The Tale of Little Buddy

A stranger came into our house.

We found this out,
and groused and groused.

I wouldn't be involved
with a "sticky" or a "snappy"
So we acted quite evolved
and got a humane trappy.
~~~

So at 4:30 this morning, love of my life Charles comes barrelling into our room & turning on all the lights to show me that after two nights of nibbles, our Hav-a-hart trap had successfully secured our unwanted visitor:

...And then he heads out for work, leaving me to go back to sleep with a very unhappy rodent trying to make its noisy escape in the next room.


Unfortunately, we've been having snow for a few days and it's currently below freezing outside. So neither Little Buddy nor I would be getting any immediate relief from each other.

But I'm not about to leave him in a metal box indefinitely. "Do unto others" and all that.
So, I empty out my craft bin:
and cover 1/3 of the bottom with potting soil (LB or one of his friends had been digging in my potted herbs, so this makes perfect sense, right?),
1/3 with shredded newspaper (yes, I tore up newspaper into little bits with my hands),
and the last 1/3 with flat newspaper.

I figure this at least ups the comfort factor from "Cold Bare Metal".

Now since I don't know how long it will be before I find a suitable, not frozen/flooded place to release him far enough away from here that he won't come back AND I have no intention of putting my hands even close to inside his halfway house once he's in there, I need to make sure he won't starve or dehydrate.

So lined up in little piles around the edge of the flat newspaper, Little Buddy got:

Plus, his own water dish:

Now, I would have said that the walls of his halfway house were high enough that he couldn't get out. But I was not aware that mice can Jump. And I don't mean cute little hippity-hops. I mean Olympic-level atmospheric body hurdling.

So I closed the lid in the non-locking way so that air would still flow, but considering his determination at flinging himself heavenward, I also opted for adding a metal drying rack and my financial records binder on top for absolute security. And then I draped the whole situation in towels with the fantasy of creating calming darkness.

I've only heard him chuck his body against his roof a few more times, and there have been some occasional munchy-crunchy noises, so I'm assuming he's found his temporary prison acceptable.

**********************

Edit: LB was successfully released later that afternoon in the forest by the lake at the public park about 2 miles away.

He of course spent the entire drive over chucking himself against the top of his box so that I had to drive with on hand resting on the lid.
Thankfully, he did not ironically break his neck before I could let him go free into the wild.

Happy Birthday, Dad

March 12, 1949 - October 9, 2010

On Aunty-Mama Lee

I'm not really sure how or when the "aunty-mama" thing got started with my Aunt Lee; the basic idea was that I was somehow really her genetic descendant.

Over the past few nights, both my Dad and his sister Lee have taken up permanent residence in my dreams.

Because everyone else in the world has a grasp of clarity and eloquence that I don't have right now, let's end with links to the words of my Aunts Meredith and Leslie, and a piece of choral music I shared on Tumblr.

For the Love of Lee

Lee

In Remembrance, by Jeffery Ames (W&L University Chorus 06-07)

Because driving to Raleigh this weekend is now kind of moot.

Listening to the Preservation Hall Jazz Band album "Songs of New Orleans" feels perfect right now.

Maybe it's the the trumpets and trombones that can sound so slow and mournful, but still keep moving, don't get so downtrodden that they stop.
Or the old man singing "Georgia on my mind" with a lifetime of sorrow and longing in his voice.
Or maybe my personal sense of wonder that I was sitting in Preservation Hall and walking around New Orleans not all that long before Katrina, and the knowledge of that devastation is still surreal, since I wasn't physically there to see it.
Or maybe that's just how I'm hearing it at the moment.

Body Barometer

You know that stereotype of older folks being able to tell when the weather's changing because of the state of their joints? Okay.

So last week, I got to deal with stones in my right kidney.
What it boils down to is: pain, emergency room, pain, dehydration, pain blood tests, pain, ct scan, pain, really good painkiller, let's never repeat that again please ever.
Even though one stone was 1mm in size (roughly as big as the head of a pin) and the other was too small for the radiologist to bother with measuring, they basically shredded the interior of my kidney & pee-tubing. At discharge, my super-awesome nurse Nichole warned me that even after the ordeal was over, I would still feel the soreness and ache from the damage.

Really, what I ended up with is a kind of 6th sense. Like Eliza Thornberry being able to talk with animals, I now have a direction line of communication with my insides. Namely, when I opted for a burger, coke, and fries for lunch today, the very clear message I got was "What in the holy crap have you put in me?!? Jeeeeezuusssssssss! ::anger anger rageragerage::".

Needless to say, I've been repentantly drinking plain water all afternoon.

Green Fever

So I'm glacially metamorphosing into something resembling an adult. The two latest indicators are:
1. My first ever contribution to the NPR/WVTF Spring Fund Drive.
2. I'm actually acting on my urge to garden and grow things.


Keep in mind, I've spent the past nine years living in dormitories and re-locating every few months, staying in any one location for about nine months max. I've literally and metaphorically not had enough time to put down any kind of roots.
But at least for this coming growing season, I'm staying completely put, and I have free ground access.

I already have my SFG planned out; I started sprouting seeds a week or two ago (severely premature, I know, but I figure spending $2 on seeds is better than adopting a puppy to fill my need to nurture. At least the seeds won't get me evicted); I'll probably be going to the hardware store to get lumber to build my garden bed this weekend.

All that aside, I'm really excited today. Why? Well, last week, I got one of these on awesome sale:

But then I discovered that it takes multiple years for a strawberry plant started from seed to start bearing fruit. Bummer.

It seemed like I would have to patiently wait (ew) until spring/possibly summer when the Wal-Mart and/or Lowe's garden centers would have pre-aged strawberry plants in stock.

But then I was driving by the Farm Bureau on my lunch break and saw a rack of little green things by their front door. I'll cut to the chase and say that I adopted 4 new babies today:


They'll have to hang out in the greenhouse (and by "greenhouse," I mean "my living room") until May, because we have had snowstorms as late as April and very early May. No, seriously. But today, I'm just super excited.