What must the neighbors think?

Yes, yes, I'm back after family visiting. Blog post to follow on that one. But in the mean time, here's a little New Year Day story for you.

Wife took Dog out for a last pee before bed. And then came back in very upset. It seemed Dog found something interesting to smell. A dead rat. It's the second one that has been found in our back yard in the last few weeks. And might explain the sounds of cat screaming we heard earlier.

This is understandably upsetting and gross. We don't want Dog trying to play with it again and it would probably be best if it wasn't left out to attract flies or other critters. I go out and get the shovel.

A quick survey makes me realize that the front yard by the street has ample light and very soft sandy soil to dig in. So I carry the corpse up there and find a decent spot to go to work. One shallow grave later and the rat is hopefully entombed. A quick pat down of the dirt and I look up to see a middle age African American woman walking down the street.

"Happy new year" she says. I respond in kind. It was very neighborly. But part of me does wonder what she was thinking to see some tattooed guy digging a hole in the middle of the night.

Mmmm, ham

I was joking with my wife this morning. Or teasing depending on your point of view but I'm the one telling this story so stop trying to impose your perceptions on me. Anyway, she's been missing having friends she can talk to face to face. So far I've had a little more time to socialize out of the house with others and understandably she's missing the people she's used to seeing every day.

So she was emailing one of these friends this morning and to get back on track here is what roughly went down.

Me: "Are you writing Person X?" (Note this is not this person's name though that would be really bad ass if it was. I'd love an awesome code name. Wait, I have one already Professor Makey-Outey, no, I mean Professor Matthew).

Wife (Another note, not what I call her, at least most of the time): "Yes." I'm paraphasing.

Me, pretending what I'm saying is what she's writing: "'I miss talking to you. Move down here and live with me. We can dump Matthew in the alligator farm.'" Again, paraphrasing.

Wife: "Hmmm, alligators don't like human flesh, we'd have to attach hams to the body."

Her tone of voice was so matter of fact it was as if this is something she'd considered for some length before realizing hams would be the perfect solution to this situation. And truth be told, she's right.