The end is near...

I can't believe it --(well, actually, I can)--my time here in IN is almost at an end. On the horizon: Tomorrow (Friday) is Day one of Period 10. We will be finished as of Friday, August 6th now. Just as I am really getting into the swing of things, it's over. Sigh.

I turned in my application for the IBP's winter program MAWS (which runs Oct-Mar). I have a phone interview for next Wed (Aug 4). :)

Right now we are on break. It has been a strange period. We got rained out at our last location _twice_. So, two of our vacation days got eaten--but we had already "borrowed" two days from Period 10, so we still have four days off. Ha! Not that it matters much to me--I'm spending this break at the trailer, while Pete takes half his stuff home to Michigan and visits with his girlfriend. I decided to stay in Bloomfield this time (yes, without a car, or even a bike to get anywhere), so I could get stuff done, including work paperwork, net repair, birdbag repair, and misc stuff like cleaning and laundry (it's different when there is another person around). I have a little personal space now and some alone time, which is nice. I like being around other people, but I find since it is such a novelty for me, I tend to pay attention to them and get distracted by them and what they are doing, and not do things like write letters and practice bird songs, etc.

Unfortunately, at the start of this break, the satellite tv went out--no more channels!! Only CSPAN (the Democratic convention, oh joy, oh joy) and religious channels (we don't have those on basic satellite in the west) are left of our formerly enormous number of channels lineup. Sigh. Not even the weather channel was spared. To compensate, I hooked up Pete's FM antenna to his stereo, but I only can receive two country stations out of the whole FM bandwith. Sad. At least they run weather reports every 10 minutes or so. So I can tell if there will be a torrential downpour or I'm about to be mashed by a tornado.

Which reminds me, this morning I was in the shower at a decent hour (9amish) and jet/fighter plane flew over the trailer--I heard this HUGE noise and freaked. I thought maybe...---I don't know what I thought--maybe a truck was going to drive into the trailer or something?? Anyway, not a very relaxing shower. And this was after being woken up twice in the night by another little recent problem...

...MICE. As soon as Pete left on Tuesday, I opened a drawer in the kitchen to find little turds everywhere. Uggg! Apparently, they love ketchup packets (and their contents--take note, people who live in cheesy dives--leave those in the fridge!). I then proceeded to look in every other drawer, and found turds in the silverware drawer. ARRRG! I'm sure I've used silverware from there and not even noticed the drawer had turned into a bathroom for small rodents!! AHH!!! So I washed all the silverware and left it in the drainboard, where it will stay from now on. I then baited the mouse traps with peanut butter (apparently, before I had arrived, they were an issue) and set them in the drawer with the half-demolished packets (thinking I would lure them into complacency--oh there are only nice innocent ketchup packets in this drawer, no guber-loaded death-traps here!).

In the morning, all the traps were as I left them--sans peanut butter. Round 1: Mice 1, Andrea 0. So I baited all the traps again, this time smooshing the peanut butter in the little hole, so the mouse would have to exert pressure on the trap. That night I had a headache and went to bed at 8:30pm. At 10:30pm I wake to "bang! rattle rattle". Wonderful. I've slept two hours, and have got a mouse in the drawer I need to deal with right now. Sure enough, one was caught. I deposited the corpse outside for the night predators (it was gone by morning), and left the others set. Mice 1, Andrea 1.

5am: "bang! rattle rattle." Ah, mouse two. Of course there wouldn't be just one. So I get up, and this one is under the sink, only...it's foot is all that is caught. So picked up the trap with the mouse, trying to think how I would deliver the crushing blow in a humane manner, when I drop the trap, the mouse runs unter the stove, dislodging the trap from its foot, and getting away. Mice 2, Andrea 1. Back to bed.