Timelies all!

Gus! Sorry you had to deal with the squatter in your house.(I'm not a Scotch drinker, but I will mourn the loss of the Really Good Scotch with you.)

It would probably take me on the order of minutes if not quarter-hours to actually believe it was happening.

Seriously. That was the feeling. "This is not real. Okay, maybe it could be real. O, crap. This is real."

I want to admit that I would do as Betsy would, but then I remember my dream last night and I am not so sure. I dreamt that a glossy blond couple in an SUV coasted through a red light and almost ran over my baby brother and me. I took off running after them and punching the SUV and woke Hec up at 5:30 snarling, "Fuck you! You have a RESPONSIBILITY!"

Apparently I'm a lot surlier and more territorial in my sleep. This bodes ill for anyone who tries to move in while I'm napping.

I just got an e-mail from my grandfather recapping our phone conversation yesterday (and not a snarky recap, either). It's so weird - what is the point of that? He (grandfather) cc'd DH, but wouldn't you assume DH and I talk about the important stuff anyway?

I think if I came home from a long trip to find a stranger who had taken possession of my house I would just sit down on the spot and DIE.

If I didn't die the time I came home from a three-week trip to Australia to discover three decomposing rats and associated fauna in my den and kitchen, you wouldn't die either. I did call the country at 2 a.m. in the vague hope that there was a service for hysterical taxpayers with decomposing rats. There's not.

I would snap, and not in that lovely spring peas way but in that first ten minutes of a horror movie way. I have a thing about my personal space/property, and the voluntariness of my sharing it.

Nutty is me in this regard. I had a hard time dealing with coming home to unexpected guests that my roommates had invited to stay over. That territorialness, my overabundant collection of hockey sticks, and the large number of spacious third floor windows in my apartment would be an unfortunate combo for intruders I happened across.

Poor Gus! I came back from three weeks in Europe in my early 20s to discover that kids had broken into my apartment. They had pulled all the books off the shelves and opened every box and canister in the kitchen and thrown flour and spices all over the place. It took me a long time to clean up, which is not the first thing you want to do when arriving home from a trans-atlantic flight.

It would probably take me on the order of minutes if not quarter-hours to actually believe it was happening.

Definitely my response. Every other disaster/badlike thing that has occurred in my proximity involves several minutes of "nuh-uh. Nuh-uh. Nuh-uh..."

OTOH, I just got a blast from the past which only gets a couple nuh-uhs and a squee. Email from a friend from the physics depart I'd lost contact with. Goodness. I'll be he's still pretty (I usually am incapable of viewing friends as eyecandy. It was impossible to avoid it though.) Resisting the urge to abuse questionmarks. God, it's been 7 or 8 years.

You want robust? Go get ita.

I think if I am ever out of the country for an extended time, when I return I will bring ita to my house with me, so that any squatters can deal with her.

Or just hire ita to housesit-- or sublet--while you're gone.