Forgive

Last week on, "Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me" they were talking about cats. They said cats don't forgive. Paula Poundstone begged to differ and offered an example of her own cat.

I completely agree with Paula Poundstone. Our cats forgive us. I've stepped on Atticus' tail, he forgives me by sticking his wet nose in my face.

Yesterday, I sat on Juliette! She has forgiven me, because she's sitting next to me right now (not to mention that she came right back and sat on my lap after I tried sitting on hers).

We have started shutting the cats out of the bedroom at night to prevent any more mice incidents as well as giving ourselves a good nights sleep. If you have a pet (and you've let them into the bedroom at night), you know what I'm talking about. The tiniest pet will suddenly be able to take up the entire bed. Leaving the humans a sliver of space, a strip of covers, and either fart in your face or breathe directly into your face.

We should all try to forgive as freely and lovingly as our pets.

Look What The Cat Dragged In, chapter 17

Maybe I should have kept track of how many animals Atticus has brought home.

I don't know what chapter we're up to.

I've written eight (including this one) specifically tagged with Atticus. We're up to at least chapter eight, but there have been way more animals than that for certain.

We've had birds of all kinds, mice, a rat, and some chipmunks.

We can add rabbit to the list.

There are rabbits that someone has let out of their cages down at the end of our street.

I wondered how long it would be before Atticus caught one. Our neighbor told me about them at the beginning of the summer.

The answer was three months, at least to my knowledge.

I'm very happy to have Bill. I'm also happy that we own a good shovel.

behind the screen

I've mentioned a few times that Atticus is a great hunter. He gets mice, birds, the occasional rat… and they all stay outside.

We hope that if there was ever a mouse inside the house that he would also catch it. I don't want to think about that.

I prefer they stay on the other side of the screen doors.

This morning I cleaned up a few things and found a few things that needed to go up to the attic. We have been keeping the door closed to the room that has the attic access because that is the guest room currently under construction. I went into the room and headed up to the attic.

There are a few things sitting on the stairs to the attic, one of them being the vacuum cleaner that we just used on Saturday.

Mere inches from the vacuum was the body of a dead mouse.

I happened to spot it as I was halfway up the stairs.

I typically check for bugs.

Not mice.

There was a mouse.

I got to the top of the stairs and did my I-just-found-something-bad-and-don't-want-to-walk-by-it dance. It involves shrieking, moving feet around in an odd sort of tip-toe dance, and flailing of the arms.

Peeking back over the edge of the stairs, I made sure it hadn't moved and was actually dead. Then, risking life and limb I ran back down the attic stairs, jumped into the bedroom, slammed the door shut and sprinted out into the hallway closing the bedroom door behind me.

Someday I will have to take a picture of the attic stairs so you can understand just how risky that was.

When Bill got home, after a different risk involving ice buckets (I'll post that video later), he took care of the mouse.

I hope that if a mouse ever ventures inside these walls again, Atticus finds it and takes care of it.

I'm still a little shaky from the escapade.

 I'm very thankful for Bill.