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While I needed to do Monday’s blog as catharsis for all the pain I’m feeling from losing my best friend in the world, it is now time to celebrate his life and adventures. There are going to be at least three parts and Monday’s blog will be a monster, as I’ll have had a chance to go through all of the digital media I have of him this weekend. The Origin of Mouse Mouse was born on August 21st, 1991 in Shoreline, WA along with his four brothers and sisters. They were born in the house of a family my mom knew through her work. He was the first one born of his brothers and sisters, and he was born under a bed. At the time he was born, the daughter of my mom’s co-worker was looking for Mouse’s mom and wasn’t able to find her until looking under her mom’s bed. She saw my buddy first and said, “Eek! A mouse!” The name stuck, as he was the runt of the litter and very small and mouse-like at the time.  These Polaroids were taken of Mouse and his brothers and sisters shortly after they were born. There was Mouse (he’s peeking over the rim in the upper left photo), Boots (who looks rather similar to my cat Bootsie), Tiger, Tigress, and Duchess. From what I remember, Duchess didn’t live too long, Boots ran away from his new owners, and I’m not sure what happened with Tiger and Tigress. As far as I know, Mouse was the last living member of his family. Bringing Him into Our Family My mom and I went to pick him up about eight weeks later at the parking lot of the Fred Meyer in Shoreline, WA. I remember him