Monday, August 10, 2015

In which my life going not fast enough down the drain actually tips over into a screwball comdey

Things have been, well, in a word: damp.  We have been chasing roof leaks & plumbing leaks, rain (sorry California-if I could send it along I would) & flood washing under the doors.  Seriously, it rains so hard so fast that the very well functioning drainage cannot handle it.  An oak tree came down last week under the force of water.  It was not struck by lightening it just got pounded over.

All of these adventures have had side stories & upshots.  If I tried to put them all in one post it would be a novella.  So I thought I would give you the latest, or rather what was the latest when I started typing this yesterday afternoon.  It has been a long summer.

Because of the plumbing, we had to day board the big dogs (the down side of an open plan home is it's wide-openness) & I don't know if you know but I DID, I just forgot:  kennel cough vaccines only last six months or so.  You can probably guess the rest; a week later our boy  was coughing his out. The phlegm was SO BAD I went into the utility closet for the swiffer wetjet (uncompensated endorsement, I love that thing) even though it was not raining.  & no one had been outside to track anything in anyhow.  That's it for that part of the story.  There is more dog-hacks-up-a-lung material, but I will save it.

The next day it rained.  Again.  I went back into same closet, got that same wetjet, reached for the same box of clean pads & came away with a sloughed off snake skin in my hand (miniature dachshund for scale). A Snake Skin clinging to the box I handled the day before.  Until that moment I did not know it was possible to laugh & gag at the same time.

We cleaned the closet, no more signs of the snake but we are pretty sure we know how it got in.  & will likely get in again as there is only so much we can do to keep it out if indeed, it ever left.  It might be hiding.  In the walls.  At least our mouse problem is solved (OH! I didn't mention the mice populaiton explosion the month after we got the new roof?  A story for another day).

Last night I rolled over in my sleep & A had his hand flung across the top of my pillow.  This is not usually something I find alarming, but in the dark, in my sleep, those fingers weaving through my hair, over my head...  I am definitely taking a nap today.