today. All other schools in Italy started in the middle of September but our great mayor thought: why not start the roadworks instead? And he closed the road in front of the school. Now the road is ready and kids could finally start.
The same guy waited till the school started to repair the roof few years ago. Kids couldn’t enter, then all of them (teachers included) had headaches, and in the end the celling in my son’s class collapsed (Thanks God the kids weren’t there at the moment)
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Ugh, I hate your Mayor!
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Mice are the woooorst. I’m so glad I don’t have them though I live in an old house.
I’ve been missing in action because I started a new job earlier this year and also have been uninterested in movies because all those Christopher Lee movies broke my brain. I only want movies in which nothing happens but that are at the same time totally insane now. As soon as something has a plot I lose interest. It’s very difficult.
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WEll, it looks like Satayamav JAyate 2 might be the next film you should watch with us.
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Is that John Abraham’s nutty triple role movie? I was thinking of watching that because nutty triple role, but on the other hand, lots of CGI action scenes. I guess you can’t have everything though.
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The seven year old is happy and social and always sick. Every week he has been home for a day with some sort of virus.
The 10 year old is my challenge child. He is in the age group most hurt educationally by the pandemic. Things are getting better but oh boy, we’re all nervous about his cohort hitting middle school next year and getting pummelled. Although testing below grade level in math he is one of the best in the class at it, and his teacher wanted him to join the math olympiads. He was kinda pleased he was wanted, but then decided he didn’t want to do it. He didn’t have a great reason for not wanting to, so spouse and I figured it was anxiety. His teacher told us to MAKE him do it, so I took 10 months off his no video games for a year ban if he would join. So last night he said he would join, and this morning was a scream fest as he declared he didn’t want to join and had thrown away the entry form and he wouldn’t wear shoes or clean clothes and he wanted control over his own life. I wrote an email to his teacher, which I let him read, and then he said he actually did have the form, and he pulled it out of his bag, and he had ALREADY filled it out.
THe 13 year old is currently obsessed with Raymond Warner and scootering. He even missed a fishing club meeting (fishing is another obsession, right there with D&D) to go scootering. He wanted to buy a scooter deck signed by Raymond Warner. He already has a good scooter (which he bought himself). I wouldn’t let him use his own money to buy the Raymond Warner scooter deck for a month, but when he still wanted it after a month I let him order it. He had had it now for two days and it is everything to him.
Oh also, the 13 year old was invited to go to a weekend leadership camp run by Rotary. My parents are in Rotary and so I figured it would be good. But when I went to pick him up (drove 5 hours to pick him up!) it was like I had walked into a parody. They seriously had 80 kids screaming and clapping at the top of their lungs in a not huge room, for over 15 minutes as families filed in to see their graduation. And my son was front and center, looking MISERABLE, like he was about to cry. Normally the 13 year old is pretty enthusiastic, about everything, that is probably why he was invited to this camp. It was like in their quest to create enthusiasm they took his away and gave it to everyone else, and multiplied it. And apparantly enthusiasm is leadership. And everyone should be their authentic self but only if they are loud and enthusiastic and sometimes you have to act how you don’t feel. But all the same please be your authentic self. Also I got a metaphor about puzzles and pictures of faces and the world and my god I think they watched an episode of the office and tried to recreate it. But the camp had a ropes course and it was a good ropes course.
I’m applying to be a substitute teacher and am starting a non profit. I’ve been busy. My head injury in March seems to have aged my brain, but a 66 y ear old functioning brain is still functioning, just not as fast as a 46 year old brain. So I’m okay, but constantly annoyed at my head.
Oh and on mice, those sticky traps work, but then after the mouse is caught you have to kill it and that is NOT FUN. I dont even like killing squash bugs, I mean I do it, but I don’t like it.
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How do you manage having 3 children??? You have 3 little worry machines going out into the world every day. Just hearing about it has me all worried about each of them.
I think the 7 year old being always sick is the least worrisome, that’s just cuddles and rest and then you send him on his way again. I was your 10 year old! Drove my parents crazy, they never knew what I was thinking or feeling, or if they had guessed right on what I was thinking or feeling. Good news is, now that I am an adult, I occasionally reveal my secrets to them. So in about 20 years, you can ask the 10 year old what he was worried about with the math thing, and he will finally tell you. I bet it’s something totally logical to him and illogical to everyone else in the world.
