Of Mice and M. Night Shyamalan

Not much new with me, but if anyone out there knows how to mouse-proof an apartment without causing any harm to the little rodent in question, let me know. I saw a mouse last Saturday morning when I first woke up, and it's about the last thing I want to greet me at the start of weekend... or any other time, for that matter. Anyway, my landlord, in his infinite wisdom and cruelty, chose not to repair my heating unit (the source--I'm convinced--of the mouse's break-in) and chose instead to leave glue traps throughout my apartment. Rather than have the burden of an innocent animal's suffering on my conscience, I threw out the traps and covered my heater with blankets. Yes, I know this is ineffective, but I don't care. Besides, I haven't seen the mouse since, so maybe it did work, or perhaps he simply continued on his way to some other apartment.

Still, the little critter did cost me several nights' worth of sleep, so I did also purchase some flexible metal netting with which to cover the heater. It's far easier to do it myself than to pick a fight with my landlord.

An aside: the mouse wasn't the only thing to cost me sleep last week: I had the misfortune of going to see the latest M. Night Shyamalan movie last weekend, and it haunted me for days after. Even the image of my Marky Mark couldn't keep me from being scarred from the sights of all of the death scenes, especially when enough of them occur in my old stomping grounds in Philadelphia's Rittenhouse Square. Then again, it might have been the lack of plot and the wooden dialogue more than the suicides that kept me tossing and turning in the middle of the night. It's tough to say.

Mini Getaway

Once again I'm blogging from my blackberry, which is about as slow and tedious as it sounds, but it's the best I can do while on vacation and away from my computer. it's been a nice couple of days: mom wanted to visit her sister in Florida, so I volunteered to take her for a long (four-day) weekend. The weather has been dodgy, with some rain yesterday and clouds today, so beach time has been compromised. This morning, however, I was reminded that a morning on vacation in West Palm Beach is still better than a morning spent preparing for work. Check out this photo:


That, dear reader, was the road I took on my inline skating excursion. It was smooth as glass and lined with palm trees, and I was in skater heaven. I know it's not that exciting, but this little thing brought me such joy! It has, however, meant the final nail in the coffin for any pleasure I derived from skating through that rude-cyclist-infested and leaf-clogged Beach Drive in DC's Rock Creek Park. Alas.