Domestic crisis.

So: early this morning, about 4:30 or so, my dear cat Sazha jumped up in bed. How sweet, I thought, reaching over to pet her. She jumped around, attacked my hand, bounced a few more times and then jumped onto the floor, where she darted around like an insane kitty, zig-zagging, jumping, mewing, zig-zagging some more.

I turned on the light, but I could not figure out what was up.

So about an hour ago, I was working at my desk, when she came downstairs, mewing some more, but in a slightly different tone than she usually uses when she is just looking for attention. I looked over to see that she was tracking a gray mouse.

I immediately flipped out, of course, like any good American, and after a little more chasing she seemed to corner the mouse behind a bookshelf. I say seemed, because after a few minutes the mouse emerged from the other end of the bookcase, with the cat, like Wile E. Coyote, still staring diligently at the spot where she saw the mouse go in.

Meanwhile, I called my parents to update them on the situation that they did not know was occurring. In talking to them, I figured out that probably this latest rodent activity was related to the early-morning craziness on Sazha's part. "Was she bouncing on the bed?" my mother asked, and I said, "Yes, why?" and just as I said that I figured out why.

Here is some background that might help you deduce what I deduced. Back when I lived in Michigan, and Sazha was but a wee furry thing, she used to go out on the roof of the house we lived in. My apartment was essentially an attic apartment, and it had a window that opened up onto a flattish roof that we used (dangerously) as a sort of balcony. Sazha would go out there, and then explore the rest of the roof, and with the exception of one rather precipitous fall, she stayed up there. It was perfect; she could be outside, but without real danger from cars, etc.

So one night I had just gone to bed in my futon, which (since I was a poor graduate student) had no frame and so just lay on the floor. I was lying on my stomach and just dozing off when I vaguely heard Sazha come in and it felt like there was a bug on my back. I leapt up and flopped the covers over, and I was surprised to see what seemed to be a wet leaf lying on my bedroom floor. Perhaps by now you have already deduced that that was no leaf, it was a space station--I mean, a wounded baby bat. That my dear cat had laid on my back. In my bed. With the kind (and mocking) aid of my roommate, the bat was trapped and released outdoors (where it no doubt suffered a lingering death) and the window was shut and I worked for a while on bringing down my heart rate.

Back to this morning: I think that today may have become my second bedtime rodent encounter.

Meanwhile, the mouse seems now to be hiding behind my file cabinet, and Jacques Monod is on the scene.

Stay tuned. . . .



UPDATE: Correction: it turns out the mouse is brown.



Pay no attention to the dust bunnies also lurking behind my file cabinet