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Knock knock knock knock knock knock knock knock knock knock.  Click click.

In the middle of the night, a loud serious door knocks woke Karen and I up.  It was a constant pattern of around 10 knocks, followed by an attempt to open the door, followed by more knocks.  As I made my way toward the door, I attempted verbal communication with the unexpected guest, but the knocking just continued.  At that point, I decided to bring in professional help: 911.

While the police were on their way and I was on the phone with the operator, and Karen was able to see that the person had long, blond hair.  We had no idea whether this person was drunk, lost, or outright insane.  When the police arrived, I was able to eavesdrop on part of the conversation: her name was Emily and she was 17 years old.  She must have been drunk, and it was freezing outside (31 degrees)!  Well, at least it wasn’t some psycho who recently got released from some mental institution.

The police also asked her about a cut on her hand, and shortly afterwards, the paramedics arrived to tend to her wounds.  A police came to the door to explain the situation, and what I opened the door, I noticed what appeared to be an imagery from a R-rated horror movie…

The police explained that I should clean the door with a bleach solution and while we can press charges for trespassing, there’s no compelling reason to.  He also mentioned to be careful of the broken pieces of glass that she got her cuts from…

Finally after cleaning the mess up, we were able to return to bed.  It certainly was a peculiar event, but at least she’s in good hands now and return to her home, away from this cold, freezing night.

After this whole rodent-catching and disposing situation, we were left with a fish tank, a mouse wheel, two food dishes, and a bunch of bedding and mouse food.  I suppose it also left us with a rearranged pantry, a disinfected fireplace, and the idea of owning a pet.  Finally we caved in and paid another visit to PetCo.

He’s a Siberian Dwarf Hamster.  He’s white, has a small ear, red eyes, and a bunny-esque tail. We have yet to name him, but he’s a handful already.  When the expert store manager, who claimed to be the proud owner of several hamster privately, made an attempt to extract the mouse from its cage, he leap out of his cage and dropped 5 feet onto the floor.  Ouch!  The word “exchange” crossed my mind, but somehow we’ve already made the connection with him in the long two minutes we spent with him.  Thankfully there are no noticeable impairment from that fiasco, as he is gleefully racing in the mouse wheel next to me heading toward some imaginative destination.

Welcome the new member of the family.  This time, I believe he is here to stay.

After identifying the mouse as a “deer mouse”, we’ve looked into the perils of such a wild rodent, and in the end, we decided to ban its presence from the premises.  I carefully transported it to a grocery bag, went to an undisclosed location (and no it’s not my neighbor’s backyard), wished it a good life and dropped it off.  It immediately rushed to the nearest blackberry bush and disappeared.

Now it’s time for some cleanup…

It all started one day while Karen was blissfully preparing dinner when suddenly… she opened the pantry and uncovered chewed peanuts and broken candy wrappers ll over the place!  Certainly a strange phenomenon.

Then one night when Karen walked downstairs to get a drink, and she heard some noises in the pantry.  Immediately I ran downstairs to the rescue by surrounding the perimeter with cushions and proceeded to remove the items from the pantry, one by one.  Suddenly, the mouse jumped out and I let out a scream that remains a permanent part of the Karen’s blackmail arsenal.  The mouse hid in the corner as I contemplated a course of action.  At one point, Karen handed me the electrocuting fly zapper, but when she noticed how “cute” it was, she became protective.  After some futile attempts at grabbing the mouse, it lept over some feeble obstacles and darted into the fireplace.  We had found the breach in our perimeter.

So Karen and I visited our local Home Depot and tour the pest removal section.  We quickly dismissed rat poison as we only buy organic products.  We also dismissed the glue paper as the adhesion would cause the mouse to be permanently bonded–a cruel arrangement.  The traditional mouse trap would snap its head in half, leaving a disturbing sight.  Finally, we settled on the perfect tool: the Victor Live-Catch Mouse Trap.

Just place cheese or peanut butter in the opening, and when the mouse enteres the trap, the lid closes…

We placed some sliced, hardened Jack cheese in the trap and placed two traps head to head next to the fireplace.  After a few mouse dreams and nightmares, Karen and I woke in the morning and anxiously checked the trap.  Nothing.

