Leaving

J. is leaving on a business trip tomorrow morning. He departs leaving me with the following:

• The clothes washer is on the fritz again (see this time last year). Leaking water all over the floor with every load. Finally figured out how to just get it to spin so the load of my 'fine washables' that I tried to do could be dried out enough to actually toss in the dryer. Repair scheduled for Friday, the only day one of us (J.) can and will be home.
• What started as one mouse is now a family of mice. Or colony. Or army. I'm not sure how to classify them. I just know they exist. Last night, we trekked to Ace hardware just before dinner - I went along because I was fully prepared to buy every kind of trap known to man regardless of how barbarian and cruel I perceived them to be. I just want the mice OUT of our garage and away from my house. I can 'hear' them, I think - and with J. gone, will invariably being waking all night 'hearing' sounds - I don't need troops of mice scuddling across my garage floor. He has loaded the traps with peanut butter and I'm hoping they are 'tripped' while he's away. Thankfully, they have 'indicators' of a catch and you don't actually have to see the deceased mouse. Just toss them out. B. can help with that if we 'get' any. They seem pretty 'smart', though, so I'm not optimistic. If these traps don't work, I'm ordering the super-duper multiple catch trap from a website I found yesterday. Or moving.
• One son (H.) with a sprained wrist. J. is taking him to the doctor tomorrow before he heads to the airport - the way H. is acting about how much it hurts, you'd think it's broken. Though he can move it slightly - but couldn't cut his food at dinner, nor write his own homework, nor hold it up for any length of time. So J. will get it checked out tomorrow. (If it turns out he's broken something or torn a ligament, I'll feel terrible about how I think he's just over-reacting a tad).
• The other son (B.) is apparently so 'lovesick', he can't sleep. I don't know if he's 'lovesick' about a particular girl or just girls in general. But I DO know he is completely and totally distracted. Lost items in the past two weeks include: bus pass ($5 replacement fee which he paid from his allowance), student ID (another replacement fee from his allowance), wallet (with student ID & $3 in it), history book (just recovered today when he finally asked his History teacher 'so what is the procedure for replacing a lost book?' And his instructor reached under his desk and said 'you mean like this one'? It had been there for the past week and a half while B. borrowed books or just used his notes. And today, he skipped Band after school to come home and catch up on homework and sleep, only he's so used to NOT being home first, he didn't have a house key so he sat in the back yard and did homework outside until Hunter got home to let him in.
• Me with a migraine. Day 3. It's not a 'sending me to bed' migraine - it's just a 'on the verge of sending me to bed' migraine.
• Dani is still 'sick'. She's improved. MUCH improved. But she's still coughing a bit and still a bit lethargic. But she is 'active' more and playing a bit more now. She also is back to her old 'barking' self which is the one thing that told us she was REALLY sick - she stopped barking. Now, she's back to barking at strange noises, doorbells, etc. So that's back to normal. Jim will call the vet on Friday with an update and they'll decide what we should do next.
• Me missing him. Every day, all day. Every night, all night. It's just not home when he's not.