The Great White Hunter

This is something more of my typical, day in the life of KF kinda blog...

The past three nights I’ve had different late night visitors…Kind of unexpected. But don’t worry friends. I wouldn’t classify these as booty calls.

See, Winky has been bringing friends in to play. And by friends I mean field mice. The first two nights I was able to free them, and thought they had escaped outside. Then I came home from the seminar yesterday to find a bloody crime scene with one very dead and headless mouse. And given Winky’s delicate constitution, he promptly puked the head, skull and ears back up next to the corpse. Yuck! Yuck! (Geovanni quote).

So I figured my problem was solved. Then last night, while playing dominos, my opponent suddenly froze, with a slightly horrified look on his face. I looked into the mirror behind him to see a mouse bounding across the top of my framed Cezanne poster. We grabbed a big bucket and broom to attempt to sweep him to relative safety (after all, I live with a killer). Well, the stupid mouse leaped away from us a good three feet and disappeared behind the large and heavy entertainment center. This sincerely creeped me out.

Well, I figured it was time to bring out the big guns. So I woke up Winky from his nap on my bed and placed him in front of the entertainment center. Where he rolled over. I picked him up and shoved him forward again. He thought this was my way of saying “there’s food in the kitchen!” and sauntered that-a-way. Useless. Utterly useless.

My night was fretful and steeped in anxiety dreams of mice. In one, I brought Roxie over to save the day. Well Roxie chased the mouse off of the deck (we were suddenly at the cabin) and jumped after it (did she break her back??). Followed by Chuckles, Joy Marie and Winky.

This morning I was late to the seminar as I was hiding in my room waiting for the exterminator to work his magic. It wasn’t all bad as I was able to fitfully doze some more. The magic was simply scattering poison pellets for the mouse to enjoy, and hoping he will go outside to die in peace. I don't see my luck going that way, but maybe...

Writing samples
The screaming coming from the kitchen was deafening. Makes you want to cover your ears and head the other way. But still, we entered.
“Merlin knows it’s happy hour. Some birds sing for their supper, but not ours. He screeches,” I explain to our neighbor Robin who has come for dinner and drinks. The latter coming before the former in our case.
“How long have you had him?” she asked, doubtlessly wondering if returning him was still an option.
“We’ve had him about twenty years.” I grabbed glasses, walked to the fridge to fill them with ice. “We were told he was used in a cruise ship magician’s act…”
“Uh, Nancy,” I heard her say.
I turned to see her looking in the birds’ cage. Sadly, at the bottom was Kramer, Merlin’s paramour, dead.

Explanation
We were asked to draw a picture of our mother's kitchen and had to include the stove, something green and something dead. Then we had to write a story from the perspective of a female relation upon entering the kitchen.
His hands are large, strong, and brown with painful black blisters on his knuckles. He picks up a cold can of Coke, pops the top, takes a long swig and places it almost silently on the table. A lion prowling the safari, he moves silently with determination towards my refrigerator. “Do you want something?” I ask him. He looks at me with tired eyes and says with quiet lips, “Yeah, but I don’t know how to get it.”

Explanation:
So in class today, one thing was to write a snapshot story using five sentences. The first describes someone's (real or imagined) hands, the secondan action they perform with the hands, the third a metaphor, the fourth a question you have related to 2 or 3 and the fifth the response the subject gives you that shows they don't understand what you are asking.

I approach the room through a door that is topped in clear glass. Peering in, I see dark wood paneling leading to a vaulted ceiling that meets at a rotating fan. The room appears cluttered with chochkis, souvenirs from trips around the world and street fairs held downtown every summer. Everything has a place, but most things seem out of place. Somehow nothing goes, but everything belongs.
Entering the room, eyes, feet and ears appreciate the sounds of old wood. The hardwood floors are well-worn and to the eye seem to have a warm and inviting texture. Strewn between comfortable couches are throw rugs that are inviting to feet on cold mornings, and where a cat has doubtlessly sharpened his claws.
The room is utterly still, but for the fan that circles above it all. The soft whirring hum and the soft breeze are the only things that change in this room.

Explantion:
Presented with a variety of things, we had to write a description of the room that the objects came from. There were old keys, a glass fishing thing, a prayer card, lira, a porcelian fortune cookie, and a blue and white chinese-style bowl. I thought about the house we stayed in for Jodi's 30th, and in descibing the wood, I was thinking of the frame Swiss Miss has of the Grizzly Bear that I hope she wills on to me one day. (Don't think I forgot!)