Trapped Like a Rat

Sometimes insomnia can be a good thing.

Not that its’ very late, or that I expect overly much more trouble falling asleep, once I settle on how to solve a hairy problem I’ve found myself with.

Short gray hair, for the most part, with a white belly to be precise.

It seems the cat’s vigil over the entrance has finally paid off, although less than he was expecting.  I’ve suspected for some time, in no small part because of the cat’s nightly stalking of my drier that there was a mouse living here, so I’ve had a trap set for a week or so now.  Something tripped it fairly early, and either went scrambling or sent the cat on a wild goose chase (which he is on again now, it sounds like), sending dirt across my entry way.   Now, I’ve finally had some better results.

I heard a snap, and the cat’s surprised mews, so I grabbed the flashlight and took a look.  There was a small (for what it is) rat, a field rat if I’m not greatly mistaken, laying there next to my drier against the wall.  Almost cute, if I don’t remember the small noises that could have been something outside or something in the walls.  It was right behind a small brush thing that has been here longer than I have (which, as it turns out, was what the cat was just now stalking).  It was laying on its side, with the mouse trap upside down, but obviously not dead.  Dying perhaps, but I doubted it.  At first I thought it was trapped by its whiskers, then by its paw.  As it turns out, it wasn’t trapped at all, apart from the sentinel cat and me with the light show.

So I stared at it.  And thought.  I shut the cat and dog in my room - it might be a rat, but I’m still a sap, and I’d rather not clean up any blood they might leave - and looked around for a bucket.  Not being successful, I grabbed the shed keys and glanced back at the thing.  It had moved a bit, not much, but enough that it was obvious that it would be long gone by the time I got back from the shed.

Then it dawned on me: I had been lazy!  That cat litter bucket above the drier was empty, and I simply hadn’t taken care of it yet - score one for the lazy pack rat (pun fully intended).  So I set that down and used the long brush thing that I use for cleaning cob webs and got him in the cat litter bucket.

And now it’s sitting here under my feet, and I have no clue what I should do with it.

Poison?  I have bleach, that would certainly kill it, but that seems rather cruel.  It’s big and fast enough that I’m not sure of a quick clean kill if I try to use a blade or blunt object to end it quickly.  It can chew its way out once it thinks its safe to do so, so I can’t starve it.  And if I let it go it’ll come right back.  Freezing it sounds good and humane, but I’m not sure I like the idea of having either the rat or the cat litter bucket in the freezer, plus there’s the possibility of it chewing out before it got too cold.  Perhaps if I put ice in the bucket though... then cleaned it well...

Hmm...

I think I’ll wait and think about it for a bit longer.  Could always toss it on the sun porch with the cat.  Indiana would love that!

But tomorrow, I’m getting rat traps, these little ones aren’t going to cut it.


POST BLOG NOTE:  As it turns out, bleach is a very vast killer.  What I elected to do was throw in some ice to slow it down, then add bleach.  I know, it's weird caring about the suffering of a rat, but like I said, I'm a sap.  Either way, he died quickly, and I'll dispose of it in the morning.

Balancing Act

This has been one hell of a month.  Alisha has before compared my life to a soap opera, and oddly enough shortly after she said that it turned more true than I cared for.  Lately it's been a roller coaster.  I really don't care for that in my personal life.

A big branch fell on my studio.  Shortly after clearing the last of that away, a tree fell on it, damaging part of the roof.  That's off now, although not repaired, but it isn't urgent damage either.  I've had a phone interview with a company that rejected me before, and now has again.  I had a very unfortunate dental visit, so I'll be dealing with the repercussions of that at the end of next week.  And my family has had drama, which had finally begun to settle down until (this is as polite as I can possibly be about this at the moment) a bitch went and woke the dog back up and stirred it into an even greater frenzy of stupidity and viscousness.  Meanwhile, things have been almost entirely positive with Sparky, and looking up on that front, as well as mostly good news on my art front (despite minor setbacks on part of it).  That being said, I feel like I have shit being shot straight through my head.  Hence the picture.

Now, all that out of the way (and an email sent out that will either calm the dog or get it to bite at my hand next), on to what I had actually wanted to talk about, when I could clear my head enough to think it out.

That's not been very often at all today.

Balance.  Ironic timing on this... But yes, balance.

I am strongly considering alcohol to calm back down, but I'll refrain.  I know better.  Thanks to my sculpture teacher almost pushing me to taking that too far.  Another story for another time.

Balance.

Say you're on a big circle.  You have the best view of that which is around you.  This is obvious, as its closer.  You can guess certain things about the other side, and see some of it, but not very clearly.  So you understand a good bit about the circle.  But if you were to walk around to the opposite side, you would be able to see that side as well, and understand more.  Then between the two, you could understand, to whatever degree, the entire circle much more clearly that from any one spot along it.  Three points would be better, but lets not complicate things more than we need to.

