Alas, Mouse

Mouse did not make it. I have been too sad to write about it. This is excessive, only maybe Mouse is standing in for a lot of sorrow, not least my feeling that the US was a good country that would manage to do the right thing. Or that bullets will always miss -- I know they won't, but I think a certain level of delusion makes it easier to go on.

Anyway, Sunday, Mouse was practically perky -- slow to rouse and not warm enough, being perhaps too small to metabolize very well, but once warmer, both eyes open, drinking milk and wanting to zoom around. So Mouse spent about an hour in the sun in a flowerbox, falling over a lot but having, as far as I can tell, a great time digging and eating seeds and maybe a bug or two. Then Mouse got tired and slowed down, and never came out of it. Would not take nourishment. Appeared to be paralyzed from the waist down. I held her(?) awhile and she would stir or twitch. I left her in a warm place until she was no longer there, and buried her near the frog tub. Then I was fine, i just cried for no reason and am in fact doing so now. Hate this.

Apart from Mouse, Sunday was a very good day. Since I have all sorts of things i needed to do in the garden, when Doug came over to be exploited we built a bench to have tea on in the part of the garden near the Loom Room. It is made almost entirely out of cedarwood we pulled off the part of the deck I am slowly removing (it used to serve the above-ground pool, which has been taken down to be above someone else's ground--I not a pool person--and that chunk of deck blocks the view from the Loom Room), and screws Doug already had around, so the only thing we needed to pay for was electricity. Because Doug is a good carpenter, it's much more comfortable than I would have hoped. Somehow the reused nature of the wood pleases me a great deal.

Probably part of the tension in my immediate air has been the $2000 bill from the plumber and the lack of response to my cover letters and resumés; the decision of my relatively new washer (all right, Clinton was president, but it was the second term) to become semi-automatic (you have to punch the start button for each rinse); the gas and oil prices; the two times in the last week I ran my car battery down and out, after I don't think doing that in all my past 34 years of driving) you know, everything. The best ex-husband in the world continues to do one's best, but two kids in school is rough and MY parents are more concerned about Daveifer's finances than about mine (which, when you consider who has the career-type job and health insurance, is Signal).

So since I have not succeeded in attracting a stranger to be tenant, I am yielding to Doug's proposal that he move into the apartment, and also rent the rooms formerly known as Sarah's Suite. He seems to have a lot of Stuff. Fiber stuff, mostly, which is in some ways my fault, a couple of looms (only one of which I sold him), a few wheels, you know, a stash or so; and we had already agreed he could set up a workshop in my basement if he would show me some woodwork moves. (Sunday he taught me how to set the depth on the circular saw, which was a GREAT step forward.)

The apartment was once a garage. It has a separate entrance and kitchen and bathroom, and will provide his somewhat insane cat (I know, tautology) with Space of her own, as well as providing Doug with a kitchen of his own (we have different styles of house-keeping. I would rather do anything else). He swears that he will encourage me to seek out and bring home a boyfriend, if such a thing appear on the horizon. Since he was my boyfriend for about 4 years from late 1999 to late 2003, this is relatively magnanimous as well as practical of him. I have already had his girlfriend to tea and will be happy to do so again, if he wants to. (In the time they have been dating she has gone from having once known how to crochet to a) a huge afghan) b) a first project of perfectly fitting knitting socks and c)only a small wheel...)

He also says he will prevent me from exploiting him to excess. He underestimates my laziness and need for yardwork. He has already agreed to sink another, larger, more permanent tub next to the frog puddle.

I like Doug a lot, though not in a romantic way, and I hope I don't end up wanting to kill him. He is more gregarious than I am, and he doesn't spend too many hours reading or surfing the Net, both of which I do and do not take kindly to be being chatted with at the same time. Because I hermit tendencies, all right? and come of a family (and brought forth another) who read and don't always talk, and in fact get weird if we don't have serious downtime. He swears he can give me Space, which may mean I am a somewhat insane cat, but there you are. Everyone I have consulted thinks it's not unreasonable to give it a try. He will be moving here probably the first of November.

The bench is excellent. The mouse had at least one good day.