Thank you to whomever nominated this entry for Best Dramatic Entry in the Diarist Awards for Quarter 1 2003. I’m greatly honored and am in some great company along with Cutting Through Fluff (whom I met at JournalCon 02 and still have her little pink fluffy swag sitting next to my computer) and Sunshyn.
I sent Bryan’s mom a copy of the notification that the entry was nominated. She’d read the entry after Bryan’s funeral, but wasn’t able to get through all of your comments until recently. She left a message to everyone on the comments.
I’m so lucky to have such awesome readers. Thank you again.
Esteban thinks he has discovered the source of the mice. He saw some in the garage, by last year’s birdseed. Mice apparently like birdseed. So much for truth in advertising. I’m honestly not surprised that they could get into the garage. The back door for the garage is really just the suggestion of a door in that it has a doorknob and it is made of wood, but the door is fully aware that it’s not kidding anyone. I would not be surprised to walk out some morning and find a horse living it up in the garage, drinking my Diet Coke, grilling up some’ um’ corn or something.
And apparently, when they were putting in the addition to the kitchen (which has now extended to share a wall with the garage), they removed a pipe of some kind but left the hole there.
I was ecstatic. The great mouse scourge had been discovered. ‘So, we’ll stuff the hole with something they can’t chew through, like steel wool or squirt that stuff in there, that expanding stuff&AO8AvwC9AO8AvwC9-
‘No. I’m going to set up some live traps in there and catch them.’
I was thunderstruck. Why in heaven’s name would he want to catch them in the garage? And let them go where? Outside??? In my opinion, they could have the garage. I was completely willing to share.
‘Well, ok, but still, we want to seal up the hole right away.’
‘No, let me catch them out there first. I don’t want to lock any of them in here with us.’
‘What? Why would you think they’re leaving the house? Why would they do that? The house is the Prime Objective. Do you really think their base of operations is the garage and they are sending little reconnaissance missions into the house?’
‘Well, the birdseed is in the garage.’ He pouted.
‘Yeah, and the Oreos and the Teddy Grahams and the pears and the Special K and the mozzarella and the miscellaneous gunk under the refrigerator is IN HERE.’
‘They couldn’t get the mozzarella. That’s in the refrigerator.’
‘Oh, yeah, that’s right. If they can’t get at the mozzarella, they would decide that it just wasn’t worth the effort. The whole deal would be off.’
Poor deluded Esteban. I think he’s watched The Secret Of Nimh too much as a child. He apparently thinks they have little meetings, led by the wizened old Sean Connery mouse, saying, ‘Look, I’ve been in The House. You haven’t. You don’t know. You CAN’T know. It’s marvelous. Crumbs beyond your wildest dreams. I’ve heard tales of a dishwasher now, but even so, it’s a mouse paradise. We’ll take them through the walls, using our high-powered night vision goggles. Now’ synchronize your watches.’ And there would be some schizophrenic John Leguizamo mouse that starts whispering about an enormous cat with glowing green eyes, man, and it sits there evilly licking it’s enormous belly fattened by the bodies of mice! Lick! Lick, man, lick! And then he gets killed early in the mission, much to the relief of everyone.
But in the end, I relented and have given him his opportunity to catch mice in the garage. During which he has done nothing. NOTHING. Which is, of course, Esteban’s preferred method of household management. Do nothing and hope for the best. GD Burgermeister. I’m buying some of that squirty stuff tonight. Mofo mice.
Yesterday while I was eating lunch, for about fifteen minutes, I was entirely convinced that I had the very perfect ad slogan ever’ one to rival ‘Got Milk?’ and ‘Just Do It.’
Here it is:
‘Garbanzo beans’ really chick peas. Who knew?’
One of the most surprising facts in the world is that people have actually paid me to write their ad copy. I am not making that up.
Two nights ago, I had the absolute best dream. I dreamt that I was rich; the daughter of wealthy parents with a house in the Hamptons and my boyfriend was Spike. The vampire. Yeah. And my parents were all shocked, but I invited him to a dinner/tea, where they served cookies instead of a fish course, much to Spike’s chagrin, and then we were forced to listen to my maiden aunt play her violin and sing arias, until we fled to the boathouse (which housed our 1920 vintage wooden boat called Gatsby) where he became my sweaty chew toy.
Damn.
Then later, apparently still flush from my dalliance with forbidden vampire lust, I walked into a book store somewhere and bumped into Margaret Atwood, spilling some stories from my paper journal, that she very nicely picked up and, through some amazing Canadian speed reading ability, said ‘Oh my gosh, you’re Weetabix! Wow. These are fabulous. You must be my opening reader at my next series. Would you be able to tour with me?’
And then I woke up.
Some days I really love my life, but then my brain pulls the rug from my feet and says ‘Let’s see what’s behind Door Number Two, shall we?’ Because sometimes my brain channels bad television game shows.
So needless to say, I was quite excited to fall asleep last night, hoping to find my way back to the boathouse and tell Spike that I would have to leave him to do my literary tour with Marge (as she asked me to call her, despite the absurd notion of Margaret Atwood going by the name ‘Marge’, like the ghost in Pee Wee’s Big Adventure or something), but before then, perhaps he would like to convince me to stay by plundering me with his vampenis.
Oh, stop looking at me like that. It’s not adultery if it only happens in your dreams and it’s with a fictional character. And besides, it’s not like I’m not going to hell already.
Instead of finding Spike, I had one of those soulless dreamless dark nights. I suppose with a tiring imagination like mine, my subconscious needs a night off now and then. And instead of Marge reading tight prose that makes my heart ache and feel empty, I was woken at 4 am by cats making fierce and passionate love outside my bedroom window. I felt like I was in a cartoon. Unfortunately, I did not have a tin can to throw at them and my ACME Cat Coitus Interuptus Spray has yet to be delivered, but luckily the feline l’amour finished and I fell back into my dreamless sleep, during which I apparently crossed the bedroom and turned off the alarm then crawled back into bed without waking up. Perhaps my brain is on strike, knowing that tonight is the last Buffy EVER and I have this suspicion that something dire is going to happen to Spikelicious. And then I’ll have to kick Marti Noxon’s ass. I don’t want him to be a martyr. I don’t want him to be dust. I just want him to parade around somewhat dirty, pose a bunch, and make snarky comments with his lovely fake accent and be my undead boyfriend. Is that so much to ask? Is it? Is it?
Hmmph.
