Furry Ending to Holidays

It was very nice being back in Green Bay over the holidays. Got to see a lot of family and friends and spend some time not worrying about work and spending a lot of time with Iris. As always we spent time with both of our families on Christmas day which sometimes makes things a little hectic but as always we got through it. The rest of the holidays were quite a blur so I will skip ahead to New Years Eve. New Years Eve we packed up all our stuff including Heatley and headed to Harlans in Chicago. Flew out of O'Hare on New Years Day and thus did not get to watch many bowl games. Flew to San Antonio via Dallas/Fort Worth. Did fly over the Dallas Cowboy Castle and it was as big from the air as it is on television. Got into San Antonio in the early afternoon and spent the rest of the day with some of the MSU ATCs. January 2, 2010 was game day and was a pretty typical game day, other than being a long day given that the Alamo Bowl was at night. Got to travel to the stadium on the bus with the team via police escort even though the stadium was less than a mile from the hotel. It was a very cool experience. The atmosphere in the bowl was unbelievable. Given that MSU was playing Texas Tech it was pretty much an away game for the Spartans. Add in the whole MSU players suspensions and Mike Leech firing it was a very interesting lead up to the game. The game was very exciting - back and forth with lots of scoring. Missed quite a few of the MSU big plays given I was in the locker room given IV fluids to a few players. Even though we ended up on the short end it was a wonderful and once in a life time experience. Given that we did not get back to the hotel till 1:30 in the morning I decided to stay up with the ATCs since my shuttle to the airport was leaving at 4:10. Was able to sleep a little bit on the two planes on the way back to Chicago especially on the short flight from San Antonio to Dallas since I was up graded to first class. Karen, Iris, and Heatley picked me up at the airport and Karen was kind enough to drive back to Lansing given that I had very little sleep. Was able to sleep some in the car but not very productively. Where glad when we finally got home till we walked into the house. Walking into the house we found it a mess. Karen later says that she thought we were robbed when we walked in. I was too tired to think anything on first glance however as we were standing there and a squirrel ran around the corner and down into the basement through the cat door. (Karen and I talked about covering that cat door many times before and now we wish we really had.) As many of you know from discussing this situation with us - the house was destroyed. There was urine and feces every where. Iris's toys were all over the place. The blinds had been climbed and chewed on. Iris's clothes were rummaged through. The worse part of the house was the kitchen. We had left some potatoes and pistachios on the counter plus a container of peanut butter and chocolate Quik. Lets just say everything was destroyed. The pictures do not do the damage justice - for one we started cleaning before taking pictures. Karen and I spent around 40 hours or so between us cleaning over the next few days while Iris spent time at her friend Donald's house. Went through about 6 gallons of bleach. Did a lot of laundry and dishes. Also tossed a lot of stuff as you can see from the picture of the garbage on the curb.

It was one of the worst periods in my life having to deal with the mess. As you can see the squirrel must have tried to watch some television because he took a bite out of the remote and also bit into one of your cook books. The worst part was having to clean everything especially well because of Iris. It probably has been a long time since this house was this clean. It was nice that the whole first floor is either hardwood or tile. Most of the furniture was leather which also made it relatively easy to clean. Our landlord did have one fabric couch that we had to toss because of urine stains. Having a landlord who is currently on the West Coast also did not make things very easy. Another nice thing was that the squirrel did not make its way up the second floor as far as we could tell. We were able to take time off of work to clean due to wonderful co-workers and superiors which made things a little easier. It was also nice because I had a slower week given that the MSU students were still on break during the first week back. We were able to temporarily block the cat door with a baby gate and a piece of paneling till my wonderful parents sent us a few pieces of wood with pre-drilled holes and screws to cover the door permanently. We were not sure where the squirrel was other than it was not in the living area. We actually called someone called the Moleman who came out and inspected the house, including the attic and roof and finally concluded that it must have gotten in through the broken garage door and somehow climb through the wall and gotten into the basement. He also said that from the pictures we showed him that the squirrel had been in the house for sometime (we were gone for about 2.5 weeks). Everything seemed to be going well but about a week and half later I came home to a hissing sound and water on the kitchen floor. Turns out the water hose had been chewed on and finally ruptured. When we were told that the next day we thought that mice had chewed on it in the past and it had finally ruptured given that our landlord had had mouse problems in the past even though we had not seen any evidence since we had been living here. However, we later realized that it was in fact the squirrel who had chewed on the hose and again reappeared in our kitchen a few times and actually ate part of an apple and orange but much less messy than before.

So a week ago today we finally realized that the squirrel was getting into the kitchen somehow from the basement. Karen and I made a path from the kitchen to the patio door and opened the door as we moved the fridge and stove and found no squirrel or way the squirrel could get up from the basement. We finally pulled out the dishwasher and found a hole in the back where the water pipe came in. We plugged the hole with a towel and went down into the basement to see if we could find the squirrel while leaving a door open. Not seeing anything, Karen went to the store to get "The Great Stuff" to plug the hole. While she was gone I was watching television and heard something so I went to inspect the hole and found the squirrel trying to wiggle and scratch is way through the hole. Was able to scare it away and we plugged the whole when Karen got home. The MoleMan came the next day and set a few traps. He concluded that the squirrel was unable to find its way out of the basement. Finally after having the traps in place for a few days we were able to capture the squirrel this past Friday (2 days ago). The MoleMan came to get it yesterday.

It has been a huge relief that the squirrel is finally gone. I know no one is as happy about it as Heatley is. He had not been the same since we got back to Lansing. Then since last Friday when the squirrel reappeared in the kitchen he would not step a foot in the kitchen and would not eat unless we brought his food upstairs or sat by him. He is doing much better today and finally went into the kitchen. Thus it is to finally have some normalcy to life again and hopefully it will stay that way for a while.

It has been a busy weekend given three athletic events to cover. It has been a wonderful six plus months even with the chaotic past few weeks. Have made many relationships that I know will last a lifetime. June will definitely be a bitter sweet time.