Love to eat them mousies

Love to eat them mousies
Mousies what I love to eat
Bite they little heads off
Nibble on they tiny feet…
                               - B. Kliban

We have a mouse infestation, ladies and gentlemen. We can hear them in the wall separating the old part of the house from the new part of the house. Two nights ago, we opened the trap door between the walk in closet (new space) and the attic (old space) and saw droppings.

This morning, in the dawn hour, when I got up to let Charlie outside (better that than listen to him body slam the bedroom door all morning), I heard them from bed. Grrrrrrr.  Know any exterminators who’ll come out on a holiday weekend? Yeah, me either.

In a parallel story, Maggie doesn’t like to come in when I call her at night – I have to go out with a flashlight and scoop her up, singing to her and admiring the Milky Way and whatnot so that she doesn’t run away from me.

This evening, the two plotlines converged, as Maggie was not in her usual spot under the apple tree at the front left corner of the house. She was walking up the stairs to the deck, a mouse in her mouth, headed with purpose toward the door. Good job, girlie!

“No, I’d rather you didn’t bring that inside, dear – eat it now,” says I.

“Fine by me,” she says. *CRUNCH” There’s the head! And look, there’s the tail! *CRUNCH” All Gone! Bye Bye!

“No, you can’t have a pre-bedtime snack. You just ate. Remember?”

“Humph”.

Maggie’s always been a great hunter. Years ago, when she was at Dad’s house, I found her one day with three chipmunks arrayed across the lawn, each in varying stages of shock. She’d stun one into submission, get bored, and go fetch herself another one.

Their diets are going well – Charlie’s almost at his goal weight. Maggie’s slower to lose weight, which is perhaps a function of her her personal meal supplementation program, but also might just be due to a slower metabolism. But she’s getting there.

In other news, I did those push ups I said I would do. And then this morning I went for a long run. I’d planned on 10.75 but tacked on another mile and change, bringing my total to 12.  It’s the least I could do, given that my sister-in-law did the Disney Half Marathon today (GO LYNN!)

It was definitely cooler this morning, and I should have been super-fast, but I made a critical error in judgment in fueling for the run.

It turns out that spreading a gallon of this stuff on a whole wheat wrap is a little…intense. 

                                                                                                   Perhaps I should have gone with that weird, but oddly satisfying, and pretty darn tootin’ healthy, PB2 stuff. Dehydrated peanut butter. Well, not dehydrated, exactly – they suck all the oil out of it, so it’s nearly non-fat.

 

The more often I do these long runs, the more used to them I become. I haven’t had the sort of emotional crisis that I had several weeks ago in training – I’m not associating the fact of my legs hurting with personal failure. (Hooray!)

I spent the afternoon more or less prone. Not sore – just…inclined to lie down with a book, is all…

Tomorrow: kayaking with a friend.

We should have fun exploring.