Bloggy rivals

When I started this blog, I thought the biggest problem would be finding the time.

That is not the biggest problem.

If you have something you want to say, you can find the time to say it. The biggest problem with writing a blog is finding something to say.

A blog must have a theme. The theme is the purpose. Posts have to dance around that theme. Obviously the occasional message can be about something different, but generally the posts should be linked to the purpose of the blog.

This blog is still new and has not yet settled down. I haven't yet determined what aspects of my American escapade are interesting and which are of value only to my Mother. To this end, I'm going to read around the subject and see how other people do it. I figure if I steal two or three good ideas from five or six other bloggers then Potato Potarto should move from being jumbled jottings to being lucid and coordinated.

Extreme Geography

I've always believed America is a nation of extremes.

Here are two of them...

"Tonight of all nights there's gonna be a fight"

We had a meeting with our intruder last night. They we were, cuddled up in front of Naomi Watts and a T-Rex when small, brown and furry ran along the skirting board and hid behind the television. I got a torch and shone it at the TV to pin him down while my fraidy-cat wife went to find a big box to drop on him. Unfortunately, my plan suffered a flaw that was revealed when the mouse ran through the light. That's not right! They're not supposed to do that!

Anyway, we chased him around the edge of the wall for a while until he lost us behind the sofa.

Today, I went to Home Depot to buy a trap. I wanted something that was climbing-eating-generally-poking-fingers-into-things-child friendly, so I didn't want poison or anything that could catch little fingers. I went for a box that has a little maze inside. You put peanut butter in the middle and in his hurry to chow down the mouse doesn't notice that he's standing on the electrical contacts. Disappointingly, after I smeared the extra-crunchy on the inside, inserted the batteries and flicked the on switch, the light that "will flash green once to indicate it is enabled", didn't. I've put it in the kitchen anyway, but I'm probably just providing an all-you-can-eat buffet for our murine friend...

Night-time Intruder

After the centipede comes someone else. We found a grape on the hob this morning, partly chewed. The fruit bowl is on the counter six feet from the hob. Somehow, the grape detached itself from the bunch, left the bowl and moved six feet to the right. Looking at the back of the counter, behind the bread-maker and some semi-permanent items on the counter I find tiny dark dropping-like specs, a couple of milimetres long and perhaps half a milimetre wide.

I think we may have a Mus musculus or possibly a Peromyscus leucopus.

Phew what a scorcher!

It was a proper spring day today. When I left the office this evening, it was warmer outside than it was in. 71 degrees and that was at 6pm. The children's rooms were hot so with trepidation I turned on the air-conditioning for the first time and...

It worked! There was a whirring and cold air arrived. Nothing went bang, or clunk or gave off smoke. It just worked. I feel calm now.

New York Bingo #2

An occasional series listing things that are specifically American or New York.

Someone in the office invited me out for a "brewski".

It's nice to think I can help so many

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