So we switched to plan B.  Karen had bought peanut butter from Trader Joe’s (no trans-fat!) which smelled really good, so we spread some on a peanut and used it as bait instead.  After some more mouse dreams and tossing and turning, we woke up in the morning, ran downstairs and found that one of the lid was closed!  However, a quick inspected revealed nothing inside.  In fact, even the peanut-butter covered peanut was gone!  So we tried again, with a smaller peanut.

Nothing happened on the first day, but on the second day, Karen noticed that one of the traps was rotated 90 degrees!  I picked up the trap and took a quick peek–yup, mouse tail.  Karen excitedly headed to PetCo to pick up a cage, and we proceeded to put the mouse inside the cage.

Except…  the mouse was so small it squeezed between the bars, jumped out, and squeezed under the washer/dryer.  Finally I moved the washer and grabbed the mouse and placed it in a box.  Karen returned to PetCo and bought a fish tank, mouse food, pine bedding & litter, exercise wheel, and the works, which is the new place of residence for this little guy.

Welcome our new member of the family!

Just to show how much Karen insists on enjoying the summer, here’s a little peak at her new-found habits from this stealth shot…

In case you missed it on the thermometer, let me give you a 1:1 crop of the interesting portion…

Anyone question her dedication of enjoying every summer’s day?  😎

(btw, as good as I may be at digital manipulation, I certify the authenticity of this picture)

This was our dying white pine…

We have waited an entire year for it to recover, but it kept deteriorating. With the right side completely dead, during days of storm we kept cringing in our seats hoping it wouldn’t come tumbling down on the house.  Finally, we decided we had enough excitement and decided to go the route of euthanasia… 

It hurt to do this, but it had to be done… and now we were left with a bunch of pellets… 

While it opened up a lot of space in the yard, it also exposed our house to more sun.  We’ll need to plant some tall-growing trees near the fence…  just what we need, more yard work!

Can’t believe Karen and I have been married for two years!  Instead of shelling out major dough for some restaurant, we decided to dine at the local Karen Lee House of Tea…

The fine dining began with a mango salad dish…

then continued with a mushroom soup…

and then the Lobster with piña colada…

After the dining at this fine restaurant with a world-class chef, we decided to take a little Vista tour (not to be confused with Windows) at the place where we held our banquet 2 years ago, the Edgewater Hotel.

Then after a leisurely walk, we returned to the Karen Lee House of Tea for some dessert…

It’s easy to take for granted someone who’s with you all the time, but I truly appreciate sharing my life with Karen the past two wonderful years.  🙂

With Seattle raining about 11 out of 12 months of the year, we need to embrace the sunlight whenever it can be detected.  Now that Karen and I have finished the fence and the shed, we moved on to our next project–the picnic table!

There was a story in purchasing the umbrella.  During our first visit to Pottery Barn, the lady mentioned, “if you see it for lower in the catalog, we would honor that price”, but when I called in to make the actual purchase, a different lady answered and insisted they never do this and that their retail price includes shipping, which is why it’s more expensive!  I waited until the next day to make the plead in person, but the original lady wasn’t there.  I ended up asking a guy, but his attitude was “that’s our price, take it or leave it”.  Finally I gave up and went to the register.  I made a puppy face and asked, “Can you just give it to me for the catalog price?”  She said, “I’m not supposed to do this, but… okay!”

So the moral of the story is… when all else fails, utilize the puppy face.

After finishing the fence, Karen and I moved on to other projects, one of which is the extra-large honey bucket for emergency use from the yard!  Okay, maybe not.  It’s a storage solution for all the yard equipment.  Because this area of the land was sloped, the most difficult part Karen and I had to do was leveling it.  Hopefully we won’t wake up one day and see the shed at the bottom of the slope.  😛

Now that it freed up the extra space in the garage, Karen’s real motivation for urging the shed’s completion was to resume my muscle-building routines on the bench.  Anyone up for some reps?  😉

For those of you who have religiously followed the chapter on the Magic Bean with writing, I went to extra length to ensure a more interesting type of plant–the Dancing Flower!  And no, it’s not the battery-operated version that wiggles when its hidden condenser microphone detects vocal signals.  This is a living, growing plant that does the John Travolta or Michael Jackson at the cue of music!

Unfortunately, the delivery didn’t make it past customs, maybe because they were deemed as agricultural hazard.  Either that or the customs officers are now growing the botanical entertainment in their kitchen. In any case, I regret that we will need to postpone this blogging event until further notice.