Our holiday weekend (NOAA graphics)
How My Mind Works (Rat Thunderdome)
Sitting in front of the screen the oth'a-daay (which sounds just like a Letterkenny intro) I heard a slight splosh from the adjacent bathroom. Which cat knocked what item, swiiish-nothin-but-water, into the toilet?—was my first cogent thought.
I sat up. The cats were both at my feet. They appeared to just be starting to refocus their attention (from contented catnap dreams) to the open bathroom door. I stood, entered the bathroom, and turned on the overhead.
Nothing. No noise. I looked at the bathtub, the sink, and the toilet. Is the surface of the water in the toilet moving ever-so-slightly? Is that a droplet of water on the seat? I took a step closer and saw a smallish very wet rat attempting to tuck itself in the shadow under the front rim of the bowl (about half the size of the rat in this stock photo).
Envisioning the potential of my apartment becoming a Tom and Jerry episode with the well-rested felines gleefully working in tandem to reenact the Jurassic World "clever girl" Velociraptor scene (because they have never seen Tom and Jerry) I closed the door, tucked a bath-towel in the crack at the bottom and then (in a foolish attempt to trap and not spook) I slowly lowered the toilet lid and grabbed a heavy pair of rubber dish gloves my wife uses when she dyes her hair.
While yank-stretching the wrist of the second yellow glove (heavily stained turquoise) the spooked rat crawled between the bowl and seat, landed on the linoleum with a splat, and (from its perspective) hid behind the trash bin. Since (from my perspective) it was in full view, I reached down to grab it. It screamed at my face.
I was already aware rats can scream. Rodents can at-times be heard scurrying in the walls of our building and, occasionally, I've heard them squeak in sufficient tone and volume (sometimes followed by what would only be described as tussle and chase and silent running through the ceiling) that my mind pictures one of two scenarios: Gimme that! or Get away! So I was not completely taken off guard when immediately following the mouth fully open tongue tight against bottom teeth scream I heard rat feet behind me in the wall begin to scrabble and vibrate down the interior of the wall's rough fiberglass bathtub stall. Instinct caused me to glance over my shoulder before I smiled down on the grey-brown vermin and said, "You calling in reinforcements on me?" It dashed around the back of the toilet, crossed the shower mat, and hid behind the cat's litter box.
On my knees, I slowly moved items (containers of cat sand, plastic bags, cleaning products) to gain access to the bottom of the bathroom closet (while being cautious of a face-jumping rat who had already proven it was comfy with waist-level parkour). Once I had the closet empty, and never found the rat nor heard it scurry past, I began searching for a small hole in the baseboard. No holes. No rat.
Time for reinforcements. I invited in the cats, re-closed the door, and re-tucked a towel tightly under it. They slowly searched with their noses. The cat with seniority, Agatha-called-Aggie-or-Agz, now in possession of 19 years of experience told me, after a few short minutes, that the rat was in the one inch gap between the under-sink cabinet and wall.
After I confirmed her observation with a flashlight, I left them to perform guard duty (towel tucked under door from the exterior) while I planned and began searching for extrication equipment.
My definition of success was:
- All four participants part-ways physically uninjured (with no rabies shots needed).
- No blood or gore or loose rat components stuck in the one inch wide (2.5cm) by three-foot deep (90cm) dust-filled cranny (which would necessitate hours of sink-cabinet and plumbing de-construction/disconnection to clean).
- No rat reinforcements arrive. Was this even a thing? Did I really need to consider another crawling out of the sewer? Wasn't this a one-in-a-million fluke? This is tiny-town-Vermont where the wildlife is prevalent everywhere outside, not attempting to gain entry to the land of domesticated rodent predators through the drainpipes.
- No Tom and Jerry episode unfolds in the house or bathroom.
I removed the guard cats, replaced the towel, added a second towel, and then tightly plugged the toilet with a large scrub pad. Then—with a three-foot long piece of wood moulding [¾ inch (2cm) by ½ inch (1.25cm)] in one gloved hand and a plastic bag in the other—I approached the flashlit space and slowly nudged the rat's butt with the stick.
It turned and began to climb the stick toward my hand as I tipped the far end down to slow it's climb while simultaneously raising my hand toward the upper lip of the cabinet top (which acted as a roof for the cranny). Tightly squeezed twixt (now horizontal) stick and underside of cabinet top, it cautiously smelled my gloves and then carefully squoze (squeezed?) itself into my hand. I dropped it into the plastic bag and took it outside where I dumped it in the snow. It probably has already found it's way back into my garage or my neighbors walls.
In conclusion, I want to explain why I do not use poison or traps (and never have):
- Rodents who eat poison could be consumed by a domestic cat (no matter how careful I am).
- Trapped house mice (no matter if killed or re-located) will soon be replaced by their field mice cousins. It currently is 7℉ (-14℃) and the forecast predicts it to not get above -1℉ (-18℃) next week and could be as low as -10℉ (-23℃) at night.
- I routinely put out nuts, grains, and seeds for birds, squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits, skunks, opossums and raccoons (as well as for any other local fauna, like the rare bear, deer, bobcat, and fox) who might or has already come into my yard. Only a massive hypocrite would poison the less cute (but smarter) animals who choose to spend time in the walls of this old house to avoid the winter.
