AND THE MOUSE GOES ON, THE MOUSE GOES ON………

The saga of the mouse (well, probably not the same one) continues: Monday night I woke up to some bumping and crashing in the kitchen.  I have some shelves on one wall there, two packed with mugs, and one with mugs on hooks and some cute old bottles on a narrow shelf.  Turned on lights and went in there and a couple of the little bottles were on the floor, and Prettypurr was pacing around on the floor under the shelves.  Said ‘whatever’, put the bottles back and went back to bed.  A while later more crashes, went back in the kitchen and Prettypurr was hanging by two paws from the edge of the lower shelf that has the mugs on it, trying to climb up onto it.  I discouraged her from that notion – her weight (I believe I mentioned she’s on the portly side) would no doubt bring the whole thing down!  She cursed me, and we all went back to bed.  No more crashing, but there was evidence that she’d been playing mouse hockey in the tub during the night.  Last night passed peacefully, or so I thought, until I got up and saw the curtain rod and curtains from the kitchen windows laying across the table.  ‘What the hey?’ said I, and looked further to see a mouse cowering on the top of the window frame.  And Prettypurr pacing underneath it, of course.  I got the usual container to try to capture and release the mouse but it got away from me – and peed down the wall in the process.  I believe it went under the dry sink and cupboard that I have along the wall by the kitchen, because the cat was very attentive to the underside of those, and went in to the dry sink to see if it had gotten in there; since she came out alone I presume it hadn’t.  I found more evidence of a mouse hockey match in the tub, and when I left the cat was halfway under the chair in my bedroom, but she wouldn’t say if she was mouse-watching or just hanging out.  No doubt this saga will continue, as there seems to be a never ending supply of mice.  They are supposed to be outside at this time of year!   

Happy Birthday, Daddy

I missed a Father’s Day message this year, but today was my father’s birthday so I’ll do one for both.  We often celebrated the two together, almost always with strawberry shortcake.  And beef.  He was big on eating beef – we didn’t know then what we do about cholesterol, and what it combined with the family history of heart attacks might have done to his health.  Nope, beef was good for you.  When we went out you were supposed to order a hamburger, and sometimes we’d order a hot dog just to needle him.  Once he had heard or read that watercress was good for you, so every day all summer we had to hike up to the old springhouse that was part way up the pasture hill and pick some for him to have with supper.  He had a multitude of interests.  Not sure how it started, but when my mother got into having her antique shop, he became interested in paperweights.  He read up on them, and had a good sized collection of them.  He’d travel to auctions, or to places where they were made to try to get new ones.  He got one at an auction in Chatham, where the folk singer Harry Belafonte was sitting in the row in front of him; Belafonte asked to see the paperweight and held it,.looking it over – so it was known as ‘the paperweight that Harry Belafonte held’.  Belafonte was a special celebrity to my father, because one of his movies “Odds Against Tomorrow”, was shot in Hudson with several scenes done at the place my father worked, so he got to talk to the stars and watch them at work.  Another paperweight was purchased directly from the man who made it, in a little town in the mountains of West Virginia.  They stopped there on the way back from Florida, and my mother said he was so excited to be at the artist’s studio – he went inside and came back to the car and said “He’s in there – sitting at the table making a paperweight - just like the picture in the book”.  My sister and I have the paperweights now and I think of him every time I look at them.  And a lot of other times, too. There are still things I’d like to ask his advice on.  Happy Birthday, Daddy, and Happy Father’s Day, too.      

A MOUSE IN THE MORNING

 

Nothing like a mouse to start your day off.  There I was sitting in the bathroom doing – well, what you do in the bathroom first thing in the morning (I know, tmi), when Prettypurr raced past my feet and jumped into the bathtub. From the scrabbling noises I figured she had a mouse, and looked to confirm my suspicions, just as the mouse (which was quite large and agile) scampered up the side of the tub and first hid behind the bottle of shampoo on the ledge of the tub and then in my bath scrubby (which is now in the trash, thank you Mr./Ms. Mouse).  So I went to get something to trap it with and then let it go outside, with strict warnings to never darken our door or bathtub again.  Except that by the time I got back, the mouse had disappeared.  Prettypurr was searching diligently all around the bathroom, to no avail.  Ok, the mouse got away, that’s the breaks, better luck next time, Prettypurr.  I did mention that perhaps were she not quite so stout she might be a bit quicker and thus have better mouse luck, but she just glared at me and let me know it was my fault that the mouse got away.  So I had my tea, and did a few things and went to take my shower.  Got into the usual shower-taking attire, and reached up to pull the curtain back to get in, and there was the mouse, on top of the curtain rod.  Saying ‘don’t give me away!’  Ha!  I shook the curtain a couple of times, dislodged the mouse, and it fell into the tub.   Grabbed the jar again and tried to trap it, but that was one fast mouse, let me tell you.  It dodged the jar numerous times and then decided it was time to retreat, so it jumped up, ran across the hand I was bracing myself on the edge of the tub with and headed for the bedroom, with Prettypurr right behind.  I can still feel those little feet running across my hand.  It went behind a little stand next to my bed, and then under it when I moved the stand, with Prettypurr being ever vigilant for it to move within range, and when I moved the stand again the mouse ran under the bed, with the cat hot on its tail, and it sounded like they were doing laps around and around and around. 

So I did the only thing a person could do under those circumstances.  I took my shower and got dressed and went to the diner and had a ‘Hot Mess’ for breakfast. 

PS, I don’t know if Prettypurr ever got the mouse but when I went to the house a few hours later to close the windows against the rain, I stepped on her lying under the chair at the end of the bed.