Monday, May 13, 2013

Before She Teaches the Kids to Ki---Oops, Too Late

My brother came home Saturday night to find splotches of blood all over the floor by the front door. Fortunately, it was on tile and easy to clean up. Jasmine had killed a mouse. We have no evidence to say how much involvement the kids had in the catching/killing or whether mama let them sample the corpse. They didn't eat it (or maybe just didn't get the chance before my brother came home).

What I don't understand is why the mouse was in the house in the first place. We've had no indications of rodents since Bartleby arrived (not that she'd do anything about it if we did). It's been very warm and mostly sunny for weeks now and everything imaginable is green and in bloom so it seems to me it would be easier to find food outside rather than trying to come in where you must know there are cats.

The only idea I have is that the mouse may have been infected with toxoplasmosis which can alter the mouse's brain to where the hapless critter actually becomes attracted to the scent of cats and actively seeks them out.

So, maybe it wasn't murder. Maybe it was a kind of assisted suicide.

Meanwhile, the kids have discovered their tails, or, more accurately, each others' tails and spend hours in a frenzied ball of fuzziness bouncing through the rooms and over, under and around the furniture sometimes forming a sort of feline daisy chain of tail chasing before collapsing on top of each other in a furry heap on the couch. Scheherazade has started purring. Apparently, the others have not yet figured out how. When I walk around barefoot, Paribanour will lie down in front of me, reach out and grab my ankle with both front paws and lick my toes. Mittens likes to climb into my lap, roll over on her back, stretch out as far as possible (which is surprisingly far for a kitten) and fall asleep.

They remain, apparently, singularly unimpressed with mama's dead mouse trick.

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