To clear up any confusion

In a previous post I said that Molly had a roach in her mouth, and many of you know who Molly is, but Andrea was, understandably, quite confused and grossed out at the thought that Molly might be a human. She is not; she is one of our cats. And to prevent any confusion in the future, I will now introduce you to all of the four-legged members of our household.

Last week, for Spring Break, Halle brought home her class gerbils. It took Noah a while to get the name right; he called them germs, germils, and gerbs (my personal favorite). In any case, Rosie and Daisy, the gerbs, stayed next to the fridge and were Bob and Molly's prime entertainment all week. Alas, Rosie and Daisy were temporary members of the house. They're gone now, to Aaron's great delight.



Bob meets Rosie and Daisy.

You've met Bob before. Bob no longer lives completely inside; he's inside for most of the day and outside at night. This is because he has developed issues with the litter box. And that's all I'm going to say about that.


They seriously spent most of the week like this. Molly's the one on the left. She's an entirely indoor cat, and rules the roost in her own little way. She doesn't like Bob all that much. He's very much like a little brother to her. He annoys the snot out of her and thinks it funny, and Molly just gets really annoyed.

Molly has found a new spot to sleep lately.




This is the pass-through between the dining room and the kitchen where all of my reference/school books live. I'm sitting at the desk (where I pretty much live) taking this picture. Odd and uncomfortable as it is, I'm not all that surprised that Molly sleeps here. She has a history of sleeping in strange and/or uncomfortable places and positions, such as...

The recipe box.

And the pass-through again. But it's the leg position that cracked me up. She was actually sleeping just like this before I turned on the camera to take this picture.

And this is Sam, the newest addition. He's blinking because of the rain. More on the rain later. Sam lives entirely outside, not just because he's a dog, but also because he's about 100 pounds. Sam is tearing up my grass. But he's also very sweet so I forgive him most days.


And finally, this is our puppy friend who visited for a few days, but whom we haven't seen for a few days. We were trying to decide whether to keep him or not when he escaped from our fenced-in yard. There are mixed feelings in the house about this, but Noah is unequivocally sad. He was absolutely in love with the puppy.

And there you have it folks. Now if I talk about Bob, Molly, or Sam walking around with a bug or rodent in their mouth, you won't be horrified.

Questionable content

Be warned.

I was multi-tasking last night--updating my blog, cleaning out my spam box, and chatting (what's gmail chatting called?). In the midst of clicking back and forth between windows, I accidentally opened one of my spam emails. I'm sure you know what's coming, because what are 99% of your spam emails about? In any case, I laughed out loud at the irony of this dubious claim.

* Erection will be mush harder

Ewww

I hate roaches. Seriously folks, you just don't understand how much I loathe these things. They're seriously gross. And they fly? Whose stupid idea was that? And to be specific, in this case what we're really talking about are waterbugs. So, I hate waterbugs. But "roach" is easier to type than "waterbug," so we're going to call them roaches from this point forward.

Tonight Aaron and I were folding laundry. I picked up my newly laundered bathrobe and went into the hall bathroom to hang it up on the over-the-door towel rack, when I saw a very large roach hanging out on one of the towels on the rack. I backed up very quickly, clutching my bathrobe to my heart and scanning the floor for additional creepy-crawlies, all in one fluid, terrified movement. Then I just as quickly returned my gaze to the infested towel, where I noticed, in addition to our first visitor, one more set of antennae peeking out from behind the towel. I calmly and quietly explained the situation to Aaron (read: I yelled "There're two roaches in the bathroom!!!"), and he was very sympathetic and helpful (read: he yelled back, "So?"). I repeated the clutch-and-scan movement, when, out of the corner of my eye, I caught movement in the bathtub. Yep, folks. Three roaches. Three.

And then the fourth one crawled down the wall, not three inches from my face. That's when I calmly and quietly left the bathroom (read: I screamed in my head and hauled butt into the living room, with accompanying full body shudders).

Armed with a shoe, a new roll of toilet paper (for smashing and picking up; our roaches are subsequently flushed to ensure full death) and a bottle of Lysol (flushes 'em out of hiding and disinfects all at the same time), I reentered the bathroom very cautiously and carefully. I quickly dispatched the two by the tub, and after a little persuasion I killed one of the towel roaches. Alas, in the fray the fourth one escaped.

In addition to grossing me out, this was all very strange to me because I have only seen maybe one or two live roaches in our house in the past six months or more. To have four in one night--in one room!--is just...well, it's gross. And it's strange.

But the night was not over.

As I was getting ready for bed, another roach, this one on its back, thank God, scurry-flopped through my bathroom. Smash. Flush.

Then (surely, no more) as I was going to the hall bathroom to get more cotton balls, I saw ANOTHER ONE. By this time I've developed a twitch in my eye and am expecting a stroke or heart attack any minute. I almost threw something at Molly as she ran past me in the semi-dark of the hallway, assured myself that this roach was probably the escapee from earlier, and flipped on the hall light to find a shoe. Guess what I saw in the hallway.

Smash. Smash. Flush.

Six. Six roaches in one night. I don't think I can handle any more. I'm honestly glancing around me every few minutes and jumping at shadows. A gnat landed on my arm and my heart jumped into my throat. It's just not right. The humidity must have magically melded with the warmer weather, or the moon is in the twelfth house of something having to do with bugs, or I'm in a really bad horror movie. I swear, if I see another roach tonight I'm going to cry.

Guess what household service I'm calling in the morning?


***Update: It's now 11:36, and Molly just walked into the dining room with a roach in her mouth. She played with it a minute then it ran away. I'm just flabbergasted. I'm...I'm...I'm going to bed. And if there's one in my bed, I will die.

Rock, Paper, Scissors v2.0

Noah has a new version of Rock, Paper, Scissors. It is Rock, Paper, Scissors, Crayon, Hammer.

I'm pretty sure Hammer beats all.

Zach

I still don't quite have the words, even though it's been two years. I was strongly reminded of Zach this past week as my sister lost a very close friend of hers, Lauren Lewis. The seemingly senseless loss is just overwhelming, and I found myself visiting a past post. In a way, it was good to be near the grief again. And it's good to stand here, witness to the incredible things God has done in the past two years.

I find myself wondering what Zach would look like today, what new things he'd be doing. I can't wait to meet him, to hold him, to smile with him. I agree with Adam, it's strange to miss someone you never met. But, oh, we do miss him.

It's somehow fitting, in my mind, that today is dark and rainy. It's not a bad dark and rainy. Just...fitting.

Noah attempts to take a picture of himself