So it happened.

After eight or nine years of living with prostate cancer, my (former) boss is no longer living with prostate cancer. 

To say that I am at a bit of a loss would be accurate. 

We knew this was coming.  Eventually.  Some day. 

I saw him on Friday. 

By Sunday afternoon, he was gone.

And now, the thing he wanted most to avoid is in the process of unfolding, namely, his family is having to sift through a not-quite-finished business.  He so wanted to get his loose ends tied up and save them from having to deal with the mess, thirty-five years in the making. 

And of course I’m in the mix of things.  Because I have some information and some perspective on it, which his wife does not have. 

And though I knew this was coming I am still wholly unprepared. 

There’s a lot of running around (mentally) like my hair is on fire. 

This is the part of adulthood that really, really sucks. 

 

— Mox 

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Vermin – 1, Mox – 0

Of all the mysteries that exist in my world, the biggest one at the moment is this:  how is it possible for a household that boasts six cats (four in, two out) and a virtually empty larder to have mice?  Do the mice not realize that there is usually nothing to eat in Mox’s kitchen?

New Year’s Eve:  open the “junk” drawer in my kitchen to grab the scissors and discover that both of my (nice, thick) oven mitts have been chewed up.  Investigate the utensil drawer (the scene of the last murine crime) to discover… ahem… little turds.  Spend the rest of the afternoon furiously scrubbing the insides of both drawers, washing/sanitizing the contents, and pitching wholesale the unsalvageable (goodbye, perfectly seasoned but now splintered wooden spoons! farewell, brand-new but nibbled silicone stirrer! au revoir, entire collection of rubber spatulas!).  Curse feline populace.

New Year’s Day:  host annual Health & Wealth gathering, replete with black-eye peas, cabbage, cornbread, and rice.  Spend entire time shuttling back and forth to cardboard box being utilized as ersatz utensil drawer.  (Dog will eat the corners off the box if it’s left at his level, so it has to sit in one of the dining room chairs.)  Use damp tea towel as oven mitt.  Continue to curse feline populace.  Set old-fashioned snap mousetrap in now-empty utensil drawer, bait with peanut butter.

January 2, 2013:  Open utensil drawer.  Discover more little turds, a hole chewed in the drawer lining, and…. an empty mousetrap, cleaned of peanut butter bait.  Curse feline populace yet again.

2013:  off to an auspicious start, no?

 

— Mox

 

 

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