Mice

It's the Season of the Mouse. I don't know why -- either it's the record cold Summer, it's mouse-kit time, or we've been extra cavalier with open doors -- but we've seen a bunch of mice in our garage and our kitchen.

Saturday, we watched a young mouse darting back and forth in the rosemary bed. Then it skittered across Café John, jumped up on the concrete foundation of the house, and ran along the south flower bed. We tracked it by the quivering sweet alyssum, tomato and strawberry plants.

And then the mouse was so bold as to sit there, watching us with one eye as it nibbled a ripe strawberry. Who knew that mice and slugs have something in common?

We've put out some traps in the house. But I'm thinking that it might be time to get a cat. And by cat, I mean a lean, mean, bat-catching machine like Mâtchka was. Muriel was an okay cat, but... well... she was a kind of odd, needy thing. She got points for being able to climb ladders -- but almost instantly lost them for never being able to figure out how to get out of the loft she'd climbed to (at 3:43 AM). And the poor thing had never been taught how to catch mice; in our old rental, she'd just look at them quizzically as if they were curiosities from another epoch.

Mâtchka automatically got cool points for being black except for a small white patch on her chest. She had the hauteur thing down. She could upstage anyone on giving a tour of Arcosanti simply by displaying herself in High Egyptian Cat style. And yes, she was able to catch bats.

Sigh. I know it's wrong to want a new cat just like Mâtchka. We kind of like our cat-free life. Still, sometimes....