More Rambling.

DOMESTIC BLISS, FOLEY STYLE

Tiina: Do you love me?

Andrew: Of course I do.

T: Really? You aren't just saying that because I'll beat you up if you don't, are you?

T and I have conversations like this ALL THE TIME.

***

BEST-LAID PLANS

A day had passed and the traps I'd laid in my office and the bathroom had caught no poop machines. My plan clearly wasn't working. My first idea: continue the failed plan, only commit more resources to it. A Trap Surge would surely solve the problem.

My second solution, seeing as new mouse poop had materialized on my desk and there was no place to buy traps at midnight, at least not that I was willing to venture out into the cold to go to, was to slather more peanut butter on the existing traps. It wasn't much of a plan, but it'd make me feel better, like I was being proactive in the face of difficulties.

Fifteen minutes later, I wandered into my office, and discovered a dead mouse in the trap next to my desk. And I've got to say, my reaction wasn't what I'd expected. It's one thing to pick up a mouse carcas that Jewel (who steadfastly refuses to lift a paw to fend off the current invasion of vermin) has gotten tired of playing with. It's another thing altogether to realize that this animal died because you arranged to kill it.

Mildly depressed, I disposed of the body outside and came back upstairs. Started writing a blog post, because that's what I do when I'm down. Got about three words into it when there was an audible SNAP! from the bathroom...

...accompanied by a pathetic squealing. The trap had slammed down on the mouse's body, rather than its neck--it was pinned, terrified, and squee-squee-squealing in pain. And I thought finding a dead mouse was as bad as my night would get...y'know, I could've gone my entire life without knowing what colour the contents of a mouse skull are.

I disposed of the second mouse, sprayed the traps down with bleach. Waited a couple days, debating whether the effect the traps working had on my emotional well-being was worth setting them again.

Found another turd on my desk later that night. Now that I know what they look like, I'm seeing them everywhere (even places they probably aren't--the animals are always dragging stuff in from outside--that speck could be a mouse dropping, or it could just be some random dirt Data tracked in...). I took a deep breath, smeared the pedals with more peanut butter, and set the traps again.

That was a couple nights ago. The traps haven't caught any more mice. Not sure why--maybe they can smell the bleach, maybe they aren't dumb enough to venture into those places other mice went and never returned from. I think I'm actually happier this way--I get the satisfaction of feeling like I'm doing something about the problem, but don't have to deal with the guilt I feel for snuffing out the lives of what are, in the grand scheme of things, fairly inoffensive creatures.

And I'll continue to be happier with this situation, right up until I find new poop on my desk.

***

BETWEEN THE CRACKS

The Chemistry Set is the subject of the Second Interstitial Arts Foundation (Online) Salon. There are only nine words in the preceding sentence that I'm sure I understand. There hasn't been a lot of posting yet (the salon's going till the fifteenth), at least some of what has been posted has flown so far over my head it didn't even part my hair, but it's an interesting conversation, nonetheless, esp. if you've got an interest in disparate arts, media, and genres. And semantics, which seem to have become terribly important to me, somewhere along the line.

Foley