To me, minds are like this with regards to the world around us.  Take the artist.  They understand the art world well, and see things from that point of view.  But they don't understand the whole thing.  Scientists have the same problem, but the opposite view.  In this way, they are a balancing act, art and science.  Of course, both art and science are large categories.  So let's break them down.  On the art side, there are the fine arts, performing arts, and literary arts.  On the science side, there are looser sciences like biology and similar areas, which grow and change as our understanding do.  Then there are the firm sciences, like chemistry, which do not change much, but merely expand.  Then there is math, the tenants of which do not change: 2 and 2 always will make 4 (when both are positive of course, and blah blah blah).  These, in their relative orders, could be seen as complementary to each other (using the art definition, the opposite, balancing out to the center, which in pigment would be neutral gray, or in optical pure white light).  Now, that does not cover everything, nor will the chart completed.  But to simplify, let us consider the sides of the circle between the sciences and arts to be medicine, and public safety (being police, fire fighting, etc).  With any of these pairs, it would be good and instructive to know at least a bit about the opposite.  In this way, one can learn more about everything, and have a greater understanding of everything else.  Nobody will ever understand everything perfectly, but that just leaves room to learn and for some mystery in life.  And most jobs fall under some combination of the various parts, and there very well be some that are fairly well balanced on their own.  But it's a good general principle.

At least to me.  But what do I know?

Other than balancing out my own mind, and my life, plus my general personality with Sparky's.

And having lots of time to think.

When I can stop thinking about female dogs that are probably going to suddenly show up to bite my hand...  I'd rather be at the dentist when that happens.

The Unknown

People are strange creatures.  I'm pretty sure I've said that before, and I'm certain I will again.  So perhaps I should be more specific.

We're hypocrites.

On the one hand many people, perhaps most to some various degree, are afraid of the unknown.  We prefer the situation we know to the possibility of change for as long as its possible.  This is not true to every degree of course, and some change is always wanted, as we always want more.  But for major changes, we are often too afraid even when its needed.

On the other, however, we are constantly curious about things we don't know or understand.  If there's a hole, we want to look in it.  If there's a dark room, we want to turn on the light.  If there's the faintest indication we don't know about something, we want to find out.

To be more precise, we want OTHER people to find out.

The more unknown something is, and thus more threatening to us, the more we want someone else to do the task of shedding light upon a situation.  We'll look in the hole in the ground, but if it's a big hole like a cave... well... it's always the other person who should go first.

Not everyone is like that, however.  Scientists are the tame ones, but others who we deem "adventurous types" are immune to this fear.  On the other end of the scale, there are some who cling to everything they "know" and refuse to admit there is anything more to learn.  These have no curiosity, and are typically those who cling most fiercely to situations that have degraded beyond acceptance.

We have adages about the curiosity of cats.  As a cat owner (or, from his point of view, as a cat's pet), I know they are very curious.  But they're mostly just curious about anything they can hunt, or any sign of change, which is always just inspected as a threat and eventually accepted.  We are far more curious.  Even dogs are more curious than that.  My dog loves to explore.  The cat gets mad if I rearrange the porch.

Maybe we're just simple creatures who are still afraid of noises in the dark, but have learned that if we control those sounds we can give ourselves adrenaline rushes, and so like to do it.  Who knows.

On second thought, sometimes there is a reason to be wary of the unknown.  Like experimenting with food trying to make it taste better... sometimes you get something great, but others it just turns your stomach where you can barely figure out how to type a blog post.

Stupid cream of wheat.

Unexpectedly Expected

Maybe it's just me, but most of the things I expect to happen don't.  Either some aspect of it goes wrong, the entire thing is called off, or there are undesirable and unforeseen consequences, or something such as that.  I just sort of assumed that that was typical life.

This weekend, however, was completely what I would have expected and wanted in every way.  Saturday, Sparky and I went tubing down a river.  He's a city boy, so there was some element of "he might not like it," but he loved it.  We both had a great time, then went back down a portion of it again.  Saturday night, we went to see a play, which was great.  Wonderful set, great cast, and very entertaining.  We even agreed about favorite characters.  The only down side was the first half had one character with a weak accent, but for the second half she was great.  Probably just wore her voice out from the first showing, as a somewhat harsh German accent can do to someone not used to it.  Sunday was great, went out, got a few things done, and Sparky helped my parents with their computer.  We watched Tremors (which I love because it's not really a great movie), which he enjoyed as well.  After that we watched Hackers, which was funny on accident, but we had the same opinions on things there as well.  Today, he helped me make banana bread, which turned out great, better than usual actually.  All through all of this, much closeness and what not.  A great weekend, with few down points.  It's exactly what I would have expected, but because of what I said before, I never quite expect that.  Hence the title of the post.

Maybe I've just had lousy luck on some things lately, or maybe I'm suddenly having good luck (hopefully! I have a phone interview Thursday, really need luck on that).  Or maybe I've just been happy enough lately that I'm not really noticing the problems and consequences and what not that I did before.  I'm going to kick myself for saying something so sappy later, but maybe that old phrase "smile and the world smiles with you" really is right.

