I had great ideas about an overdue post I wanted to share with you. I took time to read again the entire book of Job, looking for choice parts of it I hoped to use, to show you what I've been dealing with, while getting over this surgery.

At the risk of seeming like a whiner, I intended to tell you how indignant I felt, when one of my expensive man made teeth came loose and fell out. It is frustrating enough that I'm so overdue for a hair cut I failed to get before the surgery, and now it has to wait even longer. But this gaping hole where the tooth used to be, really takes away from what beauty I have left.

I am doing well, I think, with mostly ignoring housework, and things needing tidying up. I've even gotten good at ignoring dishes that need washing. There will be plenty of them to deal with after the knee is well.

Last night I started telling you all this, but suddenly felt a huge distraction only a short way from this computer. I wanted to believe I was only imaging what I was hearing. But whatever it was just kept making grating sounds that seemed to get louder. But what do you do with something like that at one a.m.? I mean, where would I get any help with it at that an outrageous hour? I decided to leave it alone, and after a while the scary sounds faded.

What sleep I got the rest of the night was in scattered pieces. At three a.m., I gave up on sleeping, tossed my cover aside, and started coffee. Somewhere between then and daylight, I dozed a little, but not much.

That's what's been going on here, until the start of last night. Whatever the character is that's messing with my sleep, if not my life, just shouldn't have started in again like it did last night. Clint Eastwood isn't the only soul who knows his limitations. I hadn't even pulled the cover up last night, until it all began again.

I lay there, feeling the rage in me rise, and didn't even care if my missing tooth made me look scarier. I made my plan. Got an animal control number from our local police, and called, but was told I would have to contact a pest control company. So I did. Left a frantic message about five or six a.m., so maybe my call might be one of the first they dealt with in the morning.

Knowing I couldn't sleep, I picked up a favorite book, Time Magazine's "Great People of the 20th Century", and while I waited for the phone to ring, read pages of Winston Churchill's life. I will need to read it again, but that's not the point. Reading it last night was to keep from going ape.

I did, a little anyway, when the scratching, scraping sounds began. I went right to the kitchen, and found things I could bang, got so carried away I broke my plastic pancake flipper. But I got the satisfaction , if only for a moment, of making that critter be quiet.

Whatever it is, we'll find out before the sun sets again. The company I called is named "The Bug Man". Their full page ad names a lot of unruly characters, which most likely includes the one that's after my sanity here. An inviting trap is baited and ready for it.

The man who set it up even put it in a plastic bag, so when it's caught, it's all ready to travel out of here. He thinks it's either a skunk, or some kind of big squirrel.

After the pest control man returned my call, I lay back on my wrinkled pillow, wishing critter removal didn't cost so much. Just last week I learned that part of America's Stimulous Package includes seniors (like me) getting a few hundred bucks. My first thought on it was that it would take care of most of a plane ticket to fly down to daughter, Bev's new home in Texas. But I'm sure she'll agree getting rid of whatever it is, is much more pressing now, and I will find another way to get to Texas.

As a small postscript, I will make it a point to let all of you know what kind of critter the "Bug Man" captures. After I made the call, I leaned back on my pillow and smiled, for sleep will come again. I will not be defeated by some silly, surly
Creature.