The Way We Were, and Other Random Musings

So the other night when Mike was out late and I had nothing better to do, I pulled out my wedding video. It's been 10 years, and I thought the video would be short and fairly boring--but I was so wrong. Everyone looks so very different on the tape, from Schuyler at 14, with his orange-ish hair and teenage swagger, to dad, who looks thin and who was also apparently still using the flo-be on his not-yet white hair. I was expecting to see a gloriously young and beautiful me, and a younger and better version of everyone else, too. The truth was immediately clear, though. I look only a little worse for the wear (and never was that glorious to begin with), and everyone else is exactly the way I love them right now. I just felt an overwhelming love for my family, and wanted to tell you (in case you're watching time fly and thinking you're going downhill) that in every case I find you richer, wiser, and more beautiful than you were back then. Carry on.

This is a photo of my kids on the first "cold" day of the fall season. It's about 70 degrees outside, and they see clouds and go crazy with the winter gear. California kids. I never would have thought I'd have them.

This is Paige in the bathroom she flooded. She can just reach the sink if she stands on her tippy toes, and also she has all the destructive force of a hearty mix of Miles and Ava. She's a bull and a half. And she looks here like she's eaten a bull and a half. It's ok--we have a wet vac. She also recently pulled about half of the keys off the computer. While we spent forever painstakingly putting them back together, she spent her time in "time-out" yelling "DON'T YOU COME OVER HERE!!"

And speaking of Paige, here's my favorite of her most recent pastimes (although peeing on the floor and coloring on everything she can get her paws were close runners-up). And I know how my family members feel about cats, but you can't help feeling an appreciation of Leo when you see the kind of punishment he takes from Paige in the form of love. It goes like this: "I'm gonna hold my kitty," Paige will say. Leo will look up from his sunny spot by the sliding door and consider running. He decides to allow it, apparently, because Paige will thump over to him and drop on him like a UFC pro. She'll haul him around until I make her sit, and when she does this, his little back paws scuttle around on the ground in a vain attempt to keep his airways open. Once she sits, he is submitted to a battery of kisses, hugs and squeezes and he maintains a look of bored tolerance like a good cat should. Paige insists he sits like a person. He allows this for a really commendably long time before I force Paige to release the cat. She really loves her kitty. He's earned it.

And one last thing--my feelings about video games are just one part of a larger feeling about technology in general. It may be just because I lack the understanding to feel the magic of it, but I mostly feel that what we gain from technology is far outweighed by what we lose. Mike disagrees, which is why I have a picture of Paige frozen watching a cartoon on Mike's ipod. Once plugged in, she's like a doll with pliable little limbs you can pose. She won't even sit--you have to bend her legs for her. It's so disheartening. Fight, I say to you all! Fight! You don't have a shot in hell, but fight to the death anyway. For the love of the children!

The Cheese Stands Alone

Mike's no farmer, and I'm no match for mice, carving knife in hand or no. Which is unfortunate, really, considering the recently revealed fact that we have mice. We keep a cat, and our garage is notoriously mouse-free, so I was sure it was nothing when Leo jumped off my lap and stalked into the kitchen with the determination of a lion and the cunning of, well, a cat. But I followed him and sure enough, I heard a little scratch scratch scratching under the sink. So I opened the door and watched my cat go into wild mode. He stalked for a while, and finally caught the little rodent.

Did I mention that my cat is an idiot? It's really not his fault. He's tame, you see, and really only knows mice as fluffy little toys he likes to bat around, so he couldn't have understood my dismay when he dropped the mouse in order to play with it. The mouse isn't half as dumb as my cat, though, and he beat it like a regular Speedy Gonzales. Leo pouted a lot and spent the rest of the day stalking various objects, some that move, some that don't. Idiot.

We set a trap and caught one (now by "we", I mean Mike. He used peanut butter, and frankly I may throw the jar away. I am, apparently, a pansy when it comes to mice, as you will soon see.) This is good. But that night, Mike went on a scout camp out and left me alone with the mice. And the girls, but they really don't help with the mouse situation. So we were all settled in bed, but I kept hearing so much noise downstairs. Not regular noise, but cat noise. And so now I understand why they call them "cat burglars", because I must have come downstairs with various heavy objects as weapons five times before I figured out what was going on. Leo and the mouse (more like Tom and Jerry, stupid cat) were playing hide and seek. My aversion to mice which need to be exterminated is pretty strong, so I went to bed grossed out and thought Leo would have it handled by morning. I tried not to think about removing the dead mouse, and just hoped I'd be able to do it when I had to.

The morning dawned, and I gingerly stepped down the stairs afraid to land a foot on the poor little mouse. No need to worry. The poor little mouse was closely guarded by the cat, who was still batting around the only partly dead mouse. I now think my cat is far worse than stupid. That's serious cruelty, to torture a mouse like that. It took me four attempts before I was able to get close enough to put a trash can over the mouse. I couldn't bring myself to put it out of its misery. Leo sulked accordingly, and I dry heaved. I was unable to overcome my gag reflex, and almost cried with relief when Carrie showed up to borrow our blower and threw the now all dead mouse out for me.

Leo's back to being locked in the garage at night, and the cheese in the trap is responsible for catching the mice. I feel a little guilty about swatting flies, so killing mice is truly beyond me. Mike sets the traps, he checks them, and he empties them. I put it down to experience, and am grateful to have discovered a little more about my limitations. I don't do live mice--not so much the mouse itself, but the killing of it. I guess I don't do killing. Oh, I know I'm complicit. But I just can't pull the trigger.

I keep thinking about one day too many years ago when I announced my intentions of becoming a nurse, and Aryn snorted. I was quite reasonably offended, but she assured me that I didn't have it in me to be around the pain of people dying. I never really thought she was right about that until this last week. The mice have convinced me where Aryn couldn't. I'm not cut out for hospital work or military service. Or veterinary work, for that matter. Shoot, I couldn't even be an Orkin Man.