Who's pissing on your chips today?

[BigV]

Fellow camper related the story of finding a bat and the ensuing horror story of the expense and trouble related to the rabies shots he and his family had to endure.

**I** have not been exposed, only second hand via his shocking tale. It was over $50,000 for his family of five to get the full course of rabies postexposure prophylaxis injections. His gold plated insurance covered it, thank goodness. But what are your options? Skip it? Sure, I heard somewhere that, like, three out of three people die eventually. So I got that going for me, which is nice.

[Clodfobble]

Austin has a huge bat population, and there was a bit of a rabies problem going around back when I was in junior high. I had to forcefully stop a classmate from touching one we found lolling about on the ground during school one day. She got all disdainful about how stupid I was being, of course it wasn't rabid, it was probably just sad because it was lost. WTF?! To this day part of me wishes I'd let her pick it up.

[skysidhe]

Originally Posted by HungLikeJesus

We catch our mice in a live trap, then release them in a park or cemetery.

A few weeks ago I went around the outside of the house and filled in all the little holes with caulk and putty (mice can get in some pretty small cracks). We've only had one mouse in the house since then.

This is something I have to do once or twice a year.

Originally Posted by Cicero

Hmmm...I'll have to look into this "live trap" thing too.

Be careful of hot weather when using them. One summer I used a live trap. When I got home I walked to the field to let it go but what came out of the box was not a cute little mouse. What rolled out of the box was goo. I guess the little thing suffocated in the heat.
More than suffocated. I think it drowned in its own sweat. poor poor thing

[BigV]

sql 2005 express, no, compact edition. express is ok.

[Sundae]

Not pissing on my chips, just pissing in the litter tray.
Having Diz's try in my room is not working.

I have to ask my landlady if there is somewhere I can put it downstairs.

Don't get me wrong, I will happily change the litter as often as needed, but this room is too small and too hot to have the tray in here. I know I am breathing in pee and poop molecules all the time.

[monster]

Originally Posted by Sundae Girl

I know I am breathing in pee and poop molecules all the time.

It's OK, you're breathing them back out again, too.

Do you have one of those enclosed trays? they are sooo much better than the old open-style tray we had for ours in the UK.

[Sundae]

Ah, you know the British attitude - I'm happy to breathe in a pound f shit before I die and all that.

But the smell, the smell!

Will sound out landlady tomorrow.
They want to see more of Diz (mad people)
Having the litter tray downstairs means he goes there without me at least.

I will consider a covered tray for both situations. Firstly I'm hoovering twice a week and still worrying about the carpet. Secondly it would help with the smell wherever it was.

Ta!

[monster]

We have a covered box and it's scooped every day. it's right in the kitchen and we can still eat our dinners!

[Griff]

NYS Dept. of Ed.

I'm going to waste another sunny Saturday taking exams. Oh and their insistence in giving precise definitions to common words not commonly in the field outside of New York. My chips are sodden.

[Sundae]

Diz has such bad farts today.
He's just come to lie on my chest (I have the laptop propped up on my knees) and let another one go. With his arse about 12cm from my face.

They're hot and meaty and if they had a colour (and it's hard to believe they haven't) they would be toxix orange, as in Agent)

[Sundae]

Oh dear oh dear oh dear, as Dr Chinnery is wont to say.
In roaming the internet for ideas on litter trays, it turns out I've been treating the Diz cat very badly.

Am going to get him another tray twice the size and start buying clumping litter.

The good news is that I've found a cat food that doesn't have all the additives I despise and in bulk (with free delivery) it works out less than five pounds a month more than I pay for the stuff I already buy. And I don't have to haul it home.

So that might put paid to the rancid farts, and at the very least (and yet very important) I'll feel so much better about his health.

Had a really thorough hoover, tidy and did some washing today. Made me feel very virtuous. Did something else that made me feel very degenerate, but riased hopes in my heart. A good day all in all, even if this isn't technically the thread to say so.

[Treasenuak]

No one. Everyone here knows better than to mess with my salt and vinegar chips!!

