November showed up somewhat unexpectedly. Mostly because it hadn’t really snowed yet. The usual Halloween snow was missing this year and it was still mountain biking weather. We wouldn’t complain about mountain biking weather in Denver if only the mountains were getting snow. Here goes another mediocre (and mediocre might be a generous term) ski season.
November was when things were supposed to slow down. Instead new deadlines materialized at our respective works. Jennifer relayed her diagnosis and treatment to her workplace and discussed what her future work schedule might look like. Given the diagnosis, the doctors have encouraged Jennifer to cut back on sources of stress in life. Also, at this point, many of our priorities have changed, and Jennifer wanted to make sure work wasn't left in a lurch if at some point over the next year or two of treatment she became unable to fulfill work duties. Even at the outset, the treatments have really sapped Jennifer’s energy and having a “40” hour workweek has been tough at times. After discussing the situation with work, the decision was to bring in a junior employee to help Jennifer and for Jennifer to reduce to part-time beginning in January.
Fortunately, I did not travel for work in November. After the previous 10 months, we were exhausted and elected to spend Thanksgiving at home and got together with several of our South African friends. In case you were wondering, stuffing made with (unstuffed) boerewors is phenomenally delicious. So are various Thanksgiving dishes made with bacon.
Oh, and by Thanksgiving the Ags were tearing it up on the field en route to our best football season since Jennifer’s freshman year and as we found out later, to Johnny Football winning the Heisman. Our South African neighbors, who have been rightly made into Aggie fans, enjoyed the Ags season nearly as much as we did as attested to by their Facebook comments. A restful Thanksgiving was oh so worth giving thanks for, and we enjoyed having the four days off from work to do things like put up Christmas decorations in 70 degree weather, and then aspiring to complete an entire population of Christmas cards, finish up handling comments on my journal article, and finish my reading for MLT. We did the Christmas decorations which was fun. Instead of the other aspirations we just chilled out and went to see Skyfall (which was very well done I might add).
November also included another chapter or two in the saga that is our rabbit problem. We had this rabbit that lived under very disliked Juniper bushes in our front yard. It was there all summer. It was kind of comical because when you walked out the door it would scurry out into the grass and crouch down and stare at you like you couldn’t see it. No big deal that this rabbit wanted to live under the bush and we just ignored it. Then the weather got colder. We parked the Mazda in the driveway because three cars don’t fit in a two-car garage (and that’s where the commuter car has always been parked).
In late September, the rabbit first determined that the engine bay of the Mazda was warmer than the Juniper bush. Fortunately for the rabbit, the Mazda has a large plastic shroud under the engine bay, which doubles as a perfect platform to crouch upon near the oh-so-warm engine. Unfortunately for the rabbit, the gap between the shroud and steering linkage is not that wide. Fortunately for the rabbit, the shroud is plastic and it has relatively sharp teeth. The rabbit chewed its way into the engine bay (at least it was just a shroud) and made a new home. As mentioned, this was discovered in September (right before Jennifer left for Pueblo, CO). We noticed because the rabbit left a dried puddle of urine under the car which Jennifer noticed. She was concerned that the brand new car was leaking coolant. There is a side story here about having to replace the radiator on a Mazda3 with less than 5,000 miles because of some well positioned road debris; I won’t tell that story here.
We have battled this rabbit since September. Thankfully it did not chew any wires or hoses in the Mazda, just snuggled in the cozy warm engine bay. I dug up the Juniper bushes thinking it may discourage the rabbit from hanging out in our front yard. I bought a wonderfully unsuccessful rabbit trap.
We finally ended up moving the Highlander outside (since it sits much higher off the ground) and parking the Mazda in the garage. One day in mid-November Jennifer called to say the Highlander wouldn’t start. I left work early and came home to a rabbit sitting atop the engine in the Highlander that scampered away frightened when I opened the hood. This time it chewed up wires. Thankfully, I have experience rewiring Jeep CJ-5s and for about $65 fixed the Highlander as opposed to whatever ridiculous amount the dealer would have charged. I spent the afternoon walking around with a pitchfork and hatchet ready to end the rabbit problem. The rabbit smartly stayed hidden.
That weekend, we yanked the junipers out of our front lawn. We also took lots of precautions with sprays and granules and motion sensing alarms. After utilizing all these deterrents, the next morning, we found the rabbit again in the Mazda (which had been moved slightly up the street thinking that might help the issue). This time our furry friend got a ride to a Safeway about 7 miles away and was let out at an extremely busy intersection. Good luck to him.
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