Centrally Located From Nowhere

I live in an old house.  It looks old from the outside and it really looks old on the inside.  There must be a million tiny cracks in the foundation.

So, sometime during the summer before this one, we started noticing a mouse problem.  I opened a cabinet one day and found that our pasta supply had been aggressively chewed over by tiny invaders.

The tiny invaders had also left behind a vast supply of what my mom used to call "mouse pills", no doubt in appreciation of all that free pasta.

The peak of that particular experience was when a tiny mouse darted across my arm while I was cleaning up the spoilage.  My muted gasp was, in my DH's opinion, a very controlled response to something that would have had him making a lot more noise.

But then, I occupy an almost mythic place in my DH's imagination, due to a mouse incident from years ago. 

We worked for the local paper, back in the Circulation department.  It was like most places where Circulation for newspapers takes place - a warehouse-like space with exposed pipes, stark fluorescent lighting, and (most importantly) about a million little cracks and holes in its foundation.

 One Saturday night, as we of the Circulation Staff stood around, stuffing inserts into papers and joking, my DH, who then was my boyfriend, saw a tiny mouse shoot across the floor toward my feet and then seemingly disappear.

He then asked me, "Did that mouse just go up your pants leg?"  All  other conversation stopped.

He said that I looked very calm, cool and collected as I said, "Yeeeeeeah."  But what was actually running through my mind was:

"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABIES!"

I just stood there as the whole Circulation Department looked at me, knowing there was a mouse up my pants leg and no doubt waiting to see what would happen next.  The mouse just clung there too, vibrating the way tiny rodents do.

So, I did what I figured was the only thing I could do.  I patted the side of my pants twice, and the tiny terrified mouse shot out the bottom of my pants leg and disappeared under the door to the outside of Circulation.

My DH, when relating this story in later years, said, "I would have been naked!"

Not true.  He would have only have had to skin down to his Jockey shorts, but I guess naked sounds funnier.  He is a funny guy.

So, you can imagine that his feelings about having a mouse cross over my arm were a little more elevated than mine.

I like mice. 

I've had any number of small furry beady-eyed pets in my time,and they managed to crawl up my pants leg as I played with them on the floor of my room. 

I have two pet mice right now.  Their antics inside their 20-gallon tank comprise what I call "Cat TV" for my Resident Felines. The cage clips for the lid keeps it from becoming "Interactive TV".

Which brings me back to the "mouse problem" we've been having over the past year.  And to the activities of late that closely resemble a return to the Ancient Roman Games in my very own bathroom. 

Most of the Resident Felines are over 5 years old, and kind of set in their sedentary ways.  Meaning, a visit to the crunchie and water bowls every so often and then straight back to being a Lap Leech in the Lap Of Choice pretty much sums up their day.

Until, they discovered MOUSES.  That enlivened the existence of the Under-5 Crowd considerably.

One day, after the Pasta Cabinet Incident, I discovered that some lower cabinets showed evidence of mouse incursion.  One particular Under- 5 cat, The Pook (Gift of the Wal-Mart Parking Lot) got very excited and wanted into that low cabinet BAD.  So, I let her.

She chased a fair-sized mouse back out of a small opening at the back of the cabinet.  And then proceeded to stay there for the rest of the day, waiting for that particular interloper to come back.

Her activities clued another member of the Under-5 Set to the presence of MOUSES.  Together, the Pook and Alger HIss became a tag-team mouse-hunting partnership.

It was a somewhat rocky partnership, which was characterized by snarly disputes as to whose mouse the latest interloper was.  This was good, because it clued me to a fresh catch and I was able to get the catcher to drop said catch into an old hamster Liberty Ball and free the latest intruder outside by the back fence.

Yep.  That's me.  The old softie for beady-eyed little pasta thieves.  Go, and interlope no more.

