Expect the Unexpected

Apparently Splenda really does taste like sugar...

I try to start each day open to possibilities. It’s hard for a perpetually anxious person who tends to want to know exactly what will happen - I don’t even enjoy books or movies until I’ve read or seen them once because I can’t really pay attention till I know what will happen - but I try. I find that when I am open to possibilities, I am amazed at what G-d puts in my path.

At the same time, one can not count on anything. “The things we cling to, the things that won’t last,” sings Al Stewart in “Time Passages.”

For example, every morning I have one cup of coffee with two tablespoons of half and half and two Spelndas. I keep the Splenda packets in a little white dish on my kitchen table, but the big stash of them, a 1000 packet box from Amazon, is in the cabinet under the kitchen sink.

Or shall I saw was?

Yesterday my dish of packets was almost empty, so I reached into the cabinet to pull out a refill hand full.

They all felt a bit odd. I pulled out the box. Sure enough, every single packet of the approximately 500 I had left was empty.

Then I noticed that they seemed a bit… how shall we say? Chewed?

I knew that Loviefluffy had been hanging out in the kitchen for hours a day looking for a mouse. In an old Victorian house you will always have mice, which is another reason why it’s important to have a cat who is an excellent mouser. Loviefluffy is a loving, purring black pillow most of the time, but when she smells a mouse she becomes a dangerous panther. She’s been on the hunt for some time. Cats are patient.

But she was not in time, this time.

Apparently a mouse or some collective of mice chewed through all my Splenda packets and consumed every one. Yes, every single one. I checked.

Such is life, and I figured I’d buy more Splenda and get a tin to store it in. Or a safe. Mice are crafty little critters.

I left the box out so that Loviefluffy could get the scent of the mouse/mice, and she sniffed it carefully, like a forensic scientist.

Sure enough, yesterday afternoon I returned home from buying my new baby airplant (whose name I won’t tell you!) to find her throwing a very dead mouse up in the air. What a toy! She doesn’t eat them because she’s not hungry - heaven knows this cat has enough cat food - but she loves to play with them.

I rescued the corpse, gave it a decent burial outside, and petted Loviefluffy and gave her treats. She is such the purrfect kitty.

The moral of the story is:

a) We can not cling to even the most ordinary of things. I hope that by learning to let go sometimes I can make room for more extraordinary things in my life.

b) Mice like Splenda. Lock yours up in a safe.

At least there was not a bison in my front yard. Well, I don’t actually have a front yard. Just to be safe, let me go check the very small backyard. I’ll report back if there’s anything unusual.