cha-cha la-la

I'm on vacation this week, and therefore have more time to deal with some unpleasant things.

Makes me feel fear, worry, dread. I'm likely over-dwelling on everything. Why do I do that? I should be all "La-la, everything's ok, just take care of things; no big deal." But no, it's dread about the eye doctor, dread about dealing with the rodent, about replacing the fluorescent tube lights, about this and about that. Dread about having to go right back to work next week.

And to top it all off, the elastic bands in my fitted bed sheets all seem to be going bad. The sheets are still good, just the elastic is bad. So I guess I need to go buy some elastic band and fix the damn sheets too.

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Chalazion - still not gone. It may be part of a general meibomian gland dysfunction/clogging thing, as it is a generalized swelling with multiple bumps. So I made another appointment with my eye doctor. I'm afraid even if he lances them, that it won't fix the underlying problem. Maybe I'll need to do more warm compresses, even though I don't have time for them and have done hardly any the last few weeks. Yesterday I did one at 4am before going to bed. At 4am, should I be taking extra time to do a compress rather than going right to bed? At least I didn't have to get up early for work.

rat a tat tat

Rodent - I found droppings in the crawlspace. Likely rat. But I haven't heard the noise in the wall over the doorway in over a month, so I'm hoping it's gone away on its own. I've caulked along the wall in the room that was having the odd smell, as I think it was coming in through cracks along there. I've scheduled an inspection from a wildlife control company. But if I let them do the work beyond the $75 inspection, it will probably cost a lot and it will include them putting out snap traps to make sure the rodents are no longer present and/or dead before doing any sealing. The guy said that they aren't legally allowed to catch rats and release them elsewhere. That makes sense.

This UK document: Guiding principles in the Humane Control of Rats and Mice, indicates that in the UK, it is illegal to release black rats, doormice, and even grey squirrels (?!) into the wild.

But if I was ok with using snap traps, I would just use them myself, right? Why pay someone else to do it? And why pay them to come out several times to check the traps when I could just do it myself? Do I really trust that they'll do a better job of finding and sealing any entry points, than what I've discovered on my own so far?

I had been planning to get an infrared motion-activated wildlife camera to stick in the crawlspace to see if there still is any activity down there, but haven't gotten around to it yet. I was planning to seal 2 of the crawlspace vents better. But the rodent must have been getting from the crawlspace into the walls. That's what I'm not sure about. I found 2 possibilities, but neither seems very likely.

So I should let the professionals do their thing. Even though I worry that they're no more pro than me. Just pay them and don't worry about it. Just let them kill and don't worry about it.

Just be a grim reaper and don't worry about it. After all, death is the most humane solution for everything, right?

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Enough of this. I'll go cut some grass.