This worked fairly well for a while, but I think the harshness of our usually drought-stricken summers finally caused a Mass Incursion of tiny refugees.  Our Tag Team wasn't able to keep up.

So, off we went to our local Wal-Mart, where we discovered the Mice Cube.  Humane, sanitary and it works!  So said the blurb on the package. 

The DH, ever the Fiscal Conservative, bought one to see if it worked.   (2323dssw  cat speak)  It did.

So, we got another one and set to trapping.  Peanut butter on a quarter of a saltine cracker.  Mice loved it.  We felt like we were getting a handle on things between the Mice Cubes and the Tag Team.

Then, we lost Alger HIss to a cattie stroke.  It happens.  The Pook was alone in her efforts to keep a lid on mouse immigration from the outside.

Until the Bobke began to develop a desire to play with the Pook's "toys".  He's the youngest of the bunch - only slightly more than a year old and wild to horn in on whatever some other cat's doing. 

At first, he specialized only in trying to take away the Pook's latest conquest.  But, with her grumpy and often grudging cooperation, he began to understand and then practice the fine art of mouse apprehension.

Now, he's taken it to the next level - snagging his mouse, carrying it off into the bathroom, and beginning the Gladiatorial Games in the bathtub. 

Cat vs. mouse, who's running up the sides of the tub in a desperate effort to get away and then running between the legs of the Bobke while I attempt to corral it in the Liberty Ball. 

The Pook has taken note of these proceedings, and now more often than not joins him in our Coliseum/bathtub, sometimes taking over for him whether  he wants her to or not. 

My DH thinks this is evidence of Cat Intelligence.  I agree. 

I think that little booger takes them out of the Mice Cubes sometimes just so he can play with them.  He turns them over, the door opens and it's off to the races.

Even though I try, there are a percentage of mouses that I don't get to rescue.  Most of the time, this occurs when we're sleeping and the Games go on in the Coliseum to their inevitable conclusion.

It makes me a little sad.  Even though I know it's all for the best, really.  Wee, sleekit, tim'rous, cow'ring beasties that they are. 

I've been a  little too fond of those "To Catch A Predator" segments on MSNBC of late. 

And, after seeing a few of them, checking out the pervertedjustice.com site and reading what the failed babyrapers actually said in those transcripts. 

Nobody in my nuclear family can see what the attraction is.  At least, those who actually pay attention to what I'm watching. 

Mostly, Pinky and The Brain continue their clown-car activities in their 20-gallon Mouse Condo, Mark the Shark does his Hikari Betta Bites Dance from atop the TV, and at least 3 cats are snoring away on my bed as I charity-knit and watch overage guys get nailed for felonies against fictional underage teens.

I haven't mentioned reading the transcripts to anybody yet.  It just adds insult to injury, really.  No one can see the attraction of what I view, so why mention what I read? 

(I guess I could chalk the fascination up to being a survivor of child abuse myself - just the good old-fashioned physical/mental variety.  It's where my membership in the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Club comes from.  Though I have my little cocoon of SRI's to keep me detached most days.) 

Watching these shows gives me an opportunity for sympathy for the intended victims and vicarious pleasure about the boom being lowered on a bunch of card-carrying sick-os.

It's always the part right before the boom is lowered that's the most fascinating to me.  When the predator thinks the prey is all his and he can move in and take it. 

 It's not like these freaks see the kid as a person.  Not a chance in hell of that.

Their groveling after being nailed would be sickening if I didn't enjoy it so much.  Though there have been a couple of notable exceptions.  May they rest in pieces.

  I like to get his thoughts on just what he thinks causes this sort of deviant behavior. 

He thinks:

• it's hard-wired in, like being homosexual,
• and some day it'll probably be considered no big deal, like being homosexual.

Fascinating. 

I chalk this up to his being one of those people out there who had a "Leave It To Beaver" kind of upbringing.  I envy that, because I never thought such a thing existed.

MY thoughts?

