The Great Flea Eradication, Part 2

First things first, Friday afternoon I had my overdue hair appointment, and here are the after pics (before pic here):

Left - What it looked like right afterward | Right - After I styled it

It's not drastically different but I did get a bit of length taken off. Moving on.

The weekend was mostly spent at or very near home. Friday night we went to the neighborhood bar, Saturday we hung around the house and each did some work. But Sunday our mass genocide of fleas continued. (See Part 1 of this story here.) I've spared you new pictures of my legs but suffice to say that, along with the still-healing bites of a couple weeks ago, I have new bites as well. And our poor kitties are still scratching away and Aaron is finding fleas left and right. So all day yesterday we went on the attack (causing me to miss Phil Mickelson win the British Open, AND we didn't get to watch or listen to the Reds/Pirates, AND we missed our niece Lauren showing her pig Minnie at the Knox County Fair - bastard fleas).

Saturday morning Aaron set up homemade traps: a bowl of soapy water with a lamp shining on it. We had these set up in the FROG, our closet and the living room. The closet only caught four fleas, the living room caught quite a few, but here's what the one in the FROG looked like:

Awesome. So we laundered all our linens and bedding in hot water, took apart the FROG and the living room, vacuumed the hell out of everything, put Diatomaceous Earth on the carpets and rugs, sprayed the house and screened porch with Siphotrol, sprayed the back patio with Cutter Backyard Bug Control and ordered another round of Capstar pills to give to the cats.

The cats around 10 am, just before the massive cleaning began and they found hiding places.

Tools for extermination

Then Aaron flossed the house. On the first level we have concrete floors and there are cuts in those floors (see below). He took a flashlight and a thin blade and the vacuum and cleaned out those cuts and I'm glad I didn't have to see what came out of there but it sounds gross and it included lots of (live) fleas. SERIOUSLY?

By 6 we were done and wandered over for dinner with neighbors. We set an alarm for ourselves and were in bed by 10. Oof.

I hope you all had a wonderful, flea-free weekend!

I think that I shall never see / A creature as creepy as a flea ...

... especially when there are lots of them. On my beloved pets. But first, let's talk about the FUN stuff that happened over the weekend.

Friday we ended up bar hopping a bit, starting off at Brothers Drake Meadery (roughly 1/2 mile from home). I'm not sure what I think about mead, although I did taste a drink with mead in it and it wasn't bad, but I did enjoy the Flytown Mule. There was also a food truck there (Tokyo GoGo) so we were able to have some dinner. Then we moved on to Seventh Son, which is a new local brewery with great outdoor space (1/3 mile back toward home from stop #1). I actually haven't tried their beer yet, but I hear it's pretty good. I had wine. Next we walked 1/4 mile to Little Rock Bar. This place is brand-spankin' new. In fact, their grand opening is this weekend, but we've now been there a couple times, including the very first night of the soft open. Our 'hood is pretty excited about this place because it's SO close (I mean, I could go home to use the bathroom if I wanted). I expect you'll be reading about lots of evenings spent there.

The rare photo of Amy drinking something other than a Miller Lite,
and the only photo I took all of Friday night.

Saturday evening was the Clippers baseball game, or I should say games since there were two. Aaron and his cohorts, known as "The Pitch Hitters" sang the national anthem before the game, which they are fortunate to do a few times per season. But they also were asked to sing "God Bless America" before the second game, AND to sing some patriotic music during the fireworks after the games were finished. It was a beautiful night, they sounded fantastic and the Clippers split the doubleheader.

WARNING: The following may cause you to feel itchy.

That's my leg. Please ignore the pasty whiteness of said leg. In the last couple weeks, I thought my body was being harvested by mosquitoes but I should have known better. Turns out, fleas were feasting on me as well as on our cats. Gross. When we confirmed this on Saturday morning, we immediately called our friend Tracy, who is a veterinarian (in Cincinnati). Aaron went out and got Frontline, which we put on the cats while watching fleas crawl around on them (poor babies!). I stripped the bed and vacuumed both sides of the mattress and Aaron majorly vacuumed our closet. Fortunately, we only have two rooms with carpet: the FROG (Finished Room Over Garage) and our closet, which is sizable. (If you missed the post about our house, it's here - just for reference.)

We couldn't do a whole lot on Saturday due to the baseball games, so Sunday, which we had hoped would truly be a day of rest, turned into Massive Cleaning and Laundry Day. I took our comforter, pillow shams and a big blanket to a laundromat. Good times. Footloose was playing on the TV there so I watched some of that, played some solitaire on the iPad, went to Family Dollar next door for some supplies and walked across the parking lot to Dairy Queen for a well-deserved peanut buster parfait.

Aaron scrubbed and vacuumed and sprayed and laundered most of the house, except for the "north wing" (FROG and guest bathroom area) where we had quarantined the cats. Then we gave them pills called Capstar for extra flea-killing power. Miss Clover a/k/a Mr. Handsome was NOT excited about the pill-taking. We decided to leave them quarantined overnight, but Aaron had a slumber party with them so they weren't lonely. (Sorry ladies, he's taken.) Monday he majorly cleaned the north wing and kept the cats out of there.

So, we've certainly done everything possible to deal with this nasty issue. In our 17 years of owning cats we've never had fleas. And wouldn't you know, NOW I've had three different friends say "you know, I kind of wondered about it, but didn't say anything since they're indoor cats." Thanks, friends. (Kidding. Kinda.)

I hope you all had a more up than down weekend!

Scenes from Recovery

I've been MIA for a while, but look out, because I'm currently on medical leave for six weeks and I'll have lots of time to post mindless musings. Eight days ago I had a total hysterectomy. Don't worry, this particular post isn't about that; if and when there is one, I'll give a good warning. These are just a few of the views from my sickbed.



Some of the beautiful flowers I received ... and my tiara!

A drawing from my 2-year-old neighbor Zac (it's a rocket ship!)

and it's taped to the bedroom wall

Feline visitors: Bella

Señor Gato Negro

Sometimes they also provide entertainment

Aaron bought this lovely lounger for me. The screened porch is fab in the mornings.



My actual view this morning

Stay tuned!

The Gila