The Continuing Saga of the Rat House

We will be homeless as of next Saturday. The last 48 hours have been filled with high drama in the saga of the Rat House. I never thought that I would be contemplating homeless shelters and/or camping out for an extended period of time, but these thoughts have crossed my mind. I don't mean to trivialize the plight of the homeless. There are certainly people on the streets with nothing and nowhere to turn. We have plenty of material goods as well as many people whom I hope would take us in. Ours is a homelessness born out of contractual difficulties rather than poverty. Nevertheless, we must pack all of our belongings, move them to storage, and find a place to stay for a couple of weeks. We have 7 days to do this, all while a ferocious hurricane threatens to complicate matters further. Oh, the twists and turns of this Rat House!

Caleb Quote O' the Day

Caleb was telling me about a cartoon that he was watching. "There's a bad mommy," he said, "A really, really, REALLY bad mommy. Come look." I raced to the tv to see what kind of horrible mother they were depicting. On the screen was indeed a vile creature, but the vowel makes all the difference....it was a mummy!

Caleb Quote O' the Day

"My body wants food, but dinner's not ready yet. Can I have a snack?"

Christian Michael

I'm an aunt! Christian Michael was born on August 3, 2008. He weighed 9 pounds, 15 ounces, and he's already up to 10 pounds, 15 ounces! What a big boy...he'll give Madi a run for her money soon! Caleb is thrilled to have a cousin. And what a cute little cousin he is...

Caleb Quote O' the Day

We were eating breakfast (toast and eggs) when Caleb started to whimper. I asked him what was wrong.
"Nothing," he said, "The bread is just crying because I'm eating it."

Caleb Quote O' the Day

"I want three brothers to play with and three sisters to play with. Can you tell God that?"

Oh Rats!

I thought it might be therapeutic to detail our rodent adventures since I'm not doing so well with the whole thing. Here's the summary:

A. I have an irrational fear of all rodents.
B. There is a veritable zoo of rodents living in our attic, including a live squirrel!

These two truths are not meshing very well.

The pest control guy that our landlords hired said that there were too many entry points to count, and that his company would turn down the job because it was too much for them.

I've tried to find some humor in the situation. It's scant, but there is a bit:
A. The pest control guy showed me the difference between squirrel and rat poop (let me know if you're interested).
B. Matt carries a 70 pound dog up a flight of steep, narrow stairs each night in the hopes that Richard will protect us.
C. Sorry, that's all I've got...I told you it was scant.

So, we'll almost surely be breaking our lease, and the whole mess will probably end in a lawsuit. Please let us know if you know any attorneys who might be lenient with their fees. Thank you!

I'm searching for a lesson to come from this whole thing, but the best I can come up with right now is "Before signing a lease, make sure your landlord is fluent in English (or that you're fluent in his native language...in this case Polish)."