I am the Champion of a very licked mouse

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I was home yesterday morning, and looked out onto our newly mowed* back yard. There were three cats in the yard, my darling kitty and two others. Now, this may be a usual occurrence, I’m not sure, the grass has been pretty long back there for a while (see*, below). But, I don’t know these other kitties, and I do know that my kitty really doesn’t like visitors.

So, in the spirit of human-kitty bonding, I went out to help defend our yard against the interlopers. I’m not usually a scary sight, but the two intruder kitties did take off when I approached. I went over to share the spirit of triumph with my cat. Usually this is a moment of supreme bonding. He runs to meet me, purring loudly. He rubs his face on my legs, I give him lots of pets, we discuss the importance of maintaining the purity of OUR YARD.

Nope, not today. He just sat there, kind of crouched over. Being flexible, I went over to him to share in the bonding. And then I saw it. The mouse. The very wet, very licked mouse. Gray, with one pink leg kind of sticking out. “OH MY GOD!!! I do not want to deal with this.” Wild Kingdom has been encroaching on the house anyway, (another long story) but this was just too much. And then the poor little pink leg moved.

At this point, ** Bibliovore’s** story about the baby bird was going through my head, and I was thinking I was going to have to euthanize the poor thing. Way, way more than I wanted to deal with. Postponing the inevitable, I get a stick, meaning to turn it over to see how much damage had been done. So, I poked it. And the leg moved again. It was awful. I poked it again, trying to get it over, and the little mouse got up and ran away!!! It was fine!!! Just wet!!!

Final score:
Intruder kitties - gone
My kitty – pissed, mouse breath
Me – weak with relief
Little gray mouse – older, hopefully wiser
*This is a very long story also, and involves my pissed-off landlord, the Seattle International Film Festival, the $120 I had to give a lawn service to finally mow the damn thing due to the absence of my husband because of the film festival, and the two mowers belonging to the lawn service killed by my lawn.

2

At lease you didn’t have to whack the rodent, and how damn long does this film festival last that your grass got so long?

3

The film fest is 4 weeks, but my darling husband hadn’t been cutting the grass in the back yard all year. Usually the landlord just drives by to check out the yard, so we try to keep up with the front at a minimum. Between working full time and seeing 80 movies in 4 weeks, my sweetie was not home at all when it was light out during those 4 weeks. So, no lawn mowing.

Some people are “golf widows,” some are “football widows,” I am a “film widow.”

4

Yeah, I have some friends who have had administer mercy killings when local fauna were injured in accidents. You’re lucky.