Cat and Mouse Games

We had a tiny little mouse take residence at our house this last week. As I expressed on Facebook, I had mixed feelings about the mouse.

It's not the first time we've had a mouse, and I've questioned our cat's worth every time I hear that first shriek from Amanda, signifying that something just scrambled across the kitchen floor.

This time, however, Fabrizio did his job. Not even 24 hours after we first saw the mouse, I came home from work to find Fabrizio totally focused on a corner of the kitchen. He had a lead. Mousecapade was on.

I contributed by removing everything that touched the floor in the kitchen and laundry room -- the two rooms were we found evidence of mouse habitation -- so that when the mouse moved, it had few options.

As I was moving the shoe racks outside, I heard a large crash in the kitchen. I ran in and found that Fabrizio and Gianna had tagteamed and cornered the mouse in an open part of the kitchen, behind one of Sergio's camera bags that I hadn't yet grabbed. Of course, Gianna doesn't realize her size around the house yet and literally crashed into the nearby table in the rush. The standoff in that corner lasted too long to keep the attention of a Collie, so Gianna bailed eventually and the competition was left to the original participants.

The mouse made another move and tried making a run across the kitchen, through the laundry room and outside. This would be ideal for me -- no mouse, no carnage. But the mouse was too aggressive with the move. It had too much confidence in its ability, much like Anakin's final, failed move when he duels Obi Wan. The cat had the high ground.

In mere seconds, the cat had the mouse in its clutches in the laundry room, halfway through the mouse's escape route. I expected a small massacre to follow, but Fabrizio thought the mouse was a toy. He just wanted to play. That's all nice and dandy, but it also resulted in the mouse jumping out of the cat's clutch and scurrying off into a small corner crack.

I grabbed a flashlight and saw that the hole went directly underneath my house. Fine. I grabbed the caulking gun and closed up every crack that the cat thereafter snooped. He had seen the mouse's combination of doors to get in and out of rooms and I caulked them all up. Game over (or I'm not going to think for the short term about what to do with the mouse and friends under the house).

Here's commentary from the cat and dog about the mousecapade.

Food Porn: Caprese Burger

Amanda and I like to eat our burgers bunless, saving the extra carbs and calories for more of the flavorful parts of a meal. On this occasion, I improvised off a caprese salad and used the fresh mozzarella and homegrown basil to top grilled beef patties with caramelized onions. We grilled some homegrown zucchini for a side and BAM! we had a damn tasty dinner last night.

Guest Post: Amanda and Fellow Indianian Hike Rainier

Guest post and photos by Amanda.

Last weekend, I had the privilege to show my friend Natalie the beautiful NW. On Thursday, we started the day off at Pike Place Market, then we headed over to South Lake Union to sail miniature boats on the pond.

On Friday, Natalie enjoyed exploring Tacoma where she found herself eating at Shakabrah and hanging out at the fabulous new Bluebeard Coffee Roasters. I met her there after work, and we hit the lunch buffet at Gateway to India. As you saw, earlier that evening we enjoyed an amazing night on the Puget Sound, courtesy of Paolo's Mom and Steve!

Saturday morning, we hit Shakabrah again and then we were off to Sunrise at Mount Rainier! The drive was about 2 1/2 hours, and we thought we weren't going to see the mountain because we were driving into clouds. But holy smokes that mountain is beautiful. The day was perfect!

Because both of us weren't prepared for mega hiking, we chose to do an easy hike up to Frozen Lake. The trails still had a lot of snow, but the meadow was full of red, purple and yellow wildflowers. I ended up buying a season Mt. Rainier pass for $30, and I know we will get our money's worth. I'm excited and I have a trip planned in a couple weeks!

Photos: Sunset Cruising at Point Defiance

Amanda has a friend, Natalie, visiting from Fort Wayne, IN. How better to show a guest around Puget Sound than on the water?

The very tip of Point Defiance.

Approaching the Narrows.

You don't see this everyday.

Sunset around Carr Inlet.

The cruise captains.

Coming back to a full moon over Rainier. Pretty spectacular.

Coming back through the Narrows.

The difference a couple of hours makes.

Approaching Gig Harbor.

A quick photo before a quick beer at Tides Tavern.

Navigating home.

Becoming Dog People and the Peculiarities of Dog Park Culture

 

Now that we had a dog in the family, we were excited to do what dog people do, like go to the dog park, eat at pet-friendly restaurants and enjoy the general camaraderie of other responsible dog owners with poop bags at ready. Even before we adopted Gianna and were just walking her around the adoption event, other people gave us the look like, "You're one of us." How exciting.

Like babies learning to walk, we were learning and trying to be dog people by observation, and we took our first steps the day after we adopted Gianna. We went to our regular breakfast place, Shakabrah, and tied Gianna up to the bike racks outside, just like dog people do. She did great. Encouraged by our success, we took her to the pet store (she's picky about food), Chamber's Bay for lunch and off to Fort Steilacoom dog park to see how she'd do off leash.

I was a little nervous about removing the leash, an umbilical cord of assurance, at the 22-acre park. Again, she did great. We walked the perimeter and greeted a lot of dogs. She never strayed beyond 20 yards and always looked back to check where we were. We played fetch with the ball and she was awesome, catching and retrieving and weaving through distractions back and forth, back and forth. She made us look good. We hadn't trained her, we just took credit for it.

While Gianna was a rock star, and the other dogs we encountered were all friendly, their owners were another story.

People were having parties and breed club meetings at the dog park. For the size of the park, it was quite clean and well-maintained, thanks to responsible dog owners and the sheer mass of the place that no municipality of dog crap could cover otherwise. But having a human social party there? Weird. Most people kept to themselves, as I would imagine, but there were times when Gianna would go to greet another dog, ass-to-nose, and me and/or Amanda would have to make small talk with the owners. Conversation would consist of identifying everything having to do with our dog or theirs -- name, age, ownership duration, favorite games, etc. We'd never catch or share information about ourselves, and that was fine. We were there for the dogs.

That was until we ran into a family with their own family of dogs that descended on us in some Shock and Awe campaign of fur and fury. We were keeping to ourselves and Gianna had taken a water break when they arrived. The five or six dogs took over the portable water bowl. The matriarch tried having a personal (gasp!) conversation with us, distracting us from her dogs stealing Gianna's water.

AND THEN, AND THEN, SHE HAD THE NERVE TO TAKE OUT HER WATER BOTTLE AND REFILL OUR DOG'S WATER BOWL WITH MORE WATER FOR HER DOGS TO CONTINUE TO DRINK OUT OF. NOT JUST THAT, SHE FILLED IT TWICE! ANARCHY! FOR SHAME!

You want to know why London is burning? That was the moment. Poor Gianna had to wait at the back of the line just to get back to her own water bowl. We were really done with the dog park just before the family of vultures arrived, and we waited 15 minutes for them to prey on the next folks down the trail. Fifteen minutes of watching her dogs drink, 15 painful minutes of small talk.

All in all, the dog park was a good place considering the experience we were able to have learning and trusting our dog. But some of those people... some of those people should stay on leash.