{"id":10901,"date":"2017-05-01T19:48:50","date_gmt":"2017-05-02T02:48:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/?p=10901"},"modified":"2017-06-15T22:30:24","modified_gmt":"2017-06-16T05:30:24","slug":"victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/2017\/05\/01\/victory\/","title":{"rendered":"Victory"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>At 1:48 AM last night, after months of regular visits, the master escape artist and king of all rats was finally caught.  I was awoken around 2:30 AM by sounds from above, sleepily got out of bed, got the ladder out of the garage, climbed up to the attic, and finally came eye-to-eye with my nemesis.  I brought the cage down to the kitchen, fed him some birdseed as a goodwill offering towards a respected adversary, and then proceeded to spend twenty minutes telling a rodent that he&#8217;d been a worthy opponent for these many months.<\/p>\n<p>Since deciding to rid the attic of visitors I&#8217;ve emptied three cans of fill foam sealing gaps in the eaves, I&#8217;ve gotten a million scratches fashioning vent covers out of chicken wire, I&#8217;ve crawled through fiberglass insulation into claustrophobic corners of the attic looking for unseen gaps, and I&#8217;ve spent enough time running around on our roof that the neighbors have stopped bothering to ask what the hell I&#8217;m doing.  Yesterday I made yet another trip to Home Depot to purchase foam, filling the last area I could think might possibly have a crack in it with an entire bottle of the caustic stuff, and coincidentally or not it was the final shot fired in our epic battle.  I&#8217;ve obviously learned that my opponent is both cunning and numerous, so even though my tormenter of several months has been vanquished, the Ratcam will remain active in the attic for a few more weeks in case his followers come looking for their leader.<\/p>\n<p>After driving him to the Ballona <s>Wetlands<\/s> Rat Sanctuary at 3AM last night, it was with a measure of sadness that I watched him scurry off into the gloomy darkness, bidding farewell to my cunning and relentless adversary. I truly hope that he&#8217;ll yet live a long life, happily tormenting the owners of the large homes on the bluff above the wetlands as he makes his nightly rounds.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_11249\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-11249\" style=\"width: 700px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/3551-culver-city-roof-rat-capture.jpg\" alt=\"The captured enemy\" width=\"700\" height=\"525\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11249\" srcset=\"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/3551-culver-city-roof-rat-capture.jpg 700w, http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/3551-culver-city-roof-rat-capture-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 984px) 61vw, (max-width: 1362px) 45vw, 600px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-11249\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">At long last, his reign of terror has ended.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"attachment_11251\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-11251\" style=\"width: 525px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/3482-culver-city-bunny-suit-self-portrait.jpg\" alt=\"Protection from fiberglass\" width=\"525\" height=\"700\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11251\" srcset=\"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/3482-culver-city-bunny-suit-self-portrait.jpg 525w, http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/3482-culver-city-bunny-suit-self-portrait-225x300.jpg 225w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 525px) 85vw, 525px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-11251\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">After an ill-fated trip into the attic that saw me emerge covered in itchy fiberglass, I purchased special protection to allow for a safer return to the enemy&#8217;s stronghold.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At 1:48 AM last night, after months of regular visits, the master escape artist and king of all rats was finally caught. I was awoken around 2:30 AM by sounds from above, sleepily got out of bed, got the ladder out of the garage, climbed up to the attic, and finally came eye-to-eye with my &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/2017\/05\/01\/victory\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Victory&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[57,29,51],"class_list":["post-10901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal","tag-homeownership","tag-recap","tag-rodents"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10901"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11252,"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10901\/revisions\/11252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}