sing it, Rosie!!

I was really in a black mood this past Sunday and Monday.  I can't quite say why ...perhaps my "humors" got all imbalanced.  I mean, I for sure have my issues, but they are all pretty much longstanding issues.  I didn't get any *new* ones thrown into the mix recently.  It's just that, I have this fundamental sense that the world is a good place and I am a good person and that sense helps me handle aforementioned issues.  And then , on Sunday, all of a sudden, I could tell myself that, (world=good/ me=good) and rationally agreed with it, but I just was not at all feelin' it.  And I exacerbated the whole thing by dwelling on it, although in my defense, I am inescapably doomed to dwell.  Aren't we all?  Or maybe it's just me...  it plays out thusly : I start dwelling--questioning WTF is up with me, trying to dredge up a bit o' happiness, failing at that, then asking: but am I feeling better now? Maybe incrementally better? Hmmm..no. How 'bout now?Now?  Then part of me realizes: the only thing to do is to go on auto pilot, stop obsessing, put it out of your head. It will simply hit you  at some point that --hey, the overhead cloud is gone and you gave it the slip without even trying...without even noticing.   All very sage counsel, but in summation I instruct myself: DO NOT OBSESS.  Is there anything more condusive to obsessing than that, I wonder??

I was right of course...  Yesterday (Tues) I was driving. It was sunny. I was singing along top volume to "Dynamite" by Taio Cruz and ...Oh hey...I'm happy now.  That's how it goes.  But Sunday and Monday I was really trying to FORCE it.  And I was thinking on Monday.. I think what would really help is if I had a good cry.   But try as I might, I couldn't.  Yep, down in the dumpiest depths of the proverbial dumps and I couldn't muster any tears.  Oh, wait--that's not true.  I squeezed one lone trickle out of my right eye and I think that was from multiple big yawns in rapid succession. 

I got to wondering about it--- how did this notion of the "good cry" evolve? (that was, believe it or not, the intended focus of my post before I got carried away with neurotic blathering. Criiiiiikey-- I don't mean for this blog to be a cheap-o therapy alternative)  How is a cry "good" for you?  Now, from my own personal experience, I have found this to be true.  I have felt the...après-sob calm kick in. But *WHYYYY* is that?  It's weird to me-- that your troubles and sorrows can pain you less  just because some amount of fluid has seeped out of your eyes.  Heyyy--(*idea lightbulb*) perhaps it is not the eye leakage but the nasal output that makes things better. It just so happens that many of my "good cries" involve the snot in my noggin fwoooshing forth like the water at Splash Mtn.

Oh, I'm sure there's some dull, science-y reading that would enlighten me ...blah blah blah hormones...endorphines...yadda yadda (can you tell I'm not much of a science buff??)  But I am opting to give credit to Marlo Thomas, Rosie Grier, and a little film called "Free to be You & Me"  It was well over 20 yrs ago, but I still recall being introduced to this in my formative years---

critters

I usually don't go all out cooking for just li'l ol' me, but I  was going to make a delish  BLT for my dinner the other night. Ahhh, but the best laid schemes of mice & men go oft askew, am I right??

 I had my tomatoes sliced & spiced, lettuce washed and bacon starting to fry up in the pan. I got the bread outta the fridge, and I slid the toaster forward on the counter in preparation for plugging it in and toasting...
The commotion of toaster relocation startled A RODENT and caused him to run across the back of my stovetop. I know that brave, level-headed people always say of mousies: "They’re more scared of you than you are of them" I really can’t imagine that my shifting the toaster 11 inches was too awfully terrifying for the critter....however  I think probably the BLOOD CURDLING SCREAM that I let out when I saw him did frighten him a bit. It is a damn good thing my landlords were out because this scream was such that any hearer would  instantly call 911 and/or a priest. There would be no response of "YIKES—izzat screaming person ok??"--all bystanders would  just  presume that the situation was too horrific to be attended to by laypeople. You could hear the bowels-loosening terror.
So anyway, after that, I didn’t want to stand there and cook. I threw the semi-cooked bacon in a glass bowl and put it in the fridge, rebagged the bread and threw that in the fridge, threw the frying pan in the sink, shut off the burner, and I really was *throwing* shit around because I wanted to be out of that quadrant of the apartment as quickly as possible. My abode has the added disadvantage of having that very open layout which denies me the small comfort of shutting any doors between me and the vermin....unless I wanted to shut myself in the bathroom but I was not about to let one distasteful encounter make me miss my Wednesday night shows.
So on the menu for dinner that night?? I had tomatoes and lettuce and Diet Coke...also Nerds... I could fetch my box of Nerds from the kitchen without lingering extensively. So the largest part of last night’s fare was Nerds. Yes, yes, it DOES serve me right for being such a colossal candyass.


Oh! if only they were as adorable as they appear in kid's books!! Is it VERY wicked of me that I'm gonna stock up on D-Con?



The following night, I came home from dinner out with a pal, and started hoofing it up the back steps and almost ran into--literally--a raccoon who was assessing the trash can situation on my balcony.  Now at this encounter I said "WUUH-AHH!" (pretty much verbatim, that)  which sounds wussy but it was not nearly so  terror-laden as my mouse scream.  It had a little burst of force behind it, but it was not *too* loud.  It was similar in tone, really, to one of  the nonsensical exclamations James Brown peppered his songs with. "Gooo GAWD y'all!" 
After my "WUUH-AHH!" I retreated down the steps back to my car.  I paused...he looked like he clearly wanted to leave my presence, though it  occurred to me if he crawled down the stairs we would pass on the stairs as I re-ascended.  I called up to him "Hey you, you get off my deck wouldja? C'mon dude!!"  coming off all calm and amicable all of a sudden.  He hopped down to the roof of the carport and we locked eyes.  I like to think, in that moment, we had a little telepathic exchange --
ME: Going forward, don't even try it, buddy.  I tie down my can lids pretty tightly.
ROCKY: No worries. *I* will trouble you no further, but I cannot vouch for my woodland associates.

Not sure why I was so much more threatened by a 2" mouse than by a raccoon.  I am going to posit that I was more alert upon returning home (having just been driving) and in the kitchen I was less alert (less alert = more startleable) as I was in an "Mmmm BACON" trance.  That, or... I just irrationally fear mice more than I do raccoons.





I wonder what I would do if I happened upon a  streaked tenrec??  I did happen upon one online today, and found him temporarily fascinating.  I don't know if I'd have the same response to an in-person meeting.
The creature in question (native of Madagascar)---