jeremy's guest post

o sing to me mouse

with your little little paws

i hope to ensare you

with my brittle brittle claws

"please no mr. jeremy, i'm just a lil' mouse"

the evolution of catching a mouse

the mouse living in our house is no ordinary rodent. it is the smartest, most vile mouse that has ever haunted the lonely places no other living creature goes in a house. this mouse has unparalleled patience, and will lie in wait for hours until you go to sleep. it won't eat anything in your house, or leave any nibble marks, but it will scurry across the floor when you're reading a book and leave you wishing that night wasn't so dark.

when i first became aware of the mouse, i thought that as a newly independent woman and homeowner, i could do things right in my house. a mouse deserves the right to live, and it's not the mouse's fault we create these boxes full of comfort and delicious crumbs. 

but how quickly your mind changes about the rights of mice when you realize that you have been outwitted by a rodent. and you keep finding little pellets of poop everywhere. that's when you forsake the vows you took to love and cherish all of god's creatures. 

first we tried the PETA way, building a contraption similar to the one below. the idea is that the mouse can get in, but it can't get out, and then you can release the mouse outside. we put little goodies in the bottom, such as crackers and dried fruit, to allure the mouse in. it didn't work. 

i should have known the PETA folks were quacks when they said:

Release them within 100 yards of where they were trapped...Releasing a mouse or rat into a strange area will almost surely result in the animal's death because relocated animals don't know where to find adequate food, water, or shelter and often become weak and succumb to predation or foreign parasites or disease against which they lack a natural immunity." 

that seems a little dire. do they think people will be so scared of the mouse that they will drive as deep as they can into the middle of nowhere to release it? anyhow, if i followed that rule, i would probably end up releasing it back into my own house. 

so the next step was the glue trap, which some people from PETA have so kindly reminded me is inhumane:

this guy apparently thinks it's inhumane too:

but even with the glue traps, we still got nothing. this mouse is clearly at the height of its species' evolutionary history. so now we have some snap traps:

as of yet, even these evil claw tooth traps haven't worked. 

my next step is 

valar morghulis. everything must die.  i saw the mouse come into our living room, so i set up a barricade of evil so it can't possibly get away.

the only thing stopping me from stalking around the house with a hatchet is that i don't want to make dents in the hardwood floors. how swiftly evil prevails. 

there's always something happening on gales street

a building is being renovated

the morning glories are blooming

 some kittens were born

 a grape is in our yard

furnishing a house

recently, there has been much scrutiny over my furnishing choices. it is quite difficult for me to understand, as i think my taste is impeccable and every purchase i make near flawless. but i am empathetic kind of person, and i can see how my vision for the house could be misinterpreted. 

at first, i wanted to furnish everything within the few weeks. this is a very bad idea for many reasons:

1. to furnish it right, you need to understand the essence of the spaces in your house, how they are used, how they make you feel, etc. being deliberate takes time. 

2. you will spend a lot of $$ in a furniture store thinking you are buying exactly what you need, only to realize later that you were manipulated by the man. 

3. it's no fun. would you rather eat all your popcorn before the movie begins, or take a breath between handfuls and eat it the whole way through?

one thing that is overwhelming is the number of choices available for any particular item you need. after doing my due diligence shopping online/in the store for hours, comparing different items, considering what will really make me seem like a cool home-owner, i usually end up deciding that everything i've seen is an overpriced piece of sh*t and i'll just make it myself. if only i didn't have to bother with that pesky job all day.

the good news is that you can easily solve all of these problems in one simple step. shop at goodwill, my favorite store in the world. 

i've always said that a good serving tray has a story, and the one i bought tonight at goodwill is certainly no exception. 

after searching the home goods section for what seemed like minutes, i finally came upon a slipshod pile of serving trays pushed to the back of the shelf. there were only 3 to choose from, and they ranged in price from $2.96 to $3.96. one tray was fashioned in a standard box shape and painted shimmery green, another had felt on the bottom and was most likely not a serving tray at all, more likely something to hold papers on a desk, and then there was the red serving tray with the longhorn cows on it. although the red one was the priciest of them all, i knew it was the one when i saw it. 

the least i could have done for my poor tray was taken a picture of it in good lighting, tsk tsk

DONE. i had been looking at trays earlier at pier 1 imports, and became wary from the vast selection of $45 brown trays. of all the things i had vowed to make after getting pissed off, a serving tray would have been the easiest by far, but i'm happy to save some time. 

while i would certainly not suggest using this decision making tactic for all items in your house, sometimes it just feels good to go with the flow and take what is right in front you. being too deliberate is stifling. i wouldn't say that it is my favorite serving tray in the whole world, although the brown trim is a nice touch and the detail on the cows is very realistic. but perhaps i will come to love my cow tray as the years go by, which i can't say i would expect to feel about a $45 brown box, even if it did make me seem more dignified when i carried my drinks outside. or maybe i will come to grow tired with it, in which case i paid $3.96 for it and will have no issue re-donating it to goodwill and getting a new one. what beauty!

ps, although there are cows on my tray, i would like to ensure that it was bought in the most unironic way possible. purchasing things out of irony at goodwill is low.