Larry is hunting. We’d almost given up on him and Alice as our resident mouse control squad. Considered putting them on suspension for neglect of duty. But lately, we’ve been treated to the spectacle of Larry on the hunt and Alice on the munch. Our confidence in both has grown; they are caressed and applauded continually.
But this mouse, the victim of Larry’s Sunday hunt, isn’t so privileged. He is having a very bad day. I’m sure that on some level, maybe as electrons dip and whirl in the galaxy of his tiny mouse body, and respond to the eddying currents of energy and thought in the wider universe, he knows that we don’t want him. That not only is he unwelcome in our house and even on our little brown acre, but also that we dislike him so much that we’ve hired a hit man to take him down (I hope, though, that on the same level he can sense my pity; I would call Larry off if he’d just stay out of my walls).
You don’t have to be the target of a Mouse Hunt to have a bad day. Ask Rapunzel’s maid, in “Falling For Rapunzel” (by Leah Wilcox, yes, this is an official plug for her books). Rapunzel, having a bad hair day, and a little hard of hearing, throws her maid out the window and down to the prince when he calls for her braid. Like Rapunzel (minus all those wonderful locks), I had a bad hair day on Tuesday. I can deal with that; with a growl and a stomp and a spat with the hairspray, I tied my straying, super-fine super-straight too-short tresses in a scarf. The resulting ‘do entertained my kids and scared Frank. This was also the day I’d decided to start painting again; my first real painting day in nine months (ah, the angst and error and heartbreak of re-discovering a half-lost groove—see “Ode to Andrea Jane”). It was disastrous. I could have tossed the painting out the window, but paradoxically, I would have flown out with it, because I’m terrible at letting go. The maid and I could commiserate.
Finally, Tuesday was the day of Frank’s Important Interview. Selfishly, I was hoping that when Frank came home from this important interview, all the most pressing questions about the future would have answers. Besides feeling for my husband in this moment of duress, and being concerned about our family’s general survival without an income, I hate moving (please, please tell me we won’t have to move). I just want to plant a garden, paint pictures, write words, play with my kids, be settled and consistent and happy. But this was only one interview in a series of many (very positive, but inconclusive), and no one else is in any hurry to predict the future for me. Irrevocable assurance–security–what most women long for, but what we’ve all learned to do without (or find on our own), more or less. While I know there are much larger issues at play in the wider universe, I so wanted that assurance. Isn’t that a lot of ridiculousness, all on the same day?
So simply by default, just because I didn’t really exert myself to make it otherwise, Tuesday stacked up to be a bad day (just an ordinary bad day, not a Very bad day… after all, I’m no mouse). The next morning, when Frank saw my bedhead, he told me that he thought it was a great improvement over the day before. And also the next morning, I’d made peace with all the ridiculousness of yesterday. I took pictures of my bedhead, and indulged in the healthy hope that soon, everything else would untangle and the sun would shine and come spring, I’d be planting a garden…somewhere. Yep.