Yesterday's Are Tomorrow's Without Apostrophes
The variant of Covid19 currently infecting
the world is Omicron, instead of the Greek letters Nu or Xi, because Nu
sounded too much like the English word new and Xi is a common Chinese
name. Winter solstice 2021. Holiday time. New Yea.
more art like Yesterday's Are Tomorrow's Without Apostrophes :
Research Notes (NOV 2021)
- (So-far-successful) aural learning project based on anecdotal, experimental, results:
- Headphones (recommend open-back, wired, with an in-line amplifier).
- YouTube subscription (to eliminate ads).
- Firefox (or similar browser which allows simultaneous open tabs).
- Loop a viscerally recognizable, non-lyrical, song in a YouTube Music tab (e.g. Air - La Femme d'Argent).
- Open any want-to-implant lecture/story in a separate tab (e.g. Lao Tzu - Be Like Water).
- Adjust volumes so vocals are recognizable but not dominant.
- Time must forward. Entropy is a logical reason why this is/was/will forever be (don't take the word 'information' too-literally).
- Historically, currently, and forever-in-the future, rational thought/critical thinking skills is a rare activity in humans. Consequently, if you are someone who insists on evidence and your "brain recognizes a functional state which you have labeled 'uncomfortable' since you began the practice of thinking in this manner" whenever you witness -- in others -- signs of irrationality and illogical thoughts, Issac Asimov explains why you are an outlier and how to understand the lack of rationality prevalent in the masses.
- Ponder a foundational supposition: Quantum computers (technology utilizing quantum entanglement) might make it possible to send information backwards in time, in much the same manner as posting an article or video on the internet today is the equivalent of sending information into our future's time-line. (Publishing a hard-copy book has always been communicating with our future selves, but digitization of books make future needle-in-haystack searchs more target-successful. The yet-to-be-discovered task is how-to verify the information sent back in time remained accurate.
- There are recognizable-logical reasons that most mammalian bilateral symmetry (say that fast) has evolved into today's vital organs with either two co-functioning halves in one organ (penis, vagina, tongue, brain), two completely separate organs (eyes, ears, kidneys, lungs, testicles, ovaries) or the rare, single-organ exceptions (liver, heart, skin). Does heart count with four chambers? Is pancreas part of the liver? And where does one's individual bacterial biome fit-fall into this system of constantly growing, partially dead and alive cells we call a body?
- The largest single organism on present-day Earth is either a fungal system or a massive collection of trees comprised of one underground 'root system' and millions of cloned above-ground fruiting bodies (organs). Both are allegedly in the western US and began living long before we (the conquering majority) arrived and took governmental control of the continent from the thousands of indigenous human tribes who were populating the land (albeit without a continent-wide means of communication or government).
- If you find yourself awake after several hours of sleep. Get up! Find out if the right-creative side of your brain is waking you for its own "creative" reasons (you can nap or meditate later). The left-governing side of our brain (once awake) will draw its own, separate, conclusion as to why it is now awake (bladder, cat, noise, thirst, sinus, temperature, etc) and, unless you prime-that-pump with a "pay attention to the night-shift supervisor", it may not consider the thoughts of the right-hemisphere and, instead, guide you to return to sleep.
- The brain's association cortex is where creativity begins. Drawing conclusions which "others are not able to make" from an otherwize unrelated series of slices of information.
similar:
Research Notes (OCT 2021)
- It is possible for the human eye-brain "observe-recognize" loop to continue to function better than at what would be accomplished by guessing, in a laboratory setting, with a series of images flashing at a rate of 13 milliseconds, which is about 20 times faster than MIT scientists expected (as previously reported in earlier scientific papers). 100 milliseconds = 0.10 (1/10th) of a second; 13 milliseconds = 0.013 (13/1000).
- Passage of the US Farm bill of 2018 (HR5485) removed industrial hemp from inclusion in Schedule 1 of the Controlled Substances Act. Subsequent research has identified hundreds of different cannabinoids. Currently, the most popular derivative/distillation of CBD is Delta 8 (Delta 10, D9, CBN, and many others are also beginning to flood the market).
- Experiments with women during childbirth revealed that a combination of music and scientific hypnosis therapy (hypnotic analgesia) resulted in a noticeable improvement on both mother and child; reducing labor times, reducing cesareans, eliminating most pain, etc.
- The gut-brain axis is comprised of chemicals and nerves which continually connect the two organs and permit the contents of the intestine (trillions of bacteria) to communicate with the brain using chemicals (like serotonin) to effect/affect mood, pain, etc. To influence one's mood/health/well being a long-term adjustment can be made in the type of food one consumes (increase the consumption of fermented foods and fiber . . . FEED your 'pets' the stuff that keeps them healthy and pay attention to their signals).
- Broca's area of the human brain is where neurons are concentrated on processing our ability to use (and comprehend) language. This area is on the left side of our brain which means that--because of normal mammalian physiology--our right ear is better (comprehension happens quicker) at comprehending spoken (or sung) words.
- Cyanobacteria is the oldest life form on our planet, evidence exists of this blue-green aquatic bacteria 2.1 to 3.5 billion years ago. Our planet coalesced into a ball of lava about 4.5 billion years ago, eventually the planet cooled enough to allow liquid water to exist and an atmosphere of nitrogen formed (oxygen didn't arrive until bacteria excreted it).
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