Stranger in a Strange Land

Mouse - 4, Me - 0. The battle continues.

Normally I try to stay in my own little world, happily populated with the people I know and love. It's a strange little world I've been told, as I usually prefer to be alone. It's not traditional or untraditional, conformist or non-conformist, but it works well for me. My little sister's step-dad once described me as "An educated redneck." Which makes me laugh. A lot. I'll let others be the judge of that!

A few times a year I get pulled out of this comfy little world I'm in and end up a stranger in a strange land. It happened again this past weekend and yesterday afternoon.

Last Saturday evening was the bridal shower for my friend JT (soon to be JD). It was a nice party, quite fun. And we did the usual bridal shower games. The word unscramble, dress the bride in a toilet paper gown...One of the games gave each person points if they had a particular item in their purse. Okay. I had my purse with me. So did the others. (Except my little sister's mom, MB.) So I'm sitting there as they call out the items getting no points. And these other women are racking them up. Everyone's laughing and someone asked me what I have in my purse. So I tell them "Uh, keys. Sunglasses. Drivers's License. Check book. Credit Card. Swiss Army Knife. Butterscotches." You know. The necessary items. LOL. Needless to say, the knife was NOT on their list.

But as I'm sitting there watching them pull item after item from their purses, I felt that disconnect again. That observing-another-culture feeling. It's quite bizarre when you're sitting there among contemporaries. I always get it when my world and the world of suburbia connect. I don't mind it, it makes me extremely grateful that it's not my world. Because every brush with it gives me this cloying, sick feeling. Like I'm about to be sucked under for the last time.

This time, though, I wasn't alone. I was watching MB and realizing that she too sits on the edge of that world, maybe not in the same world as mine, but on the edge as well. She had a quizzical look on her face as she observed everyone and took pictures. I imagine it's the same look I get. Like you're looking at something under a microscope, studying it. She has the family, husband, home. But her job seems to have grounded her in a different reality, I guess you could say. She manages a group home for developmentally disabled adults and well, that says a lot, doesn't it?

Now, I'm not knocking a traditional or suburban lifestyle. It works for others and that's fabulous. It just always makes me feel a stranger in a strange land. The language is the same, but the words are different. I feel like I'm trapped inside a very large, very insulated bubble, and nothing is real. A land where the fact that I don't carry three different kinds of lipstick and a makeup bag with five different applicator brushes is horrifying. [g] I guess from the other side of the aisle, my world makes people feel like a stranger in a strange land.

My little sister's 5th Grade Graduation ceremony was yesterday afternoon. It was interesting, yet gave me the same feeling. Sitting there with all these parents beaming with pride. [Hah! Like I wasn't beaming with pride when ST got on the honor roll - 3.95 gpa!]

Sometimes, when I'm in that "bubble", I have this almost overwhelming urge to do something. Stand up. Scream. Something. Anything. I wonder, what would happen? What would people do? Would the bubble pop?

But I don't. I didn't. I enjoyed myself and then escaped. To breathe fresh air again. And return safely to my own little world.

There's a Mouse in the House

and it ain't that cute one from Disney. Sigh. I'm not sure who is more affronted, me or the dog. Me, because I really don't want to deal with this. The dog, because the mouse pooped in her food bowl. [g] Scully was NOT thrilled. But at least she didn't try to roll in it. We must have looked a sight, the two of us. Me, freshly woken up, hair sticking up everywhere, glasses on crooked, hands on hips, staring down into her food bowl. And the dog, standing next to me, head down, staring into her food bowl.

I thought we had a visitor a few months ago when we got that first batch of nice weather. One Saturday afternoon I left the back door open for the dog so she could wander in and out at will. Early Sunday morning she woke me up whining in the laundry room/sun porch. This was not her "I want out" whine. Oh, no. It was the "mommy, save me, I'm being brave but there's something in the house I don't recognize" whine. When I got to her, she was doing that lunge forward/jump back thing she does when she's afraid but doesn't want to show it. [Mom, you might remember that from the time your feather duster almost gave her cardiac arrest!] Anyway. I could not figure out what it was. Her attention definitely centered around the "closet" in the laundry room/sunporch, but I couldn't find anything. And she stopped paying attention shortly after I got there. I surmised that is was just another ploy to get me out of bed. Sigh.

I guess I was wrong! However, this is the first sign I've seen of the mouse. Nothing in the cupboards or cabinets or laundry room closet. (I've sorted it out several times since then.) And I've been keeping an eye out for it...so maybe it's a new visitor.

The dilemma now is: use the live trap and set it free somewhere, or use a trap that kills it and be faced with a dead rodent I must dispose of. I really don't like killing live beings. Well, unless it's a spider and it's in my house. My new-agey self just can't cross that hurdle yet. I'm probably accruing all sorts of bad spider karma. But I don't know about walking around with a live mouse either. Knowing my luck, it's probably a rat. I thought about borrowing someone's cat for the weekend. You know. A really good mouser. Unfortunately, I'd probably just end up with mouse parts on my living room floor. Or my bed. Which reminds me of a former coworker who woke up one night to find the cat lying on top of his wife (my coworker's, not the cat's), contentedly munching on a mouse. Oh, the horror!

[All you non-city folk can stop laughing at me now.]