November fragments

So many November birthdays:

Five days ago, Scarlett Johansson turned thirty, and so did my brother, David. …

Yesterday at 6:00am Edoarda called Stephen to wish him a happy birthday. …

A few minutes later, Edoarda’s parents called from Nicaragua. “Muchas gracias, muchas gracias,” Stephen kept on saying.

Oh yeah, Happy Thanksgiving.

Our house is vermin-free. For longer than a week, the traps have remained unoccupied.

People have been asking about my new job at the high school.

How long have you been doing it?

About a month and a half, but it seems like forever.

What’s the craaaazzzziest thing you’ve seen?

Nothing too crazy. I saw a kid get arrested. The school’s cop pulled him into a room and yelled at him for a long time. Then they went into the principal’s office. When they came out, the cop said something else to the kid, and the kid tried to run, and the cop pancaked him and put cuffs on him. The cop was built like an NFL lineman. The kid was scrawny.

A couple of nights ago, I saw the cop on TV, telling how he cultivates relationships with the kids.

How well do YOU get along with the kids?

A few times each week, I buy donuts from them, which they’re grateful for. Otherwise, I barely talk to them. I hardly even notice when they make out with one another in the halls. I work more closely with the teachers, ordering supplies and making photocopies. I could tell you a lot about the copy machines. Whenever there’s a paper jam, a teacher emails me and I scurry off to see if the copier is broken enough for me to fill out a repair request form. Our building is big; some of the copiers are, like, two blocks away from one another. There are teachers who’ve been around for forty years who don’t know where the backup copiers are.

I could go on and on about the copiers.

Do you enjoy this job?

Very much. The teachers have vivid personalities: every day is like watching a sitcom. Also, I get free coffee, courtesy of the Social Studies dept chair.

More fauna

MORE VERMIN IN OUR HOUSE !!!

• two Sundays ago, a squirrel;
• Friday night, another mouse;
• then a mouse at 3:00 the next morning (lying in bed, I heard Martin & Mary hunting it);
• then, at dawn, another mouse.

Without much difficulty, we shooed or carried all those vermin out of the house. So far, we haven’t committed any violence against them. It was suggested that we drown one of those mice, but I protested; then Martin was going to squash it, but before he could, it ran away.

UPDATE, TUESDAY: We’ve found more mice. They’ve been getting into the house through a hole in the cellar. Martin has killed three of them, with traps.

UPDATE, WEDNESDAY: This afternoon, Martin took me down to the cellar to look at the day’s catch. He’d been experimenting with different kinds of traps. Today only one mouse was caught, but now Martin knows better which traps to use and how to use them.

And what has Bianca been doing about the vermin? Nothing much.

(Photo by Edoarda)

Tonight we’re going to eat at Hacienda, for Martin’s sake. None of us, except for Martin, really likes Hacienda.

I just turned thirty-three. I feel very wise … and humble.

And calm.

These days, what do I blog about? Domestic bliss.