rummaging with rubbish.

I am a horrible person. Knowing full well that the watery death trap works just fine for quickly killing mice, I still set out rat poision, subjecting this probably very nice and charismatic mouse to a slow and painful death.

One night, our neighbor Katie, got a late night hankering to make scones, and came by our place...because we trade amenities (washer for oven).
I left her to her business and went to bed. It must not have been too much longer afterward that I awoke and stumbled in a stupor to the bathroom. When I opened the door, Katie was standing there with an oven mitt on, a pan in one hand and a cookie sheet in the other.
"emmmily- there is a mouse downstairs"
"yea. i know, don't worry we set up watery death trap to take care of it"
"...do you want me to kill it or trap it in the pan?"
"if you want, otherwise it can just drown"
and then i passed back out, forgetting about the entire conversation instantly.

I am not much of a morning person and as I staggered into the kitchen at five am to get my coffee brewing, not yet capable of opening my eyes, I thought nothing about the frantic mouse..
..and then I saw it.
I figured that Katie had clobbered him down, but was too lazy to move him outside,
This produced a quite hilarious mental image and resulted in me standing in the kitchen laughing for a good five minutes.
When I saw Katie that morning at the staff meeting, she whispered, "did you see the dead mouse on the floor?"
"yes I did, did you kill it?"
"nooooo, I stood watching him for about 30 minutes and he was acting like he was drunk, staggering all over the place and running into things until he finally just fell over"
Turns out, three days after consumption of poison, the mouse finally gave in to its powers. I think I can now officially say that our mice days have ended.

My students have been on a role lately as well.
Here is an example of a real life conversation I had with a group of eighth graders just the other day.
"Ms. Shriver, is it true that in America, you can drink the tap water?"
"it sure is...in fact, if you want, you can drink from the hose in someone's backyard"
"seriously?!"
"yes, and in America, they put a special substance called flouride in the tap water that helps to make you healthy"
It took a while for this to really resonate with the students, and even then, they still thought that I was pulling their legs and describing the latest distopian young adult fiction book I had been reading as opposed to an actual occurrence, and ironically, I can see why they would think that... That same day I had a student come up to me, dead serious, and ask "Ms. Shriver, how do you spell friendshipness?" This was on a traditional school celebration of friendship day, in which the seniors dress the ninth graders up however they want. This day is a bit warped and ends up with many boys dressed as girls and girls dressed as mythical creatures. Because the boy who asked me about friendshipness was dressed as Quasimodo, tights and all, I did my very best to not laugh in his face, explaining that friendshipness is in fact, not a word.

October is once again proving to be my favorite month here; the weather is absolutely perfect- the rain ceases, the sun shines, and it is warm enough to wear sandals. If my calculations are correct I have about 24 days until the cold sets in, and I plan on utilizing every single moment of it.Today we decided it would be demolding day, and between the two houses of the duplex, we put out the most nasty mold ridden items we could find. This ended up resembling a white trash rummage sale, when in fact, nothing was for sale. However, there is not a doubt in my mind that if we had actually priced our items, we could have made at least four dollars each.
It would have been a one of kind sale, that is for sure. Here are some of the 'high' priced items we would have had to offer...

Luggage set complete with space boots

A bedding set with two 'organ warmers' (think leg warmers, but for your kidneys)

White trash selling a gorgeous vest and water bottle cover

Passport anyone?

Stamps for printmaking are a definite best seller..

She is faking the amount of fun she is having..

I spend a solid 12 hours today moving items into the direct sunshine and wiping mold from surfaces high and low. Rather than spring cleaning, we have monsoon cleaning...and it may just take 3 more weekends of diligent attention before the house starts smelling normal again. Luckily, I am motivated and ready to do what it takes to erase all monsoon traces from my life.