Pissing Buckets

Is it still hurricane season? That's why I haven't written in a month, perhaps. Too busy ticketing those naughty hurricanes. One bit my auntie.

Sixteen posts in July and zero posts in August reflect a great many things. Karfilov nor Beatrice have anything to do with them.

We suffered through July with no gas because Beatrice, well, he's an easy scapegoat, but Karfilov and I thought he'd volunteered to fix it all. Eventually the gas was turned back on and we all celebrated with a nice hot shower...ha, we didn't, not at the same time at least. Now I'm drinking hot tea, and it makes me nauseous? I'm not sure about this. Nor do we have any toilet paper at the moment. How does spell check know which there/their/they're is the proper one to use?

Is it dust settled over and into the teabag or is the tea just old? It only makes me feel like this if it's the first thing I drink after a night out, as last night was. Instead of throwing up I took a long shower, and now I feel a little better. The Mad Dame has been spending the last week here, her lease ran out about the same time but she's moving to the City of Angels on Tuesday, for six months, and she needs a home base until then that's not at home. Interesting that she counts me so close a friend, or that I count her one, but we get along. Still, she's been at Beatrice's side since he came back into town a few nights ago. He's been hitting the SoCo, the handle's almost empty and I know I didn't do it, I've been back home for Mum's wedding. Mad is a heavy drinker, maybe not an alcoholic yet but certainly a socialite. I could be wrong. I think she's still fascinated with the Rum, which is something you grow out of once you've had your fill and regular drinking becomes less about quantity. In theory. The Kid made his club soccer team, which apparently has inspired his entry into the career field. Train, or Katherine, both my sister, likes Captain and gingerale, which I will have to try. I prefer Bombay and gingerale, with a slice of orange, which I've either already noted here or just think I have. I call it "Miss Egypt", along the lines of James Bond's "Vesper"; I was reading Casino Royale when I named it. Not that I have a relationship with Miss Egypt. She was drinking gin and gingerale before I was, I fixed it for her, and liked the idea. Gingerale? Ginger ale?

It's pissing buckets of rain here and it has been for weeks. Arrows of furious water darting sidewides, and sideways, getting in up under your umbrella, if you have one, and into your face and down your collar, if you don't. It's probably cold, too, but I haven't been out yet. It's dressed and to the Chain for me, I have twenty minutes before I leave. I would like to tell this story:

We've had a guest at the Castle, the Mad Dame, and another, in a stretched reference/pun, which happens to be the Doormouse. When the gas came back we were finally able to wash the dishes, too--New Cups!

Yes, a Mouse, gleaning crumbs and whatnot from the unfallowed field that is our red carpet. We are not ashamed to have a mouse--it's not as embarassing as, say, slaughtering a swarm of hatched flies as they beat a fruitless escape into the bright living-room windows--but we recognize the unlikely health risk and would rather be rid of the thing, regardless. Karfilov fashioned a trap out of a large plastic tub, a cardboard tube, and a bit of peanut butter: he suspended the tube over a counter ledge so that if Mouse crawled in, to taste the Noms at the far open end, a weight shift would cause rodent and tube to tumble into the bin below, where either the fall would kill our prey or we would have it at our disposal.

This didn't work.

There is an intimidating bug, a mosquito, I hope, flying around in my window. I look up and stare straight at it, and think of all my exposed parts. I'm sitting only in a towel, post-shower habit, you could say, and I hope to have a lurvley squash if this intruder thinks to peek out from behind the blinds again.

Mouse continues to run along our baseboards when we're watching television, or scuttle about on the counter, though it can hear us talking. It's not afraid of us, but perhaps that's because it senses we don't think it a threat. Not like, say, Mama at work, who can't stand it when Oatmeal charges about along the bar.

It doesn't matter, anyway. Mouse is dead. I found it on Karfilov's threshhold today. It must have only just died. I'm glad I found it before his heavy sliding door did.