death count: 7

Two more this morning. We're thinking about borrowing the humane mouse traps again, just to have more traps out there. The spring traps have caught 3 so far, bigger than the others we'd seen. The tunnel traps seems to do well with smaller mice but not bigger ones. It doesn't seem like the stuff the exterminator put down is really slowing them down any. But maybe that takes awhile to have an appreciable effect...?

I reorganized the office a bit this morning while Clare was dancing around the living room downstairs to "Lazytown." (I really despise that particular show. All the puppet characters look like they were born with FAS and the main girl actor is all cutesy in pink and madeup with more mascara than I use for a night out. But Clare dances around to it so joyfully I can't bring myself to cut her off.) Anyhow, once I got all the boxes out, it was clear that the file cabinet really needed to be in the corner, and that meant moving not only it but also a bookcase full of books. That's what I get for poor visualization skills. (See, Em? I am helpless without you, kid.) Anyhow, I got it all switched around and like the result. There's a lot of usable space in here for crafty artsy stuff with Clare and also for yoga, whenever I manage to find some time to do some yoga. Generally there's so much else to do during naptime that it never happens, and the one morning I tried it while Clare was awake she kept running in here and grabbing at my legs while I was trying to do balancing poses. It's not easy to stay in "exalted warrior" with a 35-pound toddler hanging on you. So the only permanent result of that experiment is that every so often Clare will lie down on the floor and kind of wave her legs in the air and announce that she's doing yoga.

So now I am really ready to start working. And yesterday I added another item to my fall agenda (much to Brent's dismay). Leaven has an upcoming Theology & Science issue and I am just not passing that up--it's too cool. Luckily it sounds like I can work up a short article based on stuff I'm already doing anyway. Gotta love that. And I'm hopeful that this enforced break from research will provide me with a little bit of perspective on the transhumanist stuff I was sort of drowning in before; I really do want to provide as accurate and fair portrayal of the movement as possible, but I need to avoid getting too bogged down in the details.

Well. For some reason no one turned on the dishwasher all day long yesterday and so I have a dishwasher full of clean dishes to unload and a kitchen sink overflowing with the detritus of last night's dinner makings: homemade pita bread, hummus and babaganoush means quite a bit of kitchen wreckage, and with the mice and all, it's really a terrible idea to let things just sit around dirty. And that means Today's Naptime is dedicated to my very least favorite activity in the Whole World: Cleaning My Kitchen.

Don't know where the Emily Dickinson caps came from, just felt like a little emphasis was needed, I guess. So you all know How Much I Really Hate It.

Later today, perhaps a venture down to the park with Clare on the bicycle. We'll see. I still feel nervous about it; the bike slews around quite dramatically as soon as you stop moving, and I always feel like I've barely avoided a terrible fall. I suppose it wouldn't kill us but OH, the Guilt...