Weather Issues

I’m finding it very hard to settle down to line the words up tonight. We’ve got Guatemala fever here and it’s very distracting. We’re thinking of taking two weeks of language school and joining the annual church trip for a third week to practice. We’re trying to get another joint study together. This would be a week of bilingual bible study and just an awesome way to pick up the language. Beaven’s already figured out that the trip wouldn’t cost us all that much. We would almost save money going to Guatemala just by keeping me out of Walmart.

Once we’ve done the math I’m usually set for the trip. Beaven has gone into deep research and won’t come out until we get off the plane. He’s got three guide books on his lap right now. We think we have the language school picked out but he’ll surf the internet for a couple more weeks until he’s read about each of the approximately 187 schools in Antigua alone and decided to go with the one we picked out tonight. I’ve finally learned to pace myself in this marriage.

In other news, it was a beautiful day today and I played outdoors as much as I could because the weather is supposed to get bad again tonight. I hope I have enough food.

We had about four days last week when the weather broke records for deep snow and low temperatures. The schools were closed and the roads deserted. Four days within which people not only never left their house but also ate their own cooking instead of going to MacDonald’s. After four days everyone had eaten the contents of their refrigerators right down to the last bit of moldy cheese and shriveled celery.

Then the temperatures rose, the ice melted and we all emerged cautiously to grab the car keys and head to the store.

I have never seen the stores so crowded. It was like Christmas shopping on steroids. Inside, the milk shelf was bare. My daughter had to go to three stores to find eggs. Then, before the checkout ladies could catch their breath, the Super bowl arrived and cleaned them out of chips and salsa.

The bad weather also flushed out wild animals looking for any warm place to stay. Last week we had a visitor in our huge metal storage building that we call the barn. We have a lot of junk that we can’t bear to throw away but don’t want to live with. So we have a storage building that is actually bigger than our house. You can’t imagine the array of boxes and accoutrements we have piled in there. I think when Beaven croaks I might open a hardware store just by offering all his stuff for sale. I could make a tidy bundle and wouldn’t even have to acquire an inventory. It’s all right here. He has a classic Ford tractor that sits in pieces waiting for him to rebuild it. A couple of riding mowers. A tree mulcher and a leaf sweeper. A welding rig. I could go on but I don’t know the names of the other things. Except that I know half of the stuff either doesn’t work or Beaven doesn’t want to use them.

Anyway, back to the critter in the barn. It must have been big because he knocked a bunch of heavy things off the shelves. I want to set a trap out to catch him. (Incidentally, we already have a live trap so it wouldn’t be that hard to do. It’s on the shelf next to the box of spare parts for the disposal in a house we owned two houses ago.) But I would have to figure out how to set the trap. And then deal with whatever we caught. And since I can barely deal with catching a catfish that might be problematic.

I have a sad suspicion that it might be a possum. And those are just about the nastiest and ugliest creatures God ever made. I know. I washed one in my washing machine once.

Obviously, it was entirely by accident. The critter probably jumped into the machine and I must have thrown clothes on top of him and started the machine without knowing it was there. God is merciful that way sometimes. The next morning when I went to move the clothes over to the dryer I opened the lid and was met by a horrible odor. When I looked inside I saw what I perceived to be either a huge rat or an incredibly ugly cat. Naturally, I slammed the lid shut and left the mess for Beaven to deal with. I think I wrote him some sweet note about how much I loved him and would he be my hero yet once again. I probably drew some happy faces on the note and left for work.

He called me later to tell me he had dispatched the possum off to possum heaven but I would want to re-wash the clothes a few hundred times. Was he all mangled, I asked. No, Beaven said. Just Real Clean.