First of all, thank you to my wife for not insisting that we get married in the fall. There are very few Saturdays over the course of the next several months that I will not be very interested in CBS, NBC, ABC, and ESPN....and if you don't know why, ask your husband or boyfriend.
But seriously, what a great time of the year! We have finally (crossing my fingers, at least) past the hottest weeks of the year, and just a few more days and we'll be done with August, which always has a way of throwing in a few more days with the temperature sneaking towards triple digits. Once again, the Braves are in first place and I feel like a kid again! How awesome is it watching Bobby's boys pull it out in the last inning all year long? I think they've won as many games in the last at bat as McCann has thrown bats into the stands this year! And as the seasons change from MLB playoffs to the wonderful world of college football....this is definitely the greatest time of the year!
Unfortunately, I have discovered some of the not so great things about this time of the year as a homeowner. Several of you may have heard this story already, so bare with me. I'll try to make it less painful than it actually was.
As the contractors finished up their work on our house a few months ago, they informed us that we had a squirrel in the attic. We didn't hear it for a few weeks, and I never saw it in the several trips that I made up into the attic. Well, as the season for hoarding acorns and nuts grew closer, our little friend became a little more active. We began to hear him (or at least I would) every morning as the sun began to shine. Finally, about two weeks ago, Erin and I had some time after work one Monday so we ran over to Home Depot to pick up a trap and get the little fella out of there. When we got home, I headed up stairs and placed the trap in what I thought was a great spot to pick of our little house guest. As I slept that night I had dreams of little rodents with x's in their eyes...sorry to all of you animal lovers out there, but he wasn't paying any rent and was driving poor little Ellie nuts (no pun intended) and she wouldn't stop barking at the scurrying across the ceiling.
The next morning I once again heard the creature running around all over my attic...and then all of the sudden.....it stopped....and then got MUCH louder. I can imagine that if I had been running around and then thought I had found free breakfast, only to find myself caught in a cage, I would have made a lot more noise as well. So, I decided to head to work, let the little guy tire out, and take it to the lake later that evening.----8 hours later---I got home from work all exited to prove my superiority over the squirrel that I didn't even change before heading up into the attic. I pulled the stairs down out of the closet ceiling, turned my headlamp on, climbed the stairs, peaked over the ceiling to find.....nothing. The trap was empty. It had never even gone off. So, I continued up the ladder to move the trap in hopes that a new location would prove a better spot. No sooner had I placed the cage in the perfect spot that I began to feel something that I didn't expect to feel....a loss of balance. I'm sure my arms waved around for a split second, I took a step backwards to try and catch my balance, managed to find one of the rafters, tried to take another step as I still had not regained my balance...and this time I was not as lucky with my foot placement. If you manage to make it by our house before too long, you will still see the Trent size hole in the ceiling above our two-story foyer. Luckily for me, I have seen enough Kung Fu movies in my day to know that when you are falling through a ceiling, you need only stick you arms out to catch the rafters. I did just that, and barely saved myself from the 20ft fall of doom.
All the while, Ellie continued to bark.
Two days later I caught the squirrel and Shapour took him to the lake.