[monster]

1) the school newsletter editor who "corrected" the grammar in my latest haiku about scrip so it went from this:

Trees gift colored leaves,
Scrip bucks color school field trips.
Strong roots yield great joy.

to this:

Trees’ gift-colored leaves,
Scrip bucks color school field trips.
Strong roots yield great joy

wtf are gift-colored leaves? hmmm? couls she not see the pattern in the structure s of the first two lines? could she not see the clever repetition of color but as a different word form? hmmmm? Mine may be crap, but her version is much crapper and I'm embarrased to have had my name attached to it.

2) an asshole parent at the swim club. We're in a borrowed pool this season because ours is under construction. we had mechanical problems, lots of no swm nights due to other teams having meets (there are 4 teams using this pool instead of the regular 2), and meet schedule cock-ups due to two teams withdrawing from the league at the last minute. none of these are our fault, but they're bloody irritating.

Last week, we were supposed to have a Tri-meet on Thursday. A butterfky meet (there are 4 events at each meet -medley relay, freestyle relay, individual freestyle sprint and indiviadual specialty) The other two teams rescheduled it for tuesday. but forgot to consult with us. or in fact even tell us. after we didn't show, the realized, and sheepishly left a message on the coach's answerphone that the thursday meet was cancelled. no reason given, we ferreted around and worked it out. but they held the meet anyway without us, so no chance of a reschedule.

But we need to have a butterfly meet. so after further rooting around, we discovered there was one butterfly meet atill to be held in the league (a rescheduled dual meet due to another fuck-up), so we muscled in on it. the meet was Monday night, we got confirmation that it was Ok for us to swim Saturday night. normally, the non-competitors don't swim when we have a meet, but because it was such short notice nd we've had so many pool closures and other problems 9our swimmers have been swimming in room temp water for 3 weeks), we hired extra coaches so the youngest group -who mostly don't compete- could still have practice.

so i sent out an email with all these details and asked people to respond if they got it, because we would call all families who hadn't with the details (as a courtesy). We had to call 52 families (about 50%). Two people did this. They rock.

Today i get this email:

I'm not sure whom this e-mail is actually going to so please forgive me for not addressing you personally. Unfortunately, I need to share with you my frustration. Let me state that I am not e-mailing you to complain about the pool or meet situation as I truly believe that this is just plain unfortunate and is no ones fault. What I am frustrated about is a phone call I received Sunday late afternoon. I was out with my family and my mobile phone rang. I choose to answer the call which was my first mistake. The woman who called identified herself as being form Ypsi otters. The jest of the conversation is that I was chastised for not responding to an e-mail that was sent out Saturday afternoon. First off I do a great deal of volunteer work so I truly understand the commitment that you all have made and I appreciate all that you do for this organization. However, what I am frustrated about is that when you send an e-mail on a weekend while it may be time sensitive you should not call up families and belittle them because they did not respond as quickly as you felt they should have. While I realize that in the perfect world all families will sign up in advance for meets and all coaches will have all of the line ups done ahead of time you and I both know this is not the case. My kids have swam in 2 meets this year and at both of these meets the line up where being done at the pool that evening. So, it is very perplexing to me as why it was deemed necessary for you to call all of the families that did not respond to the Saturday e-mail? I appreciate the fact that these call where made, however I don't think they were done in the spirit of being considerate. If my children miss out on an opportunity because we did not read a notice I would not blame anyone except myself. If the calls where made because you as a board are also frustrated with the current situation then one would expect the caller to be considerate, pleasant and maybe even apologetic. I'm sharing this information so you can have an understanding as to how this was received. I'm going with the assumption that the woman who called me was just plain frustrated with the notion of calling all of the families and that it was not her intention to come across the way she did. I really think that your expectations of getting 100% response within such a short time frame ( and being a weekend) was really unrealistic.

I hope that my e-mail is received in the spirit in which I am sending it. Things cannot change for the better if one is unaware of the problem.

Thank you for your time,

just fuck right off, honey. I'm glad it wasn't me who made those calls because then I'd be really fucking pissed. and she'd be dead

Fortunately, we had nothing but positive feedback from everyone else, so we know it's her who's off her freaking trolley.

oh, was I ranting? i'm so not sorry And I feel much better. now i'm calm enough to reply to her..... well, almost

[Sundae]

JUst tell her, "You obviously have some issues. Still, everything happens for the best and in this case although God closed a door he opened a window in our schedule. See you later!"

[monster]