• it could be hard-wired, but what if it's learned?  Because it happened to them?  It's a lead-pipe cinch they never give it up though, no matter how much "re-training" they get, and
• there's no way anybody is ever going to excuse this kind of behavior.  A predator might just as well have killed the victim, for all the quality of life most of them have afterward.

I do agree with him that homosexuality is hard-wired, not learned or a choice.  It also doesn't hurt anybody.  I have no problem with it, which makes me a member of another minority -- 
The Live and Let Live Club.

Since it's a fact that too much wallowing in the gutter of life is capable of bringing back some of the effects of PTSD, I have to keep a watch on my level of exposure to such stuff as "To Catch A Predator". 

Just like I just had to stop watching the coverage of 9/11.  Though that was harder to do.  It was the realization of all the dead and missing and what it was doing to the people directly affected by it that finally drove me away.

Enough is too much, some times.

Yowsa.  Just got through reading the entire output of a site called "Violent Acres."

Thank God she's only been doing this since October 2006.  If she'd been doing it any longer, I'd be cross-eyed by now.

 DAMN!!!  I loves me some righteous indignation!!!!  Reading that stuff made me feel alive again.  She has this unsentimental turn of mind, which is probably what makes some people think she's really a guy.

And it was all because I decided to check out some links  to articles related to a story on msn.com about the reasons why it's a bad idea to spoil your kid rotten.  I picked one called "Early Christmas For The Ingrate".

Apparently the little shite in the title gets presents hurled at her left and right in some futile attempt to wow her both before and on Christmas.  Naturally, she takes all of it as her due and sneers at most of the attempts.  So jaded, so young.

It's VA's contention (and anybody's who has half a brain) that kids brought up with this sense of entitlement aren't going to grow up being worth the price of the bullet we'd like to shoot them with. 

Though she didn't exactly put it that way.  Forgive my poetic license.

I was amazed at what an angry person she is.  But then, she has a right to be so.  It strikes a sympathetic chord with me, because I'm an angry person, too - but more on that later. 

It's a well-known fact (at least I know it) that all really good humor stems from a root of deep-seated anger. And she's funny.  Not always nice, but really, truly, funny.

Like that post she did on why we should just go ahead and re-institute slavery.  I howled.  Not loud enough to knock the DH out of his TV trance, but loud enough to startle a couple of cats.

Ever hear of a guy called Jonathan Swift?  And a little piece called A Modest Proposal?  If not, go Google it.  I encourage intellectual curiosity.

I also admire anybody who'll come right out and say in this day and age of quasi-theocracy that abortion is really a kindness in disguise. 

Bible-beaters will go to any lengths to keep someone from killing a precious baby, but it seems that their concern for that life ends the minute the baby in question arrives.

And underneath it all, there's compassion.  Not for those with their heads hopelessly stuck up their nether orifices, but for those who honestly deserve it.

Plus, she gives me hope.  She dug herself out of a horrendous situation and she points out that if she could do it, anyone who tries can do it, too.

 All in all,  she gave me a really good reason to not get those 2 chemo caps done on Friday. 

One word - Monkeysphere.  Go Google it. 

Hmmm.  I guess since I signed up to have My Very Own Blog some time ago, I'm feeling compelled to actually use

the dang thing.

So, if somebody else has actually discovered this thing, please bear with all the fiddlings and fidoodlings of this Certified Web Idjit.  Right now, little blog requirements like videos and photos are beyond my capabilities.  So, anybody who just has to have those bells and whistles is going to find this dull beyond belief.

This sounds like I'm apologizing for myself and my shortcomings.  Not really.  I'm just trying to be polite.    

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Though, every once in a while, we hear a little Cat Speak from one or more of the Resident Felines, who can't seem to stay off my keyboard.

This really torques my DH, who seems to be persistently of the belief that cats can be taught a sense of where they don't belong.  To this I say:

HAH! 

