Cleaning Out My Closet

Last week at work, K (a first-grader) and R (a second-grader) were playing a game of Hangman on the whiteboard. It was K's word, and all R had uncovered was R __ __. "Olivia," R asked, "what's a kind of plant that has three letters and starts with an R? And it's not 'rose.' I already asked."

As a result of my brother's basement wine business, we have a mound of grape skins slowly turning to compost in the corner of our yard. The other day my mom noticed a pair of rats patrolling the area and she immediately called my brother to come take care of "the rodent problem." Because there are also rabbits and squirrels running around the yard, Michael didn't want to set out poison. He set a live trap on top of the grape mound and instructed us to check it periodically and to call him if it caught anything. The first captive? A baby squirrel. My mother and I, armed with big sticks and laughably inadequate knowledge of how to open a live trap, set out to free the bushy-tailed prisoner. It was like we'd caught a lion, the way we determined our distance from the trap based on how far our sticks would extend toward it. After calling my brother once, getting his voicemail, fidgeting with some random levers on the cage that did nothing, getting hissed at by the squirrel (by the way, squirrels hiss), and finally connecting with my brother, we managed to free the distraught animal in no less than 27 minutes. In case you missed that, that would be two grown women, a metal cage the size of my abdomen, and a baby effing squirrel. And it didn't so much as look at us in appreciation as it sprinted clear of the cage. See if next time we don't shoot it with a pellet gun (which is, by the way, what my brother did to the rat he caught the next day).

My mother and I have started a list of what we think are the greatest names ever. We posted it on the refrigerator. Anyone with suggestions is welcome to shout them out! So far we have Hope Solo, Soraya Sarhaddhi Nelson, Ofeibia Quist-Arcton, Ruby de Luna, and Dikembe Mutombo. In true nerd fashion, three of the five are NPR reporters. (The other two are sports stars, so does that even it out?)

I think that's all I've got for today. Lucky you.