Friday, July 11, 2008

A Little Excitement

Well, I'm happy to say that I'm thisclose to finishing that damn book. And after writing and re-writing the scene, I ended up going with the cabin that had been in the original scene. Not a total waste of time, though. I tidied the scene, took out a bunch of extra nonsense and now... done. So, I have about 100 pages left to go over, which isn't a lot, since this is just polishing the final draft. Then, read it over and out it goes. Whew!

On a lighter note, I realized yesterday that gerbils are very fast, especially when they are spooked.

The Girl has 5 gerbils. We started out with two, and now have five. See the post about Kevin the Gerbil for a refresher on how we ended up with five.

Well, Tiger and Eddie had 3 pups a few weeks ago.Two are identical, one is black with a white tummy (I've already claimed him as my officemate). It seems the black one (Scooter, for now. I refuse to name him until I am absolutely positive he's going to live) has what looks like a respiratory infection - which is very common when they wean. No biggie. Finally hunted down the tetracycline I needed, got it into his water, and now he's doing pretty well.

But yesterday, I went in to see the gerbils - I try to take the pups out as much as possible to get them used to me and my daughter. Scooter hops right in my hand and crawls up to perch on my shoulder - which is totally adorable. And he makes these little chirping noises... squee...

Anyhow, I did my usual routine - make sure Scooter gets his medicine (thought he does drink from the water bottle, which is filled with medicated water, just in case), but I apparently forgot to put one cap back over an opening in the top of the tank.

I'm in my office, cursing out that stupid love scene, when The Girl comes running in yelling, "Eddie's gone!"

That's crazy. How could she be gone when she's trapped in that tank? I grumble a little, but go with my daughter into her room. I'll show her. Eddie's just buried somewhere... in... the...

Oh bloody hell.

Yep -gerbil's on the loose.

The Girl runs downstairs for the box of Cheerios (Eddie's got a weakness for the Cheerio), while I try to catch the gerbil, who is under the Girl's bed. Every time I thought I had her, she'd hop straight up in the air and take off to the far side of the bed.

The Girl comes back with the whole box of Cheerios, closes and locks her door (to keep the Boy out. We really don't need his help in this), and we each take a handful of Cheerios. Then, she gets on one side of the bed, and I take the other. We're getting this gerbil.

Well, Eddie's apparently smarter than either the Girl or myself. She's not falling for the old lure-into-the-hand-with-Cheerios maneuver. She jumps straight up (how does she do it?), over my hand, and takes off like a shot behind the Girl's nightstand.

I trash the corner of the Girl's room trying to catch this %@^&@ gerbil, and each time I get close - boing - straight up and over.

I'm happy to say, though, after about 1/2 an hour of me diving one way and the Girl diving another, I finally managed to capture Eddie and return her safely to her family. That's when I realized I'd left that cap off. So, note to self: ALWAYS look to make sure all openings are covered. I soooo do not want to play "Capture the Gerbil" again.

2 comments:

Marian Perera said...

That reminds me of the time a computer in the library where I worked stopped functioning. We sent for IT and the guy tapped the keyboard, scratched his head and then opened up the tower.

A mouse jumped out and ran behind a stack of books. "That must be the new self-replicating mouse I've heard about," I said, and we spent an hour chasing the thing around the office. Mice move fast. They also jump.

We never did catch it. We had to go back to work and hope we never saw it again.

Kim said...

It probably invaded someone else's machine - hey, maybe it was the new IT hire? ;)