Spiralled's Space

I just spent two hours going through my "To Read" list on Goodreads and cross referencing it with digital audiobooks that my library has available. I now have a queue of about 80 books.

So the good news is that I finally found the missing mouse trap... with one small foot in it. And eventually the smell dissipated.

Only to return. In my dryer.

The first guy from the Property Committee, G, suggested that the best plan was just to run the dryer empty and "burn" it out. Yeah. I tried that over the previous weekend to minimal effect.

I think G liked this idea as he was on the cusp of going out of town and just didn't want to deal with it. He also hadn't had a chance to deal with the ground wasps that are living in the wall of the parsonage, need my main door.

So P, another guy from the Property Committee came over to spray the wasps and plug the hole in the stucco, and then he and I braved taking the dryer venting off. Unfortunately there wasn't much in the base of the piping, given the smell. Which means whatever got in, got quite in. :(

So I've been running wetting rags and drying them, along with running a dehumidifier to try to mummify whatever stuck in the innards. I need to purchase several boxes of baking soda too. In the meantime I think I've caught 7 mice in traps in August. I've NEVER had a mice issue in August.

And to add insult to injury, after first blocking the entry, a few wasps showed up dazed and confused in my house. Then they found another crack to enter into their home. So P came back, sprayed some more gunk and caulked the crack shut.

This time it appears to have truly sealed their outside entrance, as my more wasps are in the house. Thankfully mostly dazed and half dead. I've closed the french doors to the sun room to try to keep the poor dying things in that room (it's nearest to their outside egress). Granted, there's a huge gap at the base of the doors, but I'm hoping their not that systematic.

Which means I'm not using that room or door to the outside and I'm not keen about being in my basement either. Any bets on what room I'll "lose" next.

Recently I was gone for a week and came back to proof of mice in the house, which included but was not limited to a dead mouse in a trap I baited last October.

It seemed prudent to rebait my traps - two in the basement and one between a wall and the fridge. Today I was checking the basement traps. One is missing. I just recently cleaned and organized my unfinished basement, so there's not a lot of places it could have gotten to. Yet it has, as I can't find the mouse and trap, but can smell it. I'm hoping the dehumidifiers will dry it out relatively quickly, as I've already looked in all the likely - and several unlikely places.

Note: This contains what might be considered a small spoiler for Mad Men. I have no idea if it's a big deal or not as I've not had an opportunity to watch Mad Men. But the show is over, so there is that.



I was tucked up in my bed, playing spider solitaire (but let's pretend it was a fabulous book) and I realized I was smelling oranges. This was odd, as there were no oranges in my room. I figured that left my cat, myself, or possibly my sheets. I'd newly made the bed. But it wasn't a citrus detergent and the sheets had been stacked in another room for quite a while. And I know it's shocking but that room had no oranges either.

Could my sweat be smelling citrusy? Could my cat, who was curled up next to me, be smelling citrusy? That would weird. I know! I'll google it.

This seemed like a good idea. I figured I'd learn something about unusual body reactions.

I did not expect the top link to be to an episode of Mad Men. Apparently there's an episode where a guy says "I smell oranges." Then promptly has a stroke.

At this point I asked myself, "Is it good or bad I've not seen this episode? The good is that I have no idea how big this stroke was. Maybe it was small and no big deal. The bad is I am laying in bed and I could TOTALLY IMAGINE it being horrible and deadly."

Other links are also talking about people smelling smells, usually unpleasant, but sometimes citrusy preceding a stroke. So more taking to myself. "Self, if I'm having a stroke, would I know I was having one? Would I be able to google stuff that is freaking me out? No, I don't think so. But hopefully if it happens I'll still be able to say 'Hey Siri, call 911'. Of course she'll probably say, 'I'm sorry, I didn't catch that. Who would you like me to call?' Damn, I really should have revised my Nano notes into a novel."

Weirdly, I fell asleep without too much trouble. And I'm still alive, so I don't know what that citrus smell was. I didn't smell it the next night. So it's a mystery. But it got me to come see you all, so there's that.



In other news, after months and months of medically trying to get to the bottom of ongoing exhaustion it turns out that I'd become semi-immune to the anti-depressant/migraine preventative I'd been taking. I'm taking one in a different class and it seems to be working. Though it's possible I may need it kicked up more. We'll see.

And why geeky Giles icon? (Which may not transfer to my LJ account.) Because my Holy Week comfort TV has been watching Merlin for the first time. As Uther, ASH doesn't get to smile often. But when he does? Oh, baby. He's still got it. :: fans self::

I haven't gotten my fic on much the last few years, but I did remix. And I enjoyed remixing - and it's probably not the type of content folks might expect. Add to that, I'm hoping to tie up a little remix madness today/tomorrow.

So check out Remix 12: Dirty Dozen. And my remixer played around with a mal/river drabble of mine and created Black Hole (The Effects of Gravity Remix), which has some great lines, including about the relative craziness of crew members.

