Pictorial

After I bleached the kitchen but before I vacuumed, I noticed that one of my animals had arranged two toys in a bit of a battle stance. I found it adorable - A Squeaky Squirrel Face-Off, if you will - and decided to update using photos.


Chienne and I remain less than amused. She because I kept waking her from naps. Me because of the freaking swarm of gnats! I called the service manager of my new pest company yesterday night and left a message on his machine.

"Hi." I said. "You were supposed to call me this week, but perhaps you didn't get the message. So I wanted to make sure we talked on Monday. Here's the thing - I have gnats. Lots and lots of gnats. And I hate them. A lot.

"Now the problem is that I didn't really have a pest problem before. But I paid for your service as a preventative measure and because I felt bad for the kid that was selling door to door in 90+ degree weather. Now, nearly $400 later, I have a pest problem. Which might be funny if I wasn't covered in gnats! So I decided I'm not paying a pest company to give me a pest problem. You may either rid me of the gnats or rid yourselves of my $400. OK? Thanks."

Walking back into my kitchen, I noticed that - perhaps in an ill-fated attempt to escape the flying demons itself - the aloe plant I've had since college was attempting to flee. I therefore call this photo Escape of the Aloe Plant.

While I certainly feel its pain, where is an aloe plant going to go? So I decided I'd remove it from the adorable but apparently too small tea cup planter and put it in a spare blue container I had. In the process, I realized I'd left an unsealed bag of potting soil in the plant corner of the kitchen. Judging by the activity when I picked it up, the gnats liked it in there.

I said - being quite restrained, I thought - "Oops." Then I unlocked the door and placed the bag outside. As is the case most of the time, the biggest cause of my problems is me.

The aloe, after much coaxing and shoving, is now upright in a different container. If it ends up on the floor again, I'll know it had help from a certain plant-eating feline or that it really wishes to find a new home. To its left is the newer of the schefflaras with smaller leaves and to its right is the older schefflara who, with its new gigantic pot, definitely believes it is now a tree.

Having almost finished cleaning, I am in need of a shower. Then I have to go get Friend and see a Harry Potter movie.

"I don't even watch them when they're on TV!" I whined last night. "Why would I want to go to the theater on a weekend to see it?!"

"Because I want to see it." She said simply.

So I huffed and puffed and asked her what time. I plan to drown myself in diet soda and some salty snack while I enjoy a gnat-free environment for a couple hours. Other than that, my evening will consist of figuring out how in the world to present this data I've been generating for a couple weeks or engrossing myself in my novel revisions. None of those things require pictures, so I guess I'm done updating for today.