Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Odds & ends: Mid-February edition

  • I missed #MicroblogMondays this week. :(  And I am way behind on my blog reading & commenting. Just too much going on right now.
  • The squirrels are back. :p  We started hearing them on the roof again about three weeks ago. Called the animal control company that booted them out in May;  they checked and all was OK ( = they were just on the roof).  But the noises continued, on & off, and last Saturday night (one of the coldest nights of the year to date, with temperatures well below zero -- Celsius OR Fahrenheit, lol) around 3:30 a.m., we heard a THUMP, followed by some scratching, and then the sounds of rampaging feet directly above us. DAMN.  Made another call, but they weren't able to send the same guy out until this morning. I could tell he thought he had some paranoid clients on his hands -- but when he climbed up on the roof to check, sure enough, they had broken through one of the vents again. It had steel mesh around it, but not OVER it. (It will soon.) First, they have to exit out the one-way door he installed, which will allow them to leave but not re-enter. That could take a few days. (Fortunately, because the work they did last May was guaranteed for a year, we don't have to pay any more money.) The guy said it's highly unusual for them to gain re-entry. (Yay us, we hit the jackpot, again. :p )  We've been sleeping on the living room sofas in the meantime. I can't sleep, listening to squirrels overhead (or waiting to hear them) -- but I miss my comfortable bed, and as a result, I am feeling tired and irritable. Damned squirrels. :p
  • Recent conversation:
    • Salesperson: How old are your kids?
    • Dh: We don't have kids.
    • Salesperson: Oh my gosh, you are so LUCKY!! I have three teenagers, and they are driving me CRAZY!! 
    • Dh (quietly):  It's a long story....
  • I had a routine mammogram a week ago. Just waiting for the results. I think if they had needed to call me back for more pictures, I would have heard something by now. If everything's OK I will just get a letter in the mail confirming that. Fingers crossed and knocking wood. :p 
  • I try not to stress or think about these things too much, but I have too many friends & cousins who have been dealing with breast cancer recently. :(  Offhand, I can count 6 on my FB friends list (of just over 200 people), most of them between the ages of 40 & 60. :(  One (a fellow loss mom IRL) is currently back in the hospital dealing with complications from surgery, and is much in my thoughts. :( 
  • When I marked my blogoversary in October, I had 151 followers on Blogger... a few weeks ago, I noticed I was down to 143, and not I'm at 141. Was it something I said/wrote??

6 comments:

  1. Those squirrels huh, persistent little so-and-so's….smart too by the sound of it.

    Salesperson…. Open mouth, insert foot!
    Those types of comments sure put a dampener on the shopping outing.
    A microsecond of thought before speaking on their part would have sent that conversation in a totally different direction.

    Ugh don’t remind me – I’m due a mammogram in the next few weeks after I do all my yearly check-ups.
    I find it at the back of my mind too – we’re getting into that age bracket where the serious issues start to pop up.
    I have a friend at the tail end of her chemo treatment at the moment. So far so good, I have my fingers crossed for her.

    Gosh girl, you’re required reading in my house. I’m not on blogger, so I don’t count in the numbers but I’m still following. ;)

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  2. Jenny Lawson had been advocating whacking people with a piñata stick for saying/doing stupid things. This saleswoman deserves 3 whacks.

    And what is with the squirrels?!?! Between you and Mel, I'm wondering if there's a conspiracy. That and the fact the squirrels in my yard have been looking supiciously more aggressive about coming to the front door.

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    1. There must be a Steven King novel in there somewhere... ;)

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  3. Squirrels. But they're so cute! Aren't they?
    I have a post brewing about missing Microblog Mondays. I'll probably post it on ... Monday! lol
    I'm thinking about ways to respond to the salesperson ... maybe that's a blog too.
    Fingers crossed for the mammogram results. Like you, I usually assume no news is good news.
    Breast cancer (or any cancer) sucks. I'm very conscious I've reached the age a friend died of breast cancer, and the age my mother was first diagnosed with bowel cancer. (Though she then had 27 years cured, before another diagnosis).
    I think your falling Blogger numbers are simply a reflection of the way people follow blogs? I haven't followed anyone on blogger for years, but regularly add blogs to Feedly.

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    1. Believe me, they're not very cute when they're tap dancing above your bedroom at 3 a.m. :p They can be very destructive. Just before we realized they had taken up residence again, we watched one sitting on the second-floor windowsill of our neighbour's house, across the backyard. He tore the window screen to shreds in a matter of minutes.

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  4. Stupid squirrels! At least they had the courtesy to come back while the previous work was still under warranty. If there's one small blessing of the situation, that would be it.

    Fingers crossed for the mammogram. Ever since my mom's scare (which thankfully turned out to be nothing to worry about) over the summer, the fragility of life and the scariness of cancer (or even just the potential of it) hasn't been lost on me.

    Weird about the followers thing. I guess I don't know the difference between following and subscribing to your blog. I read regularly (though I'm a comments slacker as of late) and you show up in my list whenever there is a new entry.

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