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The Summer Solstice is creeping up on us, soon to start stealing precious minutes of daylight away once again. For the moment, though, we are truly in the high point of the year, luxuriating in days that last till nearly 9:00. With the end of the school year in sight, we've started to let Charlotte's bedtime slip a bit later so she can engage in tee-ball games that don't even begin until 6:45 some evenings, and live a little more than what usually gets squeezed in to our overly-scheduled life.
Last night, in fact, marked the final game of the tee-ball season. Our weather has been a bit bipolar lately, going from extremely warm and humid to downright chilly and raw from one day to the next. Yesterday was bright and sunny, but cool and a bit too breezy to feel like a summer day. All three of us have enjoyed the opportunity to be outside for these evenings, and last night was no exception. Charlotte even hit the ball on a live pitch from her coach on her final at-bat after using a tee for most of the brief season. The game pretty much ended the moment the ice cream truck pulled into the school parking lot and every kid on the field lost total interest in playing baseball.
We got back to The (Real) Big Red House just a little before 7:00. On our way out in the morning, Charlotte had apparently forgotten to close the front door, so the house had been wide open all day. We live in a very quiet neighborhood, so I wasn't especially worried to see the door open. Things aren't totally idyllic in our town, but I never feel the need to batten down the hatches for fear that The Bad Guys will barge in at any moment.
Because the door was open, though, our cats had the ability to let themselves in and out all day long as they saw fit. They like this element of freedom. It appeals to their very cat-nature to be able to choose which side of a door to be on whenever the mood strikes them. Harry is the sort of cat who likes to go out early in the morning and will stay out until long after dark. Maynard prefers to remain indoors, only occasionally sauntering outside, and usually only at night. When the door is left ajar for them, as I usually left it during my home days the past two summers, they come and go throughout the day.
All of which is a very long lead up to say that as we were getting ourselves ready to be in for the remainder of the evening, Charlotte informed me that there was a dead chipmunk in the living room.
Well, we've been there before. Harry managed to get inside the house with a half-dead chipmunk between his teeth one time last year (BRH folks will remember this story). I was somehow able to coax him into giving it over to me and took it to the door to throw it out, only to have the critter spring back to life and make a mad dash for cover, with Harry in hot pursuit. This time, though, it looked like Harry had finished the kill. The chippie was cold and stiff, with a few telltale bloody toothmarks. I grabbed a paper towel, picked it up, and threw it outside, where it landed with a very dead thud.
But I guess we did have at least one visitor invite himself in. This morning I got up and plodded into the bathroom to take my morning shower, and when I returned to the bedroom there on the bed, where I had been sleeping only minutes before, was a freshly-dead mouse. Maynard was trying to look innocent, sitting on the floor, but he was the only cat in the house at the time of the murder, so I know he;s the culprit. The mouse was so freshly dead that it was still warm and it had bled profusely all over the fitted sheet. I am rarely squicked out by stuff like this, but II guess I was still asleep enough that it startled me quite a bit. Still naked and slightly moist from my shower, I picked it up, wrapped it in a tissue, set it aside, and proceeded to remove the sheet from the bed. Sure enough, the blood soaked right through the sheet, so now my side of the mattress is stained with a large spot of mouse blood.
Once I was dressed and a bit more composed, I managed to carry the departed to the front door and give him a flying send off. The boys don't eat what they kill, more's the pity, so now I've got decomposing rodents all over my front yard.
I'll just let that image sink in with you for a while. Be glad I didn't take pictures this time.
Although Leonard thinks it was a suicide, we had a similar mouse death on our carpet. We used Nature's Miracle to clean it up and you can't tell where the wee thing met his maker.
Posted by Karan [URL] at 06/ 7/07
Well, that ranks right up there with the dead rat I had to clean up in our front yard recently. I am TERRIFIED of rats, and though I knew it was dead, my pulse rate made Carl Lewis look like a tortoise. This being the "man of the house" thing SUCKS at times, y'know??
Posted by Jack Cluth [URL] at 06/ 8/07
Don't feel bad, Jack, I'm the woman of the house, and the only one who will kill the spiders... everyone else is afraid of them. Sigh.
Posted by Sarah [URL] at 06/ 8/07
One word: Ewwwwww.
Posted by shelley [URL] at 06/11/07
Well, you'll all be terribly excited to know that Harry brought in another live chipmunk yesterday and promptly brought it into my bedroom to kill it.
The second he opened his mouth, though, the thing escaped, and Harry, Maynard, Bridget and I all spent the next fifteen minutes trying to corral the thing. Harry and Maynard were still hoping for a kill, while Bridget and I were mostly trying to get the thing out of the house.
We finally distracted the cats long enough to coax the chippie out onto our balcony, where it was able to leap to freedom.
Posted by Brian [URL] at 06/11/07
Little did we know what excitement cats would bring into our lives. So far there have been two rodent casualties in our house. One Elena (we suspect) killed outright. The other wasn't quite dead yet, and I had to finish it off once I got it away from her.
I don't count the bugs they eat, or the assorted bugs and spiders I am called on to kill.
Posted by Tony [URL] at 06/13/07
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