Cats have no intrinsic sense of  trespass. 

So, get over it.  (big toothy slightly snickery grin) 

I suppose I should do the usual introduction thingie and give anyone who may stumble on this little collection of font size/color experiments an idea of who's blithering on here. 

Though calling it "blithering" sounds like I'm apologizing for myself again.  Not.

I am an unemployed person with:

1. one husband (let's call him DH),
2. one double-tail betta (Mark the Shark),
3. two funny female mice rescued from being snake food (Pinky and the Brain),
4. and, lastly but most emphatically not leastly, five cats (mostly female, with one male, all rescued, whose names will come LATER.)

These form my entire nuclear family, here in a place described by my husband's best friend as being Centrally Located From Nowhere.   (Hence, the name of the blog.)   Let's just calll it CLFN for short. 

CLFN is known for two things:

• peanuts (Valencias), and
• a small teachers' college masquerading as a University.

DH is a computer guy, who works at the Central Office of the municipal school system 20 miles away in the town nearest to us.

This town interests me because it's also:

1. named the same as a city in California, and
2. the name of a French king from looooooooong ago.

I'm famous for knowing things like that.  Trivia is often my specialty.  DH's, too.  We used to be fiend Trivial Pursuit players.  Other people thought we went through and memorized all the cards.

Nah.  That's too much  like work.  We just knew all that stuff already.

I also enjoy a brisk game of Chinese Checkers every now and then.  But having just 2 players makes the game a little stodgy. 

 Unless we were to invite a cat or two to play along.  Though they would need no invitation, being without that basic sense of trespass and all.

But, back to the introduction of who's blithering on here.  Once again, not an apology. 

 As I said before, I'm unemployed.  I've also been accused of suffering from "mentalpause" by a commenter on another blog.

And to this I say, Yes. 

Yes, I do. 

And I consider it to be a marvelously freeing experience, when all is said and done.

I no longer worry about such things as:

• putting on  makeup every day,
• being a slave to fashion,
• and worrying about anybody who thinks I'm suffering from "mentalpause".

I should have taken on "mentalpause" years ago.  (hee hee hee)

I wind up spending most of my days being spectacularly unproductive (no doubt due to the aforementioned affliction), which is another reason I should undertake blogging with a bit more energy.

Ordinarily, I'd be doing some kind of charity knitting.  Right now, it's mostly chemo caps and shawls for women I actually know are getting chemotherapy for breast cancer. 

Scary, that breast cancer.  I figure a couple of caps and a comfy shawl is the least I can do.  

I'm trying to churn these things out as fast as I can without them looking like UYHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH 

 Sorry.  Another Cat has Spoken.  That's what I get for leaving my keyboard temporarily unattended.

What I was saying before this Ruuuuuuuuuuuuuude Interruption WAS:

.....as fast as I can without them looking like I was trying to churn them out as fast as I can.  Mostly, they're said by others to not look that way, which is a relief.

I should get back on that.  I still have 2 more caps to go on the latest care package. 

Not to mention that showering, doing a little grocery shopping for the weekend and a few small loads of laundry should fall into the day's festivities.  Unless something better comes up first.

I've already got tonight's dinner underway.  Delicious and nutritious eggie salad!  The eggs are burbling away on the stovetop even as we speak.  As if this were some earth-shaking event.

To close out today's scintillating commentary, I should say that I don't plan to devote this blog to:

• cats,
• knitting/crocheting,
• or anything in particular.

I'm just going to use this as an online journal for blithering on about whatever I want to.

And if nobody other than I ever reads it, that's just fine by me.  After all, the number of "Just added to Vox" posts are legion.  As are the number of blogs out there in the Blogosphere. 

 It's also a sorry trend in life these days to want to bash what another blogger has to say.  Some of these I understand, as they are exercises in self-indulgence, or shameless exploitation. 

But just to bash somebody for being on the Blogosphere?  Please.  Get a life.