Creatures are stirring, and they ain't mice

Rats. We have rats in our house. Already they have destroyed several items of Maus's (sigh) cookware, infected a large cabinet, and locked down the attic (the insulation up there looks like a giant poppyseed cake). Plus, one of them has completely ruined a major appliance. Major.

We've already purchased a replacement which arrives tomorrow. The plan is to fill the old one with cheese to get as many rats in it as possible before the Albert Lee guys haul it away.

Shmool has taken no action as of yet, though we can hardly fault him as his recent ailments have really taken the wind out of his sails. When I try to explain the situation to him, he gazes back at me with Dubya's My Pet Goat face. Sad.

We did call in a professional hit squad, and the house now has more booby-traps than the Cube. (I avoid them by staying in one room as much as possible.)

The cavalcade of grandparents begins this week, so over and out for the holidays. See you on the other side (in the big black of January).

I leave you with this broad face and little round belly, that shakes when he laughs, like a bowl full of jelly:

Thank God THAT'S over

I've endured a handful of crappy months in my life: March 1987, November 1995, February 2002, January 2003 all come to mind. Of course, September 2001 was no picnic, and let us not forget November 2004, not ever.

But November 2007 — ah, what a little overachiever that one turned out to be. I shan't enumerate the details here, but suffice to say no quarter of my life, my household, or my body came through unbludgeoned.

But it's over now, and December arrived in Seattle like a white knight, first with an uncharacteristic layer of early snow — a brief consecration and benediction — immediately followed by an all-too-familiar pummeling of rain and wind, which even now is blasting and washing away the taint of November.

It is just damn miserable out there, and I'm infinitely grateful not to be out in it. From this warm and dry vantage, with all the calendars now flipped mercifully to the last page, I can take in the deluge with both relief and approval. And with Christmas with the Rat Pack playing soothingly in the background, I can set myself to figuring out exactly where, in this house now filled beyond capacity with baby toys, we're going to fit this year's tree.