Cats and mice, from a thirteenth-century English bestiary.I walked into the kitchen yesterday afternoon and nearly jumped when a small brown animal dashed out from behind the dishrack and into the stove via one of the burners. Now, mice are more appealing than certain vermin one might come across in this city (New York rats usually weigh about 200 pounds and have prison tattoos), but it's not the most hygienic beast to share a home with, so I went into the bedroom to consult with the cat, where she sat calmly and regally on the bed.
"Mishea, there's a mouse in the kitchen."
She absentmindedly licked her paw.
"Are you going to do something about that?"
She yawned.
"Heck of a job, Brownie!"
She put her head down and went to sleep.
I guess we have two pets now.
(By the way, the image comes from a wonderful site called The Medieval Bestiary that looks like it can provide hours of fun and manuscript descriptions.)
(Tattoo update coming soon).
6 comments:
I had to laugh about your comment regarding rats having prison tattoos. They do make good pets, however. The ones cultivated for pets, that is.
Yeah, I don't think the ones I see on the subway would make good pets.
We had a mouse for a while in Brooklyn. There's something unnerving about it, even when you know intellectually that it's not a rat. We laid out some of those sticky trap things. Don't do that. The mouse got stuck alright, but tried to eat the stick thing and just looked so awful when we found him. If I had to do it over again, I'd go for the clean kill with a traditional mouse trap.
Cool image, btw.
Sounds like a song should be written about that. "I got a cat too lazy to mouse, she spends all day just lying 'round the house..."
Sometimes female cats stop chasing mice when they're pregnant. Any possibility?
Better mice than roaches. At least something can be done about mice. We used to have a mouse problem until we remodelled our basement about 5 years ago, and I hesitate to tell you what they found when they removed the old walls and insulation. It'd make you want to hurl.
Liam,
My cat Grendel used to catch mice outside and bring them in while they were still alive :)
We did catch quite a few of them once with a humane non-kill mouse trap that they go inside of but can't get out - link
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