Two bound Mice

Monday on my lunch break, I had the fan permanently focused in my direction, sitting on the couch watching the dvr replay of Countdown from last Friday. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a gray flash under the closet door. I quickly open the closet and out scurry a small mouse darting for the fridge across the kitchen. Shit we have a mouse.

The night of the party, Olly had told me he had a mouse and when I picked up my equipment one of my boxes was open and would have been accessible to a mouse to hide in. Great I’ve acquired Olly’s guest, or so I thought.

I remember having mice come in to the house from the local fields near our house and remembering how dad took care of em: snap traps with a spread of peanut butter. Still at “work” I blocked of the access to the apt from the fridge with glue traps for bugs. Later that evening I met E at Ace and she encouraged me to buy the glue traps because she had though they were more humane (according to Peta they apparently are not).

I bought four trays of death, placing them around the fridge, office and near the front door and then waited. It was a few days before I saw the mouse pop out again, only to avoid my traps and snap tosses of Tupperware to snag the rodent.

Thursday after work, I was wrapping up the day and ready to head out to happy hour when I heard a rustlin’ by the fridge… A mouse had been snared in the trap and with one foot out of the trap was trying to wiggle free. Sweet!

Friday, however, was not so sweet. E spied another one and we resolved that one was not a fluke, we have an infestation and it’s based behind the fridge. I hadn’t known if that was the only source so we put out the traps again and on Sunday we had the battle royal.

Today, again, Mickey scurried to the closet but it would soon be his last adventure from the dusty domain of our fridge. We quickly created a rodeo ring around the French door opening with the only exit giving access through a glue trap run. Extracting all the shoes, bags and winter gear we forced the second one through the hall of death and caught him in his tracks. This one two didn’t ‘scream’ as I was told and I’m sure it struggled for a few days in the trash bin as two glue traps clasped it to it’s death. The trapped mice problem was superficial and I resolved this begrudgingly by extracting all our house appliances. With steal wool in one hand and a fat tube of cock in the others, I filled all the holes and secured our status as rodent free.

I can now rest easy with my bedroom door open to the A/C and frequent breeze.

Happy Birthday Lady!

Just a quick shot out to the woman for her birthday this month. I took her to L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon in the Four Seasons over the weekend and it was by far one of my top restaurant I’ve been to in the city. JR focusing on French with Japanese influences. We had the 6 course tasting and each was more unique and exquisite than the last.

By the time of writing this, this restaurant is voted the best in NYC by the user community at Yelp.

Black Tie Wedding

I was looking for weeks for an alternative to that small print on our friend’s wedding invitation “Black Tie”. What does that really mean? Can I get away with a black suit? Do I have to buy this tux I won’t wear again? … Ultimately yes, was the answer so I went out to Syms and picked up a clean Joseph Abboud Tux and some Boss shirt and accessories for the gig.

After going through the same pain I’m going through in picking a spot, the bride picked the Union Club for their digs – the oldest and most exclusive of the leading men’s clubs of New York. Founded in 1836, it is the city’s oldest social club and its male membership has been largely drawn from the city’s most socially prominent Protestant families.

The wedding was commenced on an upper floor where we joined the party late, just a few minutes before the wedding party started walking down the isle. The ceremony was short and sweet but the highlight for me was not the actual commencement but when the priest during the ceremony asked one of the youngest of the flower girls to provide for the crowd what do kids her age worry about.

Her response was “Global Warming”.

Not the response the priest was looking for and it resulted in a spirited laugh from the crowd. Also ironic is that there a many disbelievers among the largely Republican crowd on the global warming “theory”.

The wedding started with an open bar in a nice foyer/room with a grand piano with light “jazz/lounge” music playing. We enjoyed some petite h’orderves and Chivas Regal. A cordial staff ushered us to the dining area after meeting many of the other family and friends of the wedding couple. We were all seated with our mutual friends while we had an excellent 4 course meal topped with Fillet Mignon.

The meal was excellent and when the band started up in the Greek cross shaped main hall the guests reluctantly waddled out to the marble entry way to sway to some latin, pop and jazz music. Over all the wedding went off without a hitch, all the guests had an excellent time, the food, venue and staff were all excellent.

Congratulations to Andrea and John and many happy years!

A clip from Trading Places as this was how I felt entering the Union Club: