MonkeyPants

I am an Idiot.

Well, not really. But I am going to have some unpleasant moments over the next few days.

The mouse guy came, all six-foot-five blond Slavicness of him. He put the poison traps out and suggested a few spring traps as well (Of course, in places Bax couldn’t get near them). I said I didn’t want to deal with dead mice, and Eric (heroically, I thought) said he would be responsible for them.

And today he went on tour for five days. The traps have already caught two mice.

Calling Anyone: I will come to your house and do the domestic chore of your choice if you will come to mine and empty the mousetraps!

Trawling the Genes.

When I was twelve, I desperately wanted to find out I was an elfin changeling.

I’ve been looking through old family photos. My erstwhile hope has been soundly trounced.

Although no one has ever been able to ascertain where I got the shape or coloration of my lips from, I have my great-Auntie Katie’s nose. I have the Cruikshank teeth (I have been identified as a mamber of my own family-by a man who was a stranger to me- by my teeth). I believe I may actually have the same eye shape as one dreadful Auntie. Hard to tell. Hers are narrowed in spite quite a lot. I have (barring my tum area) my Auntie Sheila’s physique. Cousin Leslie’s eyebrows and chin (dunno where the chin came from, it’s totally recessive. We’re the only ones with the ‘bum chin’.) And in photos of me smiling, I look just like my mom.

Now that my hopes of Elfdom have been vanquished, I’m pretty okay with what I got in the gene pool. I wish my butt was rounder, but I’m happy with my eyebrows. My teeth are well-formed and healthy. They are not perfect, but I would look pretty scary with perfect teeth. Said awful Auntie has perfect (capped) teeth. When she smiles, it’s like she’s an anaconda watching a tethered goat. Really.

I wish I didn’t look so much like my mom when I smile. I know it hurts my dad.

Stinky Stove Update.

So we called Marilyn, who sent Ted down, and Ted works at the port. He knows from rodents.

We turned on the oven and he sniffed delicately. Nodded once. “Mouse piss.”

So someone’s coming on Monday. In the meantime, it’s a feast of stovetop meals chez MonkeyPants.

Friday Quiz: What Kind of Feminist Are You?

Gender-Liberal You scored 66% Gender-Abolitionist, 60% Sexually Liberal, and 20 % Socialist

You are the Gender-Liberal. This means that you share qualities with both Liberal Feminists and Gender Abolitionists. Like the Liberal Feminist, you feel political change needs to be done on a small-scale level through legislative change, not necessarily through a massive destruction of class society through the adoption of an extremist socialist stance. You are also very concerned with sexual liberation, and feel that women should be free to do what they please sexually without criticism, just as men should be free to do. However, you differ from the Liberal Feminist culturally, because you see gender as a social construction that needs to be destroyed. Like the Gender Abolitionist, you realize that gender is often perceived as one’s identity, when it should only be perceived as a small, insignificant part of that person. We shouldn’t be able to say “This person IS a woman”. Rather one should say something more akin to “This person HAS the physical traits of a woman”. This way, we wouldn’t be assuming someone’s physical traits are a part of their identity, and we couldn’t use this difference to oppress them or categorize them. In short, you advocate extreme cultural change through the destruction of gender roles, but politically you are less extreme, instead focusing on individual or legislative change as opposed to a massive change of ideology. The other feminist types: The Housewife The Marxist The Liberal The Liberal Extremist The Gender Abolitionist The Radical The Gender-Liberal The Revisionist

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 44% on Gender You scored higher than 10% on Sexuality You scored higher than 30% on Class

Link: The Feminism Test written by saint_gasoline on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

Springtime Comes to the Sisters Kim.

Spring is teetering on the edge of bloom. I know it by looking at the garden, but I’m seeing it in my students as well.

I teach two sisters. They come in for a double block of reading and writing. Much to my gratification, I have been whispered to that the reason they have configured their classes the way that they do is so that both have reading classes with me. I couldn’t be more flattered.

Elder Sister is the very epitome of perfect Korean young ladyship. She is tall, much taller than average. In fact, she stares many Korean men in the eye. Or, rather, she would, if her eyes were not so downcast and demure. Her height makes her stand out, but then you notice her grace. She is a study in economy of movement. Every motion is restrained and precise. Just so. She is always cheerful, but not unduly so. She has pleasant words for the younger students, but never stoops to actual chattiness. She is a calming infulence on even the most rambunctious children Her calm demeanour is unshakeable in the face of anything. Anything but Spring. Tonight, she couldn’t sit still. Looked out the window. Crossed her legs again. Flipped through the vocabulary exercise. Wrinkled her nose. Spring made her more human, and I loved her for it.

