It's not actually morning this morning. It's an hour past noon and I'm just getting to this posting. I hadn't planned on missing my self-imposed deadline, but I allowed myself to sleep in, take it easy, and process my inertia in other ways.
Cleaning out mouse from inside my stove until 1:30AM contributed to my general mood this morning. Not mouse "droppings" but actual mouse which had embedded itself into a corner of the metal sheeting catacombs lining the back of the stove. For the record, the mouse was not alive. In fact, I would bet there were several mice embedded there judging from the amount of hair and retracted, dried skin I picked out with chopsticks because the area was too small for any other useful tool. This was a disgusting job and misuse of my time. I did try to make the best of it, though, imagining the work of a surgeon nitpicking the myriad nerves and tissue layers in a delicate operation, but I also remembered why I never wanted to be a trauma medic!
The mouse nation has been forcing me the last few months to clean every drawer, every cabinet, and every surface in my kitchen. They have been living there even though it isn't that cold outside. I have found piles and piles of evidence, in the forms of dung and catfood, in very odd places: an abandoned boot, an errant bowl behind the cleaning products, and inside the stove, burned crispy-style. The mouse nation has been living off my cat's sustenance, even though my cat has no interest in them. He has learned to cohabitate with mice - he accepts them. He is only 12 years old and used to be the "Mighty Hunter," as a friend called him, for his squirrel and rabbit-chasing of yore. However, now, my Wakiyan (this means "thunder being" in Lakota) has taken on my own personal thesis - We Are All Related! Wakiyan believes in the relationship of all living things. He respects their right to their purpose here on Earth. This is my fault. I've been espousing this for years - in song, in story, in word and deed. He's listened for so long that he has finally philosophically aligned himself with me.
I've tried to catch the mice in a Have-a-Heart trap, to no avail. I even relocated two of them to the other side of the barn, some one hundred yards away, when I found them sleeping in an old metal teapot underneath my sink. Unbelievably, they were calm while I was cleaning right next to them. After rousting them out of their slumber when I removed the top of the tea kettle, I quickly replaced the lid and stuffed a rag into the spout. I thought my mouse days were over. When I got outside and released them, they practically smiled back at me as they climbed out of the spout one at a time, and scampered under a piece of wood near the back of the barn. I misinterpreted their smirks as smiles. There were more of their kind back in the house, inside the stove, and likely, in many other places I don't want to know.
This is an ongoing saga which will require more patience and ingenuity if I'm going to win this battle for the kitchen. I think the mice and Wakiyan actually have an agreement. Now that my house is empty of kids and a man, they are conspiring against me to clean up more often, stay on my domestic toes, fight laziness and relinquish a sense of control which has driven people away from me for years! Wakiyan is the brains behind this and the mice are, well, his mouse-soldiers! He gives them food, they give him obedience, and they both give me more work!
Now, if only I can get the mice to listen to me instead of my cat!
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