I live in an oldish house. So as we began to have warmish days over the winter, asian lady beetles started coming out around the window sills. Particularly the window sill in my bathroom. I think it must be the attraction of the moisture.

I've begun to feel rather badly about the ones who die, as there are not aphids in my bathroom. In fact, I felt so bad, I began to set out small amounts of a honey paste for them to eat. Which maybe helped? Hard telling, as lots of dead ones, regardless.

But it's been warm enough consistently that yesterday I decided to collect a bunch of my little friends and put them outside where they belong and might survive. And tonight it snowed. Not a lot of snow, just a dusting. So I'm hoping they're able to manage it, as I feel rather bad about moving them from warmish bathroom to coolish outdoors. And I've delayed the next round of asian lady beetle relocation until the snow melts.

Spent Thurs - Sat with a friend during post-shoulder surgery. She's single, no kids, parents are no longer living, and her brother doesn't do well outside of his home/comfort zone. The bummer thing for Kathleen is that they found a very infected cyst which had eaten into the ball of her arm.

So they cleaned it out and did put in a new ball, but it's a temporary thing and she's going to have to go back in six months or a year to have the shoulder redone. So, particularly given the pain, she's more than a little bummed about that.

During my time there, in addition to cooking meals and cleaning, I rearranged her fridge, freezer and cupboards so that the easier to make/heat foods were the easiest to reach. It seemed like she was in decent energy and spirits when I left. I do need to call and check in on her. I want to make sure she's eating decently, etc.

Today I got to go hiking with a woman who works at our preschool. Beautiful day for a hike in one of the multiple state parks near here. First time S and I did something social together. She was easy to converse with. And she was impressed with my hiking stamina. (Yay)

I warned her that I hadn't been hiking in a while and am more of a slow and steady kind of hiker than a fast one.

After that, I napped for nearly two hours and then went out to my yard to pick and move more rock in my goal of getting the last of my yard strawberries in their new bed before we get into freezing-type weather.

So last night I was surfing through my channels and came across "Sing Your Face Off". It is this wacky summer fill show in which celbs dress up like famous singers and then sing one of their well-known hits in persona. It's absolutely cheeze-tastic. And I was about to go one when I caught a flash of the MC. John Barrowman.

Yes, I clicked back just for John. But the problem is I'd much rather see John get in to costume and take on any of these characters.

He's sticking mostly to be MC and not outshining the performers or judges, but there was one darling moment among several of the men. How to Sissy-up that walk. The show definitely is in its right groove when it doesn't take itself too seriously.

What's wild is John is not short (hah). But there's a 6'7" basketball star, and then Sebastian Bach in Gaga heels and John looks like a wee little man. :)

I finally picked up my new glasses - complete with seemless bifocals - and wow. I can see the world so clearly. I've also been trying mono lens contacts and I'm not sure they are going to cut it compared to the crisp of these glasses. Or I need to do what the doctors have been saying for years and not wear the contacts all day.

I have one of those health plans where if I attend my gym 8 times a month or more, I get $20 back. Because of getting ready for the open house, I was sweating while cleaning and clearing, but not getting to the Y. So I've been hitting it the last several days. And also hitting the resistance weights. Sore, but in a good way. Mostly.

I was going to work on my (theoretical) garden. But it was closer to dusk that I realized, so the mosquitoes were killer and I had no bravery.

Also, I adore Colbert and Stewart. They help me laugh even when its about people behaving badly.

The newest delight being Colbert's shock at Ellen Page coming out as Canadian. And of course I thought of both my Canadian and "Canadian" friends.

On Sunday the sooper secret portion of Remix went live. So, if by chance you were curious what I wrote, here it is:

Rules of Flying (The Time in Bottle Remix) (6824 words) by Spiralleds
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Firefly, Serenity (2005)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Malcolm Reynolds/River Tam
Characters: Malcolm Reynolds, River Tam, Simon Tam, Zoe Washburne, Hoban "Wash" Washburne, Jayne Cobb, Shepherd Book, Kaylee Frye
Additional Tags: Time Travel, Angst, Romance
Summary:

"While there are infinite futures...while my current interests indicate a high probability of becoming a physicist, it is also possibly I'll meet the captain of a pirate vessel and take up a life of crime."

P.S. There's even a small nod to Castle. And possibly to Scotty of Star Trek. :)

On the one hand, I'm pleased with it. This is particularly true since it has been since nano that I've written story. And it's been an even more way ridiculously long time since I've written fanfic. I've missed the writing and the fannishness and the people, like woah.

I'm also pleased that once I finally got myself to sit down and write, I found the gathering word count didn't seem so amazing or odd (like it did once, earlier on). Instead it felt natural, which is a good feeling.

I'm very pleased that my remixee really enjoyed how I played with it. Definitely not a required thing for me to be happy with how a remix story turns out, but it is a very nice perk.

On the other hand, I wish I hadn't put off the getting started on words as long as I did. Granted, there were work things and being very sick things going on, but part was just nerves. And while what is there works, IMO, there was so much more I would have written and fleshed out if time had allowed.

But back to that first hand, fun and joy were had.