Younger Sister is the opposite. She never walks, but bounces everywhere. Loves dangling earrings that make her look like an Eighties princess. She looks everyone straight in the eye and laughs as much as she talks, which is quite a lot. She is slightly chubby, to her mother’s despair, despite the fact that she has as much nervous energy as any eight-year-old boy. Spring has exacerbated that condition. Tonight, she skipped and bounced and sang. She heemed and hawed and shifted. She told jokes and giggled. Twenty-five minutes into class, she sighed gustily and blurted, “I just want to go outside!” I had to laugh, because I feel the same way.

Persephone’s coming back from the Underworld! Everyone, get up and dance!

Get Your Schadenfreude Here!

Schadenfreude: (N) The pleasant feeling you get when someone else is having difficulties that you aren’t.

Here you go. Feel better about your life because you didn’t have my evening.

This afternoon, I decided to make biscuits. I preheated the oven and went about putting ingredients together. Before I could even reach for the butter, I was aware of a distinct smell coming from the oven.

I sniffed and I sniffed. At first, it smelled like plastic. Then it smelled like hot urine. Not human urine, but urine, nonetheless. it became really, really pungent, really , really quickly. Hastily, I turned the oven off and aired out the house. I made griddle biscuits, which were ok, but not fabulous.

I ruminated on our recent mouse problem. Didn’t want to think it, but could I have cooked a mouse? Some mouse poop? Eww!

This evening, I called Gen, as I am wont to call a friend in times of extremity, confusion, or just because I don’t want to do something. We chatted for awhile, and then, puttering, I pulled open the cupboard under the sink. There was a mouse perched on the garbage! I think I made a mouselike noise of my own and watched the damned thing leap off the garbage can and scurry under the oven.

Now here was a real quandary. Should I clean the oven now that I knew there were mice under it?

I did not. I did what everyone in their right mind would do. I called Eric and had a glass of wine. He told me he was coming home, stat, to help with the probelm.

Then I told myself to get over it and went to take the oven racks out of the oven.

I opened the oven and… there was a mouse sitting, looking at me, in the oven!

I yelled at it awhile about the indececy of its and its bretherens’ actions. It got tired and squeezed under the grill rack in the oven. Seriously, it was like it stayed to see what I had to say, and then wandered away. I was pissed off.

Eric came home. We cleaned the oven, cleaned under the stove-top and did what we could under the stove itself. But we can’t move it all the way because it’s a gas stove and we can’t turn off the gas line.

Then we turned the heat on again.

The smell is still there.

Eeugh.

So Cold…

When did I become unable to shake off the cold?

I mean, it’s been clear these last few days, and so the nights have been chilly, but last night I shivered my way to sleep and then into wakefulness a couple of times. Me! Who has slept on snow!

Last night was our first night in the new bed. Sadly, I couldn’t luxuriate in the Queen-sizeness of it, because I was plastered to E the whole night, cadging body heat. He thought I was just being loving. Sorry, Honey. Just cold.

Tonight, I have added a down mattress-top (from the double, so it doesn’t fit or anything) and my down duvet from my bed at my parents’ house. I already have a cache of candles warming up the room itself.

But it bothers me. I used to have one of those internal radiators, so that if it was cold, I’d eat more, and stay warm. Now, despite the fact that I have more insulating fat than I did when younger, I get cold and have a hard time getting warm.

Bugger the aging process. I want to be 17 again. And warm.

Good Recipe!

You need:

Chicken parts
A can of peaches
Half an onion (who doesn’t have half an onion?)
Cinnamon
Butter
Olive oil
Lemon juice
Chicken stock

1. Fry the chicken in olive oil, about 10 mins per side for legs, or until cooked through. Remove from the pan. Drain the grease.
2. Return pan to heat. Melt a teaspoon of butter. Throw in the onion, diced. Stir around, getting any chicken scrapings off, until onion is translucent.
3. Turn heat down to low. Put chicken back in. Add peaches and peach juice, a capful (teaspoon?) of lemon juice, and sprinkle liberally with cinnamon. Pour about 1/2 cup of chicken stock in there.
4. simmer for another 20 minutes or so, until flavours meld.

Eat this over rice. Yum!

Late for Friday Poetry Blogging.

February Saturday.

Look up.

Past the yoga moms,
Deluxe strollers juddering
In time to their firm
Bikram butts.

Look up.

Past the faint lemon sunlight
Streaking the marquee
Across the street.

Look up.

Past the pigeons
Lofting, spinning
Freewheeling into infinity.

Look up.

See the trees
Dipping crimson shoots
Into the lake of sky.

Cat Games.

Here’s a fun game to play with a kitten:

1. Run a bath. Make sure that when you’re fully immersed, the water comes to within a couple of inches of the top of the tub.

2. Leave the bathroom door slightly ajar so the kitten knows you’re ok.

3. Watch the kitten’s antics as he tries to figure out how he can get to your lap, to sit in it, without getting wet.

4. Laugh so hard the water makes big waves and the kitten jumps down from the tub surround in alarm.