Hurray and huzzah for the launch of the second-to-last Space Shuttle, which is the last launch for Endeavor and the second second-to-last launch after NASA decided that the last last launch would not in fact be last. If the last second-to-last launch is any indication, this will not be the last second-to-last launch at all. We will need to wait several months, I think, after the last launch to be sure that that launch is not also the second-to-last launch.
With apologies,
Newt
An exposition of the merits of retiring early to Florida from some less eccentric part of the world.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Critters
Florida has nothing if not critters. Alligators, of course - splashy, fun and pretty good diced, battered and fried. I wasn't in the state but a short time before I fetched up against the Palmetto Bug crisis of 2009. Like any self-respecting Northerner, I took this personally.
Then came the wretched armadillos. I'm not even getting into the love-bugs fornicating on the grille of my Honda because by now I am a resigned Southerner. But of late there has descended upon Castle Newton a plague of rodents the likes of which has not been seen since the Middle Ages. I check myself daily for buboes.
It's not just the mouse, for what man's hickory-dickery castle has not had the odd mouse lurking? A chocolate-shot-looking turd here; another there. I set one of those fancy plastic better-mousetraps that promises to shield your sensitive eye from the putative corpse-to-be. The mouse left it baitless and forlorn three consecutive nights. Four bucks wasted. Not to mention several dollops of peanut butter. Conventional traps, HAH! I even filed down the trigger on one of those spring traps so it fired off if I so much as farted in the general vicinity. No mouse. No peanut butter either.
Glue traps? Forget it. My exterminator-- yeah, Floridians have exterminators like Northerners have snow shovels -- gave me a big commercial glue trap, which stunk like hell and trapped only a thick carpet of those tiny winged no-see-um gnats that are the state bird of Florida. I folded another glue trap into a hollow box-like affair (insert Tab A into Slot B) with the glue inside, and I slathered it with yet more peanut butter. The Skippy folks have sent me a nice thank-you note. My mouse crapped on top of the box.
Last week, something started gnawing on my air conditioning duct. It only comes out at night. Could be a rat or a possum or an overachieving chipmunk. I tucked three large traps -- one dangerous looking spring-loaded affair and two big glue traps -- into my duct-work. That was three days ago. The peanut butter/cheese bait has gone bad.
And I have already whined enough about the squirrels. Today I bought a medium Hav-a-Hart contraption, baited it with breakfast cereal (shredded wheat, miniatures, unsweetened) and set it out under the oak tree. Screw the peanut butter; the critters don't care a whit about peanut butter. I sent the note back to Skippy.
I keep sneaking over to the window to peek under the oak tree.
Newt
Then came the wretched armadillos. I'm not even getting into the love-bugs fornicating on the grille of my Honda because by now I am a resigned Southerner. But of late there has descended upon Castle Newton a plague of rodents the likes of which has not been seen since the Middle Ages. I check myself daily for buboes.
It's not just the mouse, for what man's hickory-dickery castle has not had the odd mouse lurking? A chocolate-shot-looking turd here; another there. I set one of those fancy plastic better-mousetraps that promises to shield your sensitive eye from the putative corpse-to-be. The mouse left it baitless and forlorn three consecutive nights. Four bucks wasted. Not to mention several dollops of peanut butter. Conventional traps, HAH! I even filed down the trigger on one of those spring traps so it fired off if I so much as farted in the general vicinity. No mouse. No peanut butter either.
Glue traps? Forget it. My exterminator-- yeah, Floridians have exterminators like Northerners have snow shovels -- gave me a big commercial glue trap, which stunk like hell and trapped only a thick carpet of those tiny winged no-see-um gnats that are the state bird of Florida. I folded another glue trap into a hollow box-like affair (insert Tab A into Slot B) with the glue inside, and I slathered it with yet more peanut butter. The Skippy folks have sent me a nice thank-you note. My mouse crapped on top of the box.
Last week, something started gnawing on my air conditioning duct. It only comes out at night. Could be a rat or a possum or an overachieving chipmunk. I tucked three large traps -- one dangerous looking spring-loaded affair and two big glue traps -- into my duct-work. That was three days ago. The peanut butter/cheese bait has gone bad.
And I have already whined enough about the squirrels. Today I bought a medium Hav-a-Hart contraption, baited it with breakfast cereal (shredded wheat, miniatures, unsweetened) and set it out under the oak tree. Screw the peanut butter; the critters don't care a whit about peanut butter. I sent the note back to Skippy.
I keep sneaking over to the window to peek under the oak tree.
Newt