And the Winner Is....

...Denny Sivcovich. Not that any of the rest of you knew there was a contest, but we've been wondering who would be the first person to visit us from St. Louis, since everyone has told us how they want to come see us in beautiful San Diego. Denny was here in southern CA for a business trip and he called and asked if we could get together. So, on breezy September 10, we met him in Oceanside and had a delicious barbeque dinner 2 blocks from the ocean. (We'll take you there if you come see us, too!) This meant a lot to us, especially since Denny bravely fought his way through an hour and a half of infamous CA traffic from Los Angeles just to meet us. Now, I know it's been 5 or 6 weeks since that evening, but today is Denny's birthday so we thought it fitting to finally get this posted. Happy Birthday, Denny! You're a good friend.


On a totally unrelated note, I know you're waiting to hear about our rat adventures. (Ok, ok, some of you are laughing that we would write about Denny and the rat in the same post...c'mon, get ahold of yourself. Really.) We think our houseguest has bitten the dust. After placing the snap traps, he successfully ate the peanut butter off it twice without getting snapped. Smart rat. No wonder they're used as lab animals. I told this to the maintenance man and he said it was time to resort to poison, which he doesn't like to use, because the rat could crawl off anywhere and die, and, well, you know what a decaying carcass brings. He bought these poison packets and threw them up onto the roof, hoping the rat would eat them. So, Sunday we came home from church and saw what was most likely our rat laying unmoving in the corner of the rock garden under our stairs. I didn't stick around for the next part, but apparently, he wasn't quite dead yet. He crawled over, barely breathing, insisting "I'm not quite dead yet," (apologies to Monty Python) where Stephen and the two boys downstairs (so, we've got three boys, ages 7, 9, & 11) watched him with great fascination. Some weird sympathy reflex kicked in and the boys felt bad that the rat was going to die, so they decided to FEED him. Irony, anyone? Raisins for his last meal. "At least he'll die with a full stomach, Mom." We didn't see his body again, so hopefully, the poison won out over the energy from the raisins. Our neighbor said the racoons probably got the rat during the night. Racoons, rats, anything else? All you people visitors are welcome to come see us. You small rodentia, find your own hotel.

Becky