Eh, whatever.  I want some more banana bread, and maybe an early dinner while I'm at it.

Artist Boys and Raccoons

Let me start off in reverse order by saying that I am seriously starting to hate raccoons.  I noticed that the far end floodlight was on, and went down there to see what was going on.  Nothing in site, but then I heard odd noises coming from my roof.  Being metal, my roof has a bad habit of making every single thing heavier than a leaf sound like an elephant.

Guessing correctly that my little friends had returned, I walked (with a bowl of cereal I might add) into the living room, and noticed a shadow moving outside my porch.  By the size, I'd guess that the mother raccoon was climbing down a tree.  Much to Lincoln's distress and my annoyance, her cubs seemed to be playing chase up and down the length of the trailer.  That was about five minutes ago, and they have just now decided to vacate my roof from the sounds of it.  Seriously, it sounded like a human up there at first, this roof is LOUD.

Now, as to why I was up and about with a bowl of cereal after 1 in the morning.  I had just finished painting.  Notice, I had not intended to start painting tonight, and if I was going it it would have been started well before midnight.  But no, I was laying in bed, starting a new book when 3 pages into it, I realize I've been staring at the same paragraph for a while, with an intense urge to go paint, which I had already done earlier in the day as well.

This makes me wonder about Sparky's sanity.

Yes, that is a bit of a leap, but follow me here.

Sparky knows I'm an artist.  He's heard me talk about enough things and odd habits and what not to know more or less what he's getting into.  What person in their right mind wants to be involved with someone who spontaneously gets up at midnight to start painting, when already settled into bed with a book?  I don't mind doing it, and I know I'm crazy, but I don't particularly want to be with someone who would do that.  Ah, well, at least I live alone, and there is nobody to get annoyed about it other than the pets, who will apparently be disturbed by raccoons soon enough as it is.

Bloody things.  I hope they grow up soon and move far far away.

My 3:00 AM Visitors

I do not try to make a habit of being awake at 3AM. Nor do I usually have an urge to try my hand at story telling at this hour. However, I have yet been to sleep, and was very close to actually getting there when I realized that one of my motion lights had gone off. Of course, whenever this happens, I check it out. I live by myself in the woods after all, and one can't be too careful. Usually I grab my knife, which I keep at hand by my bed, although this time I left it.

I got up, and went to my front door, where the light had gone off (as opposed to this picture of the light at the other end). At first I didn't see anything at all, so I hit the switch off and on, wondering if it was acting up again as it occasionally does. Then I noticed a furry little face peeking up onto the ramp leading to my door. Cute, gray little thing, with tiny fingers and then I saw his mask wasn't just a shadow. It was a smallish raccoon. As a sucker for animals, I automatically said "aww." This got Lincoln stirred up, and he was pacing around behind me wondering what we were doing.

While the raccoon was sniffing along the side of my ramp, I noticed there was a second one clinging to the tree right next to the ramp. Before I could do so much as react, I realized, there was a third one coming out of the shadows, browsing through the leaves along the side of the trailer. Three cute little raccoons running around. The two who weren't sniffing the ramp then started chasing each other a bit, and moved off towards the windows further along the trailer, so I went out stood by my couch to watch them. During this time the first one had run up a tree over by those windows.

Lincoln, of course, followed me. All of a sudden, he sees them and starts growling a bit. This sent all three of them right up the trunks a good six or seven feet, still within easy viewing range. One was hiding behind the trunk, while the other two were on two trees, each staring in the windows, looking confused by what was going on, and wondering what these strange things were. The one closest to me was staring over at Link, while the one closest to him was staring at me. At least, until I laughed at their expressions, which made both of them look at me, and the other one came around, glanced at me and the dog and ran up the tree.

About that time, a fourth one suddenly came down from the tree that two of them were on, completely ignoring both me and the dog, who was getting antsy by this point, and very much wanted to go protect his yard and/or make new friends. It was the mother of the three youngsters (who will very soon be on their own if size is any indication). She promptly trotted off across the yard, causing the two who had been staring inside to turn tail and follow her. The other one, however, came down and clung to the tree, staring upside down at me and the dog in turn. Eventually, after long enough for the other three to have disappeared into the shadows, the youngster realized that it was being left and trotted off after its family (incidentally, they have a very interesting trot, with arched backs). It was close, but not the same path that the others took. For its sake, I hope it was following sound or scent rather than just following their path. Of course, as soon as that last one disappeared into the shadows, Lincoln started whining and ran off to the door, wanting to go look for them. It was a nice, if somewhat surreal moment to be (part of the time) sitting on the couch with my dog, watching a family of raccoons at 3 in the morning, and then have them disappear without leaving a trace that they were even there. Makes me wonder just how much of the local wildlife I completely miss. At least the deer leave marks from time to time to show they were inside the fence.

Oh, and I did try to get a photo, but I couldn't from inside, and to go outside would have scared them up the trees, so I restrained myself.  This other picture will have to suffice.