Mama's Watchful Eyes Are On ME

I was on my bike zipping back down Tow Hill in the morning, enjoying the wind in my face and the shade, before things got way too hot, as they always do now. I was passing the little meadow where I spotted the fawn about two weeks ago, and suddenly, I saw TWO fawns! Then a larger doe stood up; she was clearly the Mama, and she had her eyes on ME. 

I quietly stopped my bike, got my camera out of my daysack, and nabbed a few pictures, before continuing on my merry way. So this is my photo for the day: the doe, keeping watch over her babies, and making sure I maintain a respectful distance. A minute later, she and the little ones took off in the opposite direction. Bye-bye till next time!

My soundtrack song is from the album Mama's Hungry Eyes: A Tribute to Merle Haggard. Here is Alabama, with Sing Me Back Home. This is a great country music song, and it's been done by just about everybody. Allow me to include just a few: Merle Haggard himself, George Strait, Don Williams, Gram Parsons and the Flying Burrito Brothers, and Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash (more on Merle and the transformative influence of Johnny here).



And now here's a weird, completely unrelated story. I call it The Case of the Disappearing Pill Bottle. It was to be a hot, sunny day, so I decided to wash some laundry in the morning and hang it out outdoors to dry. 

It's a pretty funny laundry tool, but my husband's big black Impala, sitting in the driveway, makes a perfect drying rack. I hate to use the clothesline on the deck because Bucky's under the deck all day. now, and I hate to disturb him. So it was the Impala that I used.

By mid-day, most of the laundry was dry and I brought it in. Later on, the last few pieces were also done. We brought the laundry in and tossed it on the bed, where I usually sort it, fold it, and then put it away.

I was folding laundry in late afternoon, and somehow I bumped the little plastic chest of drawers by the bed. My new glass water bottle, purchased in the past month from Amazon (in an attempt to minimize my plastic intake in my daily life), bumped the clock on top of the chest. Two pill bottles sit on top of the clock. They contain medications for blood pressure that I take each morning.

The glass water bottle bumped the clock, and knocked the pill bottles off. One fell down in front of the clock. The second fell down BEHIND the white chest of drawers, bumping and rattling at each level as it fell and bounced and fell some more.

Of course, I went to straighten things up instantly. I righted the water bottle, and picked up the pill bottle from in front of the clock and put it back on top, where it belongs. The second pill bottle - the one that fell down behind, rattling all the way, was gone. I mean . . . gone. Disappeared. JUST LIKE THAT PURPLE GLOVE, I thought to myself. (Purple glove interlude: here, here, and here.)

Over the course of the afternoon and evening, I moved all kinds of things. I looked behind the chest of drawers. I looked behind and under the bed. I took everything out from under the bed. I looked in corners of the bedroom far from the chest of drawers and clock, in case of an awkward bounce. GONE, just GONE. "Boy, when you lose something in THIS house, it just STAYS GONE," my husband observed.

My husband is the manager of the medications at our house. We both take some of the same blood pressure meds. There is a container downstairs where he keeps them. When we get prescriptions, I hand them over to him, and he puts them there. When I need more, I ask him, and he goes and gets them. He told me if we didn't find the pill bottle (lisinopril) by nightfall, he'd get me a new bottle from downstairs.

So I looked some more. He looked some more. No pill bottle. Just GONE. Well, the Amazon order we placed a few days ago arrived on this day, and so the mailman brought the new DVD set I'd ordered as one of my husband's last birthday gifts (his bday was mid-June): starring David Carradine, in all three seasons of Kung Fu.

Of course, we had to start watching that instantly, as there was nothing good on TV. So the evening came and went and it was about 11:30 at night. I'd been falling asleep through Kung Fu, and we finally turned it off. I reminded my husband that I needed a new pill bottle. He tried to settle onto the couch for a few minutes, but I kept waking him up. 

Before bed, I typically open the two pill bottles and put one of each kind of pill into a smaller container, so that in the morning, I just lift up the container, take the pills, and drink some water. I couldn't go to bed without the morning meds being set up.

He finally got up, grumpily headed down the stairs, and at the bottom of the stairs, we had trouble. He started shouting THERE IS A MOUSE IN THE HOUSE, THERE IS A MOUSE IN THE HOUSE!!!! The mouse was in the downstairs bathroom, and as soon as it saw him, it dove under the door to the garage and disappeared. In the midst of the chaos, my husband brought a new pill bottle up, handed it to me.

My husband insisted that I set a trap instantly. (Yes, I am chief trapper in this house; I learned these skills from my father, Lee.) Of course, the mouse traps are out in the shed, which is where I do most of my trapping. 

He brought in a trap, and I - at about a quarter to midnight, very tired, and not in my best frame of mind - set a mouse trap with peanut butter on it, and tied it off to a nearby shelf. (Yes, I have learned the hard way to tie off my traps; you don't want to have to go chasing your trap all around the joint, believe you me. I have done this and it truly SUCKS.)

As I type this, it is The Next Day. I have not caught the mouse yet, but it was just one night of trapping so far. I set a second trap in the garage, not far from the garage door, where I could see daylight and suspected the critter just might be getting in. My husband put aluminum foil in to seal what may have been the entry hole. He also cut a pool noodle in half and attached it to the bottom of the door between the downstairs and the garage (hey, use every tool that you can find around the house - this is the same guy who cleans the gutters using one of my best kitchen spatulas!) to minimize chance of reentry. And I set a trap in the shed, just for the sake of argument.

To sum up where we stand at this point: we are still MINUS one pill bottle, and we are PLUS one mouse! Stay tuned to hear how this story ends!