Epidemic, Update

You haven't heard from me in a few days because I've been on possum watch....David and I now sit on the stairs to our basement with rolling pins in our hands waiting for the clicking sound which signals the arrival of possums.

We've killed five so far, and the bloodbath isn't over.

Today a faculty member, formerly from the Southern part of the US, informed me that the beasts will keep coming as long as the scent trail into our basement exists. "Get yoself some ammonia and clean that place up!" he yelled at me over the telephone, safe in his hotel room in another state.

But where to begin? We really don't know how they're getting into our basement, but one of us has got to get brave and find out. I keep pointing my finger at David ("you're the man, YOU do it!") and he keeps finding other things to do ("Honey, where'd you put my shoe polish?" which is completely unbelievable given he doesn't own a pair of leather shoes) Maybe we need a dog.

Epidemic

We have an epidemic playing out in our basement.

First, I thought our furnace was broken because I kept hearing a clicking sound. Every time, however, I went down there to investigate the clicking stopped. Soon I realized that the clicking was coming from an animal (a cricket? grasshopper? chirping bird?) and I was scaring whatever it was as I tromped downstairs.

Then a few nights back I went down to investigate again, but the clicking sound didn't stop and I could localize it to some boxes and my boiling water canner. I picked up the canner and something moved inside it. It was a baby one of these: Yes, a possum. Or Opossum if you're the National Geographic. I started to scream but because my husband is hard of hearing, I had to run upstairs screaming bloody murder like a wild banshee all the while holding the boiling water canner filled with a tame, possum playing....well, possum. David disposed of it. Let's just say that this baby's mother will be reunited with it on the other side of the Jordan.

This morning, much to my horror, the clicking went crazy and David and I went downstairs to the sight of two baby possums in our basement, a clear sign of epidemiologic escalation. I herded one towards David with a broom, while he caught its tail and swung it into the pot. Then the other one walked over David's foot, allowing him to scoop it up and put it with its kin.

I'm here to testify that boiling water canners sure come in handy for a variety of tasks. Without a complaint from our captives, David martyred the beasts, this time without much screaming from me.

But really. We want to be done with the possum hunts in our basement. Whenever it stops snowing we will inspect all crawl spaces to make sure they stay outside.

Snow in April

Although we had a light dusting of snow over the weekend, my tulips are out full-force this year.

Will the Real Susan Duncan Please Stand Up?

There are two Susan Duncans in my life.

On the left, Susan Duncan of Hammond, Indiana, Ph.D., research scientist at the University of Chicago. On the right, Susan Duncan of Portland, Oregon, working on Ph.D., educator of science to gifted children in the Beaverton School District. Each living parallel lives in different places. Each with their own stories to tell. But each looking remarkably similar to one another.

Yes, I am rich in Susan Duncans!

Elopement Risk

I park in the Emma Jones lot behind the North Hospital where I work. Every morning I walk up stairs out of the lot, through a back door of the North Hospital, past the inpatient psychiatric unit until I wind my way up the stairs to the second floor to my office.

Around Valentine's Day I noticed the pink sign on the door to the inpatient unit. It took awhile before I read the sign. It reads: Caution: Elopement Risk.

All kinds of fantasies stirred up in me with this sign. I started having thoughts that if I stood there long enough, somebody would burst out of the secure ward and grab me running as we headed for the heliport and were whisked off to Vegas.

Or there would be overwrought parents standing by the door whilst their daughter's beloved paced nervously outside, heartsick over her entrapment.

I was so disappointed when I finally asked my boss what this meant, exactly. "You idiot," he assured me, "it means that someone will want to escape, so be careful going in and out."

I looked up the verb "elope" in the Oxford English Dictionary. It confirms my suspicion. The first meaning is: "Of a wife: To run away from her husband with a paramour." Then it says "More frequently said of a woman running away from home with a lover for the purpose of being married." Only the third meaning is "to run away, abscond."

Whatever, I find the whole thing very quaint.