Mousey Christmas To All.

So last night we're engaging in some holiday chicanery - you know: baking, talking, watching socio-politically aware movies (Blood Diamond was very good, if not very Cheer-inducing).

Not a creature was stirring....

When what to our wondering eyes should appear? But a mouse, which we noticed just as he scurried under the oven.

Chloe the cat noticed, too. She took up a post in the nearest corner of the room and waited. And waited. And then, being a cat, was distracted by something shiny - perhaps a puff of tinsel, or perhaps the sushi we were eating for dinner.

Whatever the reason, be it tinsel or fish, I believe we all wished the same holiday wish: for that little grey mouse to be gone.

But holidays are crazy, there's just so much to do, so we all shrugged our shoulders with nary a clue how to handle this unwelcome guest.

Until this morning, you see, when I was preparing to roll out the dough we mixed up before bed. I opened the drawer that's under the oven, where we keep all the pans for cookies and muffins, just in time to see the top of his head.

Our mouse had taken up residence in the drawer.

At the first sight of me, of course, he disappeared beneath the pans. I was left wondering what I was going to do about a mouse in the drawer. Also, I wondered how I would remove the pan I needed without crushing the little vermin. Because the last thing you want to remember when you are baking is that this is the drawer where you had to sterilize out the smashed remains of a possibly diseased rodent.

I removed the pans, one at a time, and found the mouse - stunned into a lifeless lump - at the bottom. I covered him with a tupperware and scooped him up. Then I stared at him. Did I accidentally crush him with one of the pans after all? He seemed to be breathing. Was that a twitch of the whiskers? I stared at him, wondering what to do, until several minutes had passed.
I puzzled puzz'd (yes, till my puzzler was sore) when something happened I hadn't expected before. The little mouse sat up, revived. So I thought a bit more, then opened the door, and behind the fence set him free, still alive.

It must be that Christmas is practically here. I can think of no reason except "time of year" that I felt such concern for a mouse. Especially one that caused such great stress (not to mention a big heap ofpoop, er, I mean "mess") in venturing into our house...

So Merry Christmas to all, the tall and the small, and be sure to show how much you care....
Share smiles with abandon, show kindness at random, and from further terrible mouse poetry may you be spared.