Oranges*

Our morning was one of a sort of controlled chaos. We knew the rat patrol was coming to do the final cleanup today. The 'point man' who came to the door looked like he had jumped out of bed not five minutes before he arrived at our door and despite being the designated spokesperson was only marginally verbal at 8am. Mind you, I don't expect anybody who will be spending the day underneath our house cleaning up after rats to be the picture of sartorial splendor, but this poor guy seemed barely capable of answering such simple questions as, 'where do you plan to start?  We needed to know because we had our zoom Pilates class and needed to know where to set it up. A second guy came to the rescue and the two of them seemed to think it was quite quaint to see us doing Pilates. One of them asked if it was like yoga and then questioned me about how Pilates was different from yoga.

They wanted to start with the attic, fearing that it would get hot up there later in the day. With the whole back of the house therefore off limits, we 
set up in the living room. By moving three pieces of furniture we could use the rug which suited me because my best yoga mat is underneath the Peloton and the backup is a bit skimpy. They could come and go through our bedroom door and the back gate, but were running their heavy duty shop vac during class so it was hard to hear Maggie (the teacher) and for some reason she couldn't see us so I had to log off and start over.  Meanwhile the dogs were wandering around trying to figure out what was going on. Spike hates ladders and vacuum cleaners and kept running into bits of furniture that weren't where they belonged, so he settled on the couch right behind our heads and stayed there for the duration. Blake wandered in and out the dog door but eventually settled on the porch in the sun and out of the fray. It was sort of controlled chaos, but by the time the class was finished, the rat guys had finished the attic, removed all the plastic barriers and spent the rest of the day rather quietly under the house. I couldn't help smiling at what they might be thinking about it all, but they were very polite, and by this time the first one had gathered his tangled hair into a pony tail/man bun and seemed to have regained his ability to speak.

I escaped myself  to have a relaxing facial from the lovely Gail leaving John to flee to the upper reaches of the garden. They have now finished, and the attic and crawl space are presumably rat free and fresh as a daisy, unlike John and me who got up early and were deprived of our  normal morning routine of coffee, shower, etc. and find ourselves now at wine time....and not a moment too soon. I don't care where the sun or the yard arm are.... 

* I liked the early morning sun on this bowl of oranges and since it is the only photo I took today, it is something of an EB