Update From the Front

Be wary of waging war on foreign soil. Our adversary, Randy the Rat, is Chinese and clearly brings the benefit of guangxi to his battle. He may be slowly starving to death, and periodically freezing, but he is well enough connected to wear us down as well.

Yesterday morning, workers awoke us at 6am by swinging pick-axes and driving jackhammers into the concrete in our lane. The picture below shows the progress by the time the girls walked to school at 9am:

See the green number 8 on the right? That's our house, our front walk. Our bedroom window faces this. Our front walk is, well, unwalkable.


The sewer line is being replaced. The workers, clearly directed by Colonel Randy the Rat, turned off our water and "forgot" to turn it back on for most of the day. When they needed electricity, Colonel Randy the Rat apparently gave them permission to connect to our power lines. It is possible that our electric bill will have powered the replacing on a sewer line for the entire lane. Wendy thinks this is unlikely, but I wouldn't put it past that wily rat.

He won the battle. We've left town. I'm writing from Chicago.
But he hasn't won the war. Wendy called the Pest Control Company back again, and they are under strict instructions to "do what it takes." We will return to a rat-free house. Or, at least, a house with a dead rat somewhere inside.

And I'm kidding - although I am writing from Chicago, its not because we couldn't fight this silly rat. He may be gross, but he hasn't managed to kick us out of our house. Dave's grandmother is very sick, and so we moved forward our home leave. On Sunday night, with the status update on Great-Grandma, we decided it was time to go home. We flew out today. The last two days were a whirlwind of packing, shopping, and making loads of phone calls. But this is certainly the right place to be right now.

The girls and I will be in Chicago through the holiday weekend, spend the next 2 weeks in St. Louis, and then return to Chicago for our final week in the states. Dave will join us on the way to Chicago, having spent 2 weeks alone (with a dead rat) in Shanghai. We will all return to Shanghai on Dec. 20th to enjoy a quiet family Christmas in our certainly rat-free home, having finally emerged victorious - I am confident.