Monday, April 16, 2007

project 365 #105: django with a toy

It was the day after DILOA and the last thing I wanted to do was take a picture. Then Django came trotting in with this lizardy thing in his mouth and I jumped about 2 feet in the air while simultaneously wondering where the hell he'd found a lizard that big in Asheville. Thank god it was just a toy although once, during M's younger, dragon heavy years, it was kind of a nice toy. All good lizards come to an end.

As I sat down to write this M announced that there was a mouse in the stove. The dogs are useless in this kind of situation. N is not much more enthusiastic about mice than I am - and I'm thoroughly phobic, I admit it - but when pressed he got a butcher knife.
"Not my good knife!" I yelled from the doorway, "Besides, you can't stab a mouse. Catch it in a bowl and let it go."
M tried. There was a thump and a shriek from N. Apparently the mouse has left the stove. So, you know, where is the mouse? Django is snuffling madly around but you know he's going to be useless. Argh. I'm sitting here with my legs up around my ears, flinching every time I hear a creak. I hate mice! God, I hate mice!

1 comment:

Edward said...

The mouse in the oven and you sitting with your legs up around your ears create some vivid mental images!

I heard this really interesting thing about the toxoplasmosis parasite the other day. That's the one that is the reason pregnant women shouldn't mess with cat poop. It lives part of it's life in a mouse gut and then it has to move to a cat gut to reproduce. So it turns out that while it's in the mouse gut it causes a change in the brain of the mouse that makes the mouse not scared of the smell of a cat, it even makes the mouse like that smell. So the mouse walks up to the cat so the cat will eat it! And then the parasite reproduces in the cat gut and goes out in the poop, and a mouse will apparently eat cat poop, and so it goes.

I think that is so cool, that the parasite changes the brain of the mouse in such a way to get the parasite into the cat. I love evolution. Or maybe God set up the mouse that way so that it wants to get eaten by a cat when it has that parasite?