things that go squeak in the night
so i was just about to come on here to write about the amazing danny michel show we went to tonight (with kevin fox -- a sensitive man singing along to his cello, who i think i first mentioned on here last summer-- opening) and about how good the new album is, but then something happened. something slightly traumatic. i went in to the kitchen to fill my water bottle, and happened to glance at the large pot full of water that i'd left in the sink to soak off crusted on food, when i realized there was something moving under the water... something big... oh god.
i ran in to the living room with my had over my face (in an effort to block out the image filling my mind) and stuttered somethign to mike about "mouse... kitchen sink... drown". He ran in to investigate while i stayed down the hall waiting for the report. he dumped out the pot of water, and sure enough, there was a mouse... wet, traumatized, but certainly not drowned yet. it sat looking somewhat shocked in the sink, and miked called me in and asked me if i wanted to pet a mouse. he obviously did, and was fast falling in love with our wet little vermin.
we have a mouse problem. it used to be worse here and was vanquished (months before i moved in) but it recently resurfaced-- the other day when we were on the porch we saw one running between the two panes of glass to our living room window, and then it escaped back in to the living room. we know we're going to have to start laying traps soon. (well, mike's going to take care of that -- hurrah for less-squeamish-than-emily boys). however, when faced with a tiny, damp creature whose life we'd just saved, we couldn't even think about hurting him. mike tried to dry him off a little with a paper towel, then we put him in a tupperware to take outside and release somewhere down the street from the house. now, i've heard mice can find their way home from miles away, but i figured if we at least got it a couple blocks away it might find another home, and we wouldn't have to worry so much about being personally responsible for the death of our little friend in the future. but mike wanted to spend some quality time with it first, and sat with it in the tupperware out on the porch, trying to pat it dry and coax it to eat some peanut butter. as the mouse got dryer it grew friskier, and eventually made a break for it and ran away on our porch. i'm sure it's now back in the house.
i was a little traumatized, mike was missing his new little friend, and we were debating the moral issues around setting traps to squish something that cute when our downstairs neighbour, catherine, came home. i don't think i've mentioned her yet. she's a lovely woman, and many interesting things, including a nun and a breeder of hamsters. she also has a wide variety of other small pets-- when last asked, she told me she currently "only" has 13 species in her apartment, since the gecko and the quail died. no joke. so, we admitted the incident to her rather sheepishly, to which her only response was that if it had been her, she would have held that mousie under water and finished the job. mike is now wondering what ever happened to the concept of compassionate nuns.
catherine is obviously far better than either of us at dealing with the "icky" bits of caring for live creatures, like the fact that they die, or that some are your friends and others are not. i really do respect her for it -- i have no problem in principle with killing mice, i just can't bear to be directly involved in the process, and can't handle the little corpses. maybe my corpse aversion is because i've had so few pets in my life? when my dad's bird died a couple summers ago when i was at my parents' place and they were away, i had to go to my neighbours' house and get them to help me bury him, becuase i couldn't bear to look at him, let alone pick him up and dispose of him. some day, i'm going to need to overcome this horror. maybe when i'm a parent and have to handle my childrens' pets' corpses to save them the trauma? until then, it sure is nice to have mike to act as my buffer, and deal with such confusing issues as potentially drowned mice.
why do tiny wet mice have to be so cute?
too much excitement for one night, i'm going to bed.
emily
i ran in to the living room with my had over my face (in an effort to block out the image filling my mind) and stuttered somethign to mike about "mouse... kitchen sink... drown". He ran in to investigate while i stayed down the hall waiting for the report. he dumped out the pot of water, and sure enough, there was a mouse... wet, traumatized, but certainly not drowned yet. it sat looking somewhat shocked in the sink, and miked called me in and asked me if i wanted to pet a mouse. he obviously did, and was fast falling in love with our wet little vermin.
we have a mouse problem. it used to be worse here and was vanquished (months before i moved in) but it recently resurfaced-- the other day when we were on the porch we saw one running between the two panes of glass to our living room window, and then it escaped back in to the living room. we know we're going to have to start laying traps soon. (well, mike's going to take care of that -- hurrah for less-squeamish-than-emily boys). however, when faced with a tiny, damp creature whose life we'd just saved, we couldn't even think about hurting him. mike tried to dry him off a little with a paper towel, then we put him in a tupperware to take outside and release somewhere down the street from the house. now, i've heard mice can find their way home from miles away, but i figured if we at least got it a couple blocks away it might find another home, and we wouldn't have to worry so much about being personally responsible for the death of our little friend in the future. but mike wanted to spend some quality time with it first, and sat with it in the tupperware out on the porch, trying to pat it dry and coax it to eat some peanut butter. as the mouse got dryer it grew friskier, and eventually made a break for it and ran away on our porch. i'm sure it's now back in the house.
i was a little traumatized, mike was missing his new little friend, and we were debating the moral issues around setting traps to squish something that cute when our downstairs neighbour, catherine, came home. i don't think i've mentioned her yet. she's a lovely woman, and many interesting things, including a nun and a breeder of hamsters. she also has a wide variety of other small pets-- when last asked, she told me she currently "only" has 13 species in her apartment, since the gecko and the quail died. no joke. so, we admitted the incident to her rather sheepishly, to which her only response was that if it had been her, she would have held that mousie under water and finished the job. mike is now wondering what ever happened to the concept of compassionate nuns.
catherine is obviously far better than either of us at dealing with the "icky" bits of caring for live creatures, like the fact that they die, or that some are your friends and others are not. i really do respect her for it -- i have no problem in principle with killing mice, i just can't bear to be directly involved in the process, and can't handle the little corpses. maybe my corpse aversion is because i've had so few pets in my life? when my dad's bird died a couple summers ago when i was at my parents' place and they were away, i had to go to my neighbours' house and get them to help me bury him, becuase i couldn't bear to look at him, let alone pick him up and dispose of him. some day, i'm going to need to overcome this horror. maybe when i'm a parent and have to handle my childrens' pets' corpses to save them the trauma? until then, it sure is nice to have mike to act as my buffer, and deal with such confusing issues as potentially drowned mice.
why do tiny wet mice have to be so cute?
too much excitement for one night, i'm going to bed.
emily