If you know anything about me, you probably know that I am an animal lover.

So you might wonder why much of my morning was spent baby-talking "would you eat the mousie for mommy? C'mon, eat the mousie!"

Well, you see, I was sick last night. You don't want or need to hear the details, so lets just leave it with the knowledge that I didn't sleep all that well last night, and was a little shaky on my feet this morning.

Made all the shakier by walking into my kitchen and stepping on a mouse. Or rather, the carcas of a mouse who had been, for lack of a better word, flayed. And I was barefoot.

Oscar had been closed in his bedroom last night, because frankly he's getting too good at getting into cabinets and taking things out that are there because we don't want Oscar to have them.

So he's innocent. This time.

That leaves two little furry gentlemen, who both claim ignorance of the situation. To hear them talk, aliens invaded, Trevor and Aslan fought them off bravely, but in the battle a soldier was lost. Sgt Mickey.



I'm not used to having mice. For one thing, I've always had cats, and it's a rare stupid mouse who will come into a house like that. It's like a plate of Fettucini Alfredo walking into a room filled with people who've been on Adkins for a week. I did briefly go through a rodant carnage when I lived in New York. The people who lived in the apartment below me (and I suspect were somewhat less pristine than I in their cleanliness - which is really saying something) got a jack russell terrier puppy. Suddenly I had six mice in a week. Also known as "The Week The Cats Became Leopards." They thought I was the coolest mom EVER for bringing them these great toys. Every once in a while, I see their eyes mist over in that "remember the waiter at that Parisian cafe" kind of way, and I know they're thinking of that week.

Did you know that mice can scream? Did you know that you can fit an entire mouse, excluding the tail, into a calico cat's mouth? Did you know that when you tell that calico to drop the mouse, and she does, that mouse would rather run up sweatpant legs even if there's already a human being inside them, then stay on the ground near the aforementioned calico? I didn't either, until that bloody week. I'll have to find the "Ode" I wrote, since it was when I was reading a poem weekly in my radio show...

I am really not a squeamish person. Blood doesn't bother me. What bothers me is lack of soul. Before my brother makes a smartass comment, I don't mean I'm bothered by white people singing gospel or anything like that (although, really, you gotta know it's not the same...) but I mean an empty body. That shell that happens when the soul goes away. There's something not right about it, and it scares me. I used to be afraid of how I'd feel when Misha died. She was the aforementioned calico, who really did drop the mouse in her mouth when I asked, because she would have gone against any instinct I asked, just for me. She was my daughter in a past life... and in this one too. And I was with her when her soul left her body. It's been six months and even just thinking about it makes me cry all over again. I miss her every moment of every day.

But that wasn't the path I was taking with this, so let me gather my emotions and look back to this morning's blood bath.

Because of that fear I have of a body without a soul, I can't handle dead things. I will pick up any animal - my mother often said it was the worst part of having me for a child, the lack of fear I had, and the things I'd bring home. Snakes, bugs... I had "pet" pill bugs one summer...

But once again I digress... Because there is this soul-less little corpse on my kitchen floor, and I'm terrified to go near it. If it were alive, I'd find a way to catch it, and then gently set it free in the woods (and probably sing "Born Free" to it) But it isn't. It's dead, and it's on my kitchen floor.

And so my morning was spent coaxing them to "finish the job" if that doesn't sound too forties gangster. Heck, even if it does sound too forties gangster, if Mugsy and Slim are gonna take the Squealer out, I tink dey should finish da job and clean up de tracks.

See this is why I'm not gay. This is what husband's are for. I decide when the bathroom needs cleaning (and it's well before the blackened crust that clues my husband in to the thought of cleaning) and he disposes of the things my little hunters have killed. It's a delicate balence, and it's one that GB's work schedule has really screwed up this week. He's out of town. Which means Trevor and Aslan better "finish the job" before I get home, or I may have to move out.


Thoughts for the Day:

Proverb - “After dark all cats are leopards.”

Jeff Valdez - “Cats are smarter than dogs. You can't get eight cats to pull a sled through snow.”

Robert Anson Heinlein - “Women and cats will do as they please and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.”