Unexpected Bedfellows

When aggressive meets EEEEEK!

I have been called aggressive. Sometimes it’s a compliment. Often it’s not.

If I had been born a man prior to the era of woke, my assertiveness/aggressiveness would have been considered a good thing. Thank heaven I’m not a white man in today’s world… even my Southern polite level of directness would have gotten me cancelled many times over.

I am direct and to the point, though I try to be cordial, polite and professional. I try never to burn bridges, which made it possible for me to be friends and allies with people who under most circumstances I wouldn’t have spoken to in years. I prefer it that way. It’s always nice to preserve a relationship where I have history with someone.

I’ve been told that for a woman I have a lot of male energy. I like to make things happen. I like to act on the world, not just wait to be acted upon. I am terrible at being the passive object of someone else’s fantasy. I’d rather either be real or just leave it alone.

Whenever I deal with white, “well-educated” millennials, I have to remind myself that they get very antsy when anyone veers off script. They grew up in an era where interactions were largely scripted, and they continue to expect that. (Not all of them, yes. But a lot.) I’ve been told by more than I can count that they prefer text to actual talking because they can edit their texts and think about them before they send them. Gen X’ers laugh at the idea that you don’t trust yourself to just have a conversation.

While I used to not like hanging out with Gen X’ers much, finding most of my friends to be much older, these days I’ve come to appreciate the company of the brothers and sisters my own age. There’s something so relaxing about how we can be direct with each other. The steam that has accumulated in my head from watching what I say over the last few years has added up, and I need to blow it off sometimes.

That being said, there is nothing more direct, more to the point, than a cat chasing a mouse.

I am assuming that no one wants a picture of a dead mouse, so instead I provide you with Loviefluffy on her meditation cushion. I mean, my meditation cushion. All things are Loviefluffy’s, so it’s all the same.

Last night I had a lovely birthday dinner with my best friend in the neighborhood who is my cat shelter partner. After a relaxing evening of reading in bed, I was ready to make my way to sleep. I said a text goodnight to my friend in California, plugged in the phone in the other room, and got into bed. Usually Loviefluffy joins me a few minutes after I get into bed, with the familiar sound of the “jump-jump” as she uses her carrier as a staircase to get onto the bed. She is about twelve now and I’ve made staircases all over the apartment so she can get onto her favorite spots that are a little more difficult to jump to now.

Then I heard the noise. The cry of mouse-catching.

Most of the time, Loviefluffy is a very affectionate throw pillow with ears. She sleeps a lot, as older cats do, and she loves her petting, especially early morning and sometimes if I can’t sleep in the middle of the night. She rarely does too much of anything, but that all changes when a mouse makes the ill-advised decision to come in the house.

With all the construction going on outside, it’s not a surprise that a mouse found its way in last night. Sure enough, Loviefluffy was chasing it all over the house. She’s not hungry so she doesn’t eat them, but she loves to play with the mousies. I just hide in the bed and try not to get in the way. Usually either she’ll catch the mouse or I’ll find it sufficiently incapacitated that I can grab it in a paper towel and put it outside. More often than not, it will recover and scamper away in the night, leaving the empty paper towel like the Shroud of Turin on the top step.

Not this time.

Much to my surprise, I heard the “jump-jump” of Loviefluffy jumping onto her carrier and into the bed. But something was terribly, terribly wrong.

“Honey you don’t still have the mousie do you?”

“EEEEEEEEEK!!!!”

Cat with mouse in her mouth in the bed.

This is not what I was looking for in terms of a bedfellow. While I try to be open to possibilities, this is not one I had considered.

Cat drops mouse in bed.

This has never happened before. Sure, there is a first time to everything, but I’m hoping this will be the last time for mouse-in-bed.

The mouse ran off, Loviefluffy ran after it, and I watched her try to get it out from under the dressing table. Wanting to expedite the procedure so that I could sleep, I moved the dressing table.

The mouse ran under the bed.

The cat ran after the mouse.

Noise. Then silence.

I looked under the bed. Loviefluffy was sitting calmly. Waiting. She’s so good at that. She once kept a mouse on the top of a high bookshelf for twelve hours. Just waiting.

Eventually I decided to try to go to sleep. After awhile I heard a new round of running around, then silence again. Then she jumped into the bed, this time without the mouse, and settled into one of her usual spots.

In the morning I looked for a corpse, but there was none. She usually presents me with them in the living room anyway, so I was fairly sure this one had gotten away. No dead mouse under the bed. No live mouse in the bed.

What was the old saying about “Don’t get caught in bed with a live man or a dead woman?” Something like that.

We had our nice Sunday morning, complete with deep petting before sunrise and her medicated thyroid treat (fish flavored!) plus some wet food. I went on my morning walk and took pictures of the sunflowers enjoying the August heat.

That mouse would be wise not to come back. Loviefluffy may look like a throw pillow with ears, but she is a dangerous panther princess when confronted with the right stimulation.

I get that.