You know the sound, oh yes you do – the sound of a small body hitting a big piece of glass, like when a cat runs full-tilt into a sliding glass door, or a bird flies into a plate glass window. Well, I heard that yesterday morning, and found a dead female blackbird (only the males are black, the females are brown, which doesn’t seem fair) on TOP of the glassed-in patio. She seems to have fallen out of the sky. DrBob theorizes that she hit my office window and fell back onto the patio roof, and I just didn’t hear the second thwap. That may be so. In any case, dead thing. Decay. Bacteria. Serious skeevage. I had to leave her there while I worked up the nerve to climb out onto the patio roof and push her off with a broom. Then I needed another hour before I could pick her up with a hand-broom and dustpan, carry her around the house and fling her into the woods. Then I had to wash my hands fifty times and walk around saying “Ew, ew, EEEWWWW!” for awhile.
This morning it was the small-tortured-animal sound. Fufu had a mouse – a baby one, I believe. Some yelling, some dithering, and then I cornered Fufu and picked her up, with the mouse in her mouth, and tried to carry her outside so she could finish her business there. I felt bad for the mouse, but you know, it is the nature of cats to torment mice and I accepted that when I signed up to be a cat owner. So, Not In My House is established policy, and we were proceeding toward the front door when she dropped the damn thing. Well, I couldn’t give it back to her, so I tossed her outside and shut the inner door, trapping the mouse in the front hall, which I have just now decided to call the foyer. I like that word.
What was I talking about? Oh. I went to get a magazine and a glass, to capture the injured mouse and put it outside in the woods, to escape and possibly recover (or possibly get caught and killed by one of my cats, but at least not in my house, dangit), but the mouse managed to limp behind A Furniture. Not sure what to do now. Capture it and put it outside, of course, but I suspect this is a two-person job, and I’m alone here. Except for two cats, who I am sure would not be helpful.
I’m sure I’ll figure something out, but at the moment, I’m just sort of pretending the whole thing is not true.
Song du jour of the day: Coconut, by Harry Nilsson
alala 
August 12th, 2008 at 13:12
Yuck. Just, yuck.
August 12th, 2008 at 19:20
You know, I think it’s just the way the animals are welcoming you back home. :-p
Are we going to be seeing you any time soon at knit-night? I’m at the shop tomorrow and Thursday from 1-4 p.m.
August 13th, 2008 at 17:30
ooohhhh, cats just love to bring in live mice. I have had several this year. luckily they eventually get caught, but not without a lot of worry and misery on my part. I have actually caught some, but it requires a lot of careful work. What I do is block it off, slowly, with large items it can’t run under or over. Once it was in the pantry closet. I blocked it off with cookie sheets and then carefully took everything out and managed to catch the mouse under a bowl. It took a long time and was very frustrating, however! I wish you luck with yours. Oh, and I sympathize on the dead bird too–I had to pick one up this morning, thankfully downstairs instead of upstairs. No wonder Minneloushe was yowling!
August 13th, 2008 at 18:58
@ amy: I felt mostly sympathy for the poor thing. The yuck comes later, when I find it on the living room carpet with its face chewed off. Darn cats. Not that that happened with this one, but it did with a previous rescue-mouse.
@ elemm: well, the mosquitoes are sure glad to see me. Meh, getting to Munich has felt like too much trouble lately. I miss you, but my lifetime’s piling up over here, and it’s really hard to get away.
@ leil: it is a lot of work, isn’t it? When I went back to the foyer after an hour, the mouse was huddled on a chunk of granite we use for a doorstop, and it didn’t resist when I scooped it onto the dustpan and carried it outside. Poor little thing.