Rats and Rameumptoms
Friday, December 21st, 2012 by HMLWe’re happy to report that the Gimlet residence has officially been rat free for one week! Hooray! The exterminator caught six rats, we rat-proofed our house as per the exterminator’s recommendations, and we are ready to move into the cleanup phase. For now we try not to think about how many pounds of rat droppings are just over our heads in the attic.
Christmas is a busy time for churches, and in addition to the expected holiday festivities and charity for families in need, it was also necessary to coordinate another memorial service (that makes two in two months for my tenure). As our congregation meets in a different building now, and we’re still getting used to where things are, the Sunday before the service we planned to check out the resources in the kitchen and cultural hall. At the entrance to the cultural hall we stopped, stunned by the sight of a massive Meso-American-style pyramid which took up almost one-third of the space in the hall and reached almost to the ceiling. The ward council was of one mind in calling it a Rameumptom. We soon found out that it was actually Samuel the Lamanite’s wall from the other ward’s Book of Mormon-themed Christmas party, and as the party had already taken place, the Rameumptom/Samuel’s wall/ziggurat could be removed before the memorial service.
Fortunately the very impressive structure was still standing the following day when we were doing some preliminary setup, so it was possible to take a photo:

Before the (Rameumptom-free) memorial service, we attended the annual ethnic brunch at Thing Two’s school: a holiday party for all the first grade classes to celebrate world cultures and friendship. The children sang several holiday songs, and then Thing Two played his violin. Earlier, when the children were practicing for the brunch concert, Thing Two told the music teacher that he played the violin and volunteered to participate.
Thing Two was eager to perform and enjoyed himself immensely, playing a set of three tunes from Denmark and Sweden. We seem to have a showman on our hands! (Meanwhile, Your Humble Narrator was probably nervous enough for both mother and child.) Long time GimletBlog readers may recognize Thing Two’s festdrakt, or Norwegian folk costume, as the one that Thing One wore when Thing Two was a baby.



















