Unplanned Events

When I was younger and not plagued by insomnia quite so frequently, I used to look at the clock when I woke up in the middle of the night and hope it was early. Yes! I get to sleep 5 more hours! Zzzzz. Now when I wake up, I hope it's late—Did I make it through at least most of the night? (This cartoon captures it perfectly.) I'll say to Andy something like, "Last night was awful. I fell asleep right away, but then I saw 2, 3, and 4, so I guess I fell back to sleep sometime before 5:00." That refers to the clock-watching. I've read that you should just ditch your clock, but I am way too neurotic to ever do that.

Last night I remember looking at the clock at 11:46 and must have fallen asleep shortly thereafter, because I never saw 12. The next thing I knew, Pete was standing by my bed, saying, "Mom? Mom?" I mumbled, "What?" and he said, "Gracie is chasing a mouse around my room!"* I woke up Andy and told him. He said, "Oh! I have to get up now anyhow!" It wasn't until that moment that I looked at the clock and saw that it was 5:50. I had slept for 5 hours straight! I truthfully cannot recall the last time I slept for that long without even waking up to pee or glance at the clock with one eye! Andy, meanwhile, normally gets up at 5:30, but he was still on vacation schedule and had overslept a bit.

Pete said Mr. Jones wasn't up there, which was just plain weird—he loves a good game of mouse hockey as much as the next cat. I recalled that I hadn't seen him at bedtime, either. He normally hangs out next to my office chair, then waits for me outside the bathroom. As soon as I get into bed, he jumps up and licks off all the expensive cream I've just smeared on my face. Then he vanishes to parts unknown for the night, although I often see him outside my bathroom door if I get up in the night.

Andy later reported that he had gone up to Pete's room and retrieved the mouse (which by that time was mostly dead) and disposed of it, then looked in vain for Mr. Jones. I had suggested he check on the sun porch, and sure enough, the poor guy was trapped out there all night! He was not much worse for the wear, although Andy said he did race to his food and water bowls.

I had trouble falling back to sleep but did manage to log a few more Z's before finally getting up.

The next exciting thing that happened was when I sent the girls to the basement to get a frozen pizza out of the deep freeze for lunch. It was already defrosted. Uh-oh. I went down and, much to my horror, found that everything in there was defrosted, and there was a brownish puddle on the floor. Apparently someone had not closed the door all the way (my suspects are in custody). I batted back tears and quickly filled three giant trash bags with many pounds of shrimp from Costco, at least one of everything Trader Joe's sells, quite a few buffalo burgers, several tubs of homemade bolognese, and much, much more. Everything was still cold, but I didn't dare take any chances. I had two whole chickens from my CSA that were not only still cold but still had ice crystals on them, so I transferred them to the fridge and will make a lot of soup tomorrow, to be stored until winter in the freezer—assuming it is nice and icy-cold when I check it in the morning. (I left only bread in there overnight.)

*Meanwhile, I've been assuring the kids (and myself) for years that mice can't climb stairs. Pete's room is on the third floor. Gulp.

Comments

[lis]

We just had our second mice-spotting - the exterminator told me that they are coming from the basement, and while they don't usually climb stairs, they can climb right up the inside of the walls! And our mice were hanging out in our pantry so they were nice and plump, yet disappearing behind the tiniest crack near the dishwasher - they can collapse their bodies to less than half an inch.
That's a bummer about your freezer! Mine beeps if it is left open for more than a few seconds, which has saved me numerous times! Although it's the same beep as when you change the ice-type, so I am often jumping up and running to shut the freezer when a kid is just taking some ice water. Feel free to post a yummy chicken soup recipe - mine only tastes good if it's matzah ball soup.

[jude]

i am so glad and hope i am not jinxing myself by saying that we dont have a rodent problem right now. but i thouroughly enjoyed reading about yours!! thanks.

[KH]

I think all five of we kids left the freezer door open at one point or another, each ruining hundreds of dollars of food. I'm surprised we weren't all intentionally left at Target for the offense!

[nina]

I have trained myself pretty well not to look at the clock, but in my town there's a big clock tower at the courthouse, and it bongs loudly on the hour, so often you are finally drifting off to sleep only to be awoken by the loud clock letting you know that it's four. Grrrr.

[Susan Champlin]

Oh, I think I would happily take several mice in place of losing a freezer full of great food—especially all that good TJ's stuff! That's a mini Fort Knox loss you've had.

[Elena]

We recently had to throw everything out of our basement freezer too, including all of my precious homemade chicken stock and assorted other goodies. In the process of rearranging his room, my son had taken some things out of the room where the freezer is, and unwittingly knocked the electrical cord out of the outlet. We didn't discover it until several days later when we returned home from a short vacation trip. :(

[Stephanie]

Oh Karen, I know exactly how you feel about the freezer door. . . . . nothing feels worse than throwing away food that you were looking forward to eating. Better safe than sorry!