I bought hard root beer the other day!

I had a bottle the other day. The closest I've come to drinking a whole beer. A total trip.

Satan's armpit humid out there. My hair got wetter on the way home.

Also, a juvie rat dying in my backyard. Ugh. But at least now I can note that when I return rat rubout's phone call from yesterday. I simply had no time at all today.

I've been smelling dead animals off and on all day, and a part of me is great duo that this hasn't been the case over the past couple of months like was the past couple of years. But, even on my patio this morning was a godawful stench and I couldn't figure out from where. Nothing this afternoon.

I couldn't muster up the courage to go out with the shovel and finish it off before it got too dark to turn it into a macabre tragicomedy with me screeching and something dying in terror. Which might be ugly in the morning. I've done the coup de grace many a times in my life. But ugh, I hate doing it. Is it bad of me to hope one of my neighbor's dogs finds it and he deals with it?

Cookie is INSANE about rats. She catches them ducking into burrows, on leash. By their tails.She just breaks their necks, not interested in eating them. Owner always disposes of them. I warned him that I was calling in Rat Rubout, he was like, eh, she rarely breaks skin, I have stuff for her when she gets poisoned rats.

Our sweet, docile poodle is a committed squirrel killer. Three so far. One quick shake and they are DAID. Once he gets them, he just sits ands looks at their little corpses with an air of mild confusion.

Cookie barks and barks and BARKS at the corpses. Patrick usually has to take her and JoJo (who just acts confused until he tries rolling in it) home before he goes back to deal with it. (And I love him for it. He disposes of most corpses in the hood before the city comes because otherwise Cookie BARKS AND BARKS.)

They are doing roadwork near my house and it seems to have literally stirred up a rat's nest. Saw one this weekend in my neighbour's yard that Oz chased, one on my way to work this AM, and my other neighbour saw one in his backyard. If they get in the house, I am torching it.

I would flip the fuck out if my dog caught a rat! Fortunately, she doesn't seem that interested in them. Bunnies, however, drive her WILD!

Brian tells of when they were demolishing Memorial Stadium (across the street.) It was a veritable river of rats at night and they ran rampant during the day. It was baaaad.

All right, 8pm meeting is done. I'm in my pajamas eating grapes and trying to convince myself to get in the shower and go to bed as soon as possible, because my alarm is set for 4:50am.

Maybe I'll have a gin and tonic first, though.