Ugh, I am so worried about your 13 year old now! Tell me that he bounced back post-camp! If he was like me/your 10 year old, he would keep it deeply inside and let it burst out in 5 years in something seemingly unrelated. Oooo, maybe that is the math team issue? In his own little brain he has convinced himself it will be like some previous bad experience of his life?
Yaaaaaay, you are doin’ stuff! Even with your hurt head! Congrats!
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13 year old is gloriously all on the surface. He was immediately better once he left camp and now doesn’t like me making fun of the camp. But I like to make fun of the camp because it was sooooo soooo sooooo ridiculous. I mean gratitude belittled into a message of not allowing yourself to feel sad because someone else always has it worse? It was so, well it was a parody of leadership talks.
Ohhhh – gossip. The 13 year old got his first note from a girl who has a crush on him! But the 13 year old is just NOT interested in girls that way, unlike many of his friends. Honestly the 10 year old is probably more interested in girls. It is like romance and the 13 year old are oil and water. But he asked for help writing a note back and I did help him last night. I’m thrilled he asked me for help. Final sentence was “I think you were very brave to tell me” – so hopefully that won’t be too much of a let down for the child. I probably just broke his trust writing this, but I can’t tell any of my friends HERE! I’m not even allowed to tell his father.
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That reminds me, around the same age we had a family friend who started finding love notes in her son’s pockets when she did his laundry. He didn’t even bother taking them out of his pockets!!! He just smashed them up and left them in there for his Mom to find when she was doing laundry. She kind of wanted to write back to the girls saying “oh honey, he’s really not that great”. Your 13 year old is much much better.
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Sorry about your mice and other house worries, hope the boiler man shows soon! Not sorry you got a pretty new dresser though. Houses are a lot of work but your dollhouse and dresser are lovely so there is a reward. Does Albie not catch mice? Thought he might have some terrier.
Life has been super full lately. End of summer was a family camping trip in Vermont then a long weekend in Montreal. Drove back home in a rainstorm caught in a giant traffic jam, then on to back to school shopping and getting ready. School has been good. It finally feels normalish. My 9yo is with teachers we know, including the teacher he had during the remote year who just moved up to 4th grade. Fascinating because they all fell behind that year – remote learning is very hard for little kids – and now she has another shot with the same kids in much better circumstances. My often moody always snarky 12yo was sincerely happy to start 7th grade and spend time with his friends all day instead of with us. Not how I remember my middle school experience but I’ll take it. I got to go inside his school and meet his teachers for the first time, because we had our first in person back to school night in 3 years. The normal things feel like such a treat still.
Oh and soccer has again taken over our lives. They each have practice three days a week – not the same days or times because that would make life too convenient – and games on weekends. I mostly leave those logistics to my husband but I had to map out a dinner schedule to figure out who eats when, fed by whom. The entryway is once again full of cleats and shinguards and laundry has bulged with school and soccer uniforms, so many outfit changes a day, I thought boys were less maintenance.
Work is still crazy busy. This big project I’ve been nursing along since last summer – through multiple leadership changes, something like five parental leaves, a mysterious and unresolved absence, illness, a budget panic, political headwinds, a technical build that was six months over schedule and then definitively broke two weeks before we’re supposed to go into production, and now a hurricane – is against all odds finally reaching the stage where the thinking and words turn into something real. Exciting but high anxiety. The first batch through is always like the first pancake, a bit misshapen and soggy in the middle.
So anyway, that’s why I’ve been quiet, thanks for asking 🙂. At night I still stay up too late watching whatever is escape at the moment. I’m with Popka and you and lots of other people with a streak of restlessness. I used to be a monogamous watcher, I’m now dipping in and out of three different dramas. Also tried the new season of Indian Matchmaking but it’s not as fun if I have no one to watch it with. Same thing with Bollywood Wives, then again I might end up watching both during this busy period, they’re the kind of thing I can have on in the background if I’m up late reviewing files and can’t catch every subtitle.
Things I’m looking forward to and will figure out how to make time for:
– The Legend of Maula Jatt
– new season of Made in Heaven
– Pathaan
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Albie doesn’t notice mice. I have multiple times seen a mouse run across the room while Albie happily snored 3 feet away. Albie is too cute to be smart.
Thank goodness your 12 year old gets to go be with other 12 year olds who can understand the way he sees the world! I just saw a thing about how teenage brains literally function differently than adult brains, so no wonder they are so confusing.
I want my mother to write me a thank you note for never being in to sports. This sounds so difficult! All my interests were solitary and/or unscheduled, I just liked wandering across the street to hang out at my friends house, or walking to the library at that age. Also, I realized why your story sounds familiar, it sounds like my friends who were Theater Kids! Same thing, contrasting rehearsal times, lots of costumes, lots of driving them to things and watching things.
Oooo, new season of Made in Heaven! Thanks for the reminder! I am planning a visit to a friend I haven’t visited since pre-pandemic. The last time I was there, we gobbled up Made in Heaven. Maybe the new season will release just in time for my new visit?
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So I haven’t been around much lately, but I guess you deserve an update on why that is. Biggest reason, I guess: The kids are getting bigger and go to bed later, while their midday nap happens at daycare where it doesn’t afford me any additional free time. Stupid kids. 😉
We had a great, actually relaxing vacation at the North Sea (meeting with family, that’s the trick). Then we had Covid for the second time. And now we’ve got Baby used to daycare – she loves it – and I’m going back to work half days. Still figuring out the new routine, though.
Plus, I’ve been distracted from more DCIB appropriate viewing by stuff like a book about queen Njinga of Angola and “Dear White People”. The latter actually becomes a musical in its fourth season, so I guess there’s a reason I like it.
Biggest life-changing question right now: Will our neighbor sell us his apartment so we can connect it with ours? Or will we have to accept my dad scraping together the money for a three-bedroom apartment in the new construction down the road? Either way, we’re getting enough room for the children while staying in the immediate neighborhood. Well, knock on wood.
As for mice: They have always just seemed a fact of life to me. Where there are walls, there will be mice. What worked really well in my parents’ traps was Nutella.
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But Baby and Big Boy are happy and healthy, right? So ultimately, that’s all that matters.
I think moving to a 3 bedroom one way or the other sounds like a GREAT idea. Big Boy must be big enough now that he would enjoy picking things out for his own room, that’s gonna be fun for him.
Dear White People turns into a musical? Really? I just can’t imagine how that happens,a nd now I kind of want to watch the show.
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Oh, they are doing almost perfect right now. Especially as a pair. The other day, both of them had climbed into our bed during the night and when I had to get up, Baby crawled up to Big Boy and cuddled up with him – her face pressed into his.
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Oh wow!!! Reading all your reports, my life seems boringly (or comfortably) quiet…just the normal household chores, playing with the kids, clear up in the attic (which will get renovated), going on errands…some small things to resolve but nothing really stressful (*knocking on wood*!)
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Boring and comfortable is good! 😊
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Oh no! I’m so sorry about the mice, that sounds terrible.
I started working and am still living at home so I’m mostly busy with that and helping my parents with our family business. I’m excited for the holiday season coming up though!
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It’s another couple of weeks till the projected first frost here, so my garden definitely isn’t prepared for winter! I have one producing plot with peas, salad radishes, chard, beets, and bunch onions, plus a fallow plot that I’ve planted over with tillage radishes and peas in anticipation of burying them under compost and letting them rot. I both want to dig in a third plot next spring AND am contemplating where I could get some asparagus established, so you can tell I’ve got whatever is the opposite of cabin fever ( ;
I should go fishing some more before it gets cold, too.
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My kids are in their early 20s, still at home, studying and working. I think you never stop worrying as a parent but we’re at a lovely phase where we’re friends but they are mostly self sufficient. They still come to me to talk things over but I only have to drive them around occasionally.
My big thing is that I’ll be retiring from work in January. It’s a bit terrifying but I’m counting the days. More time for my textile art, dancing , reading and watching movies!!!!
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I am counting the days too! Come January, I expected way more comments from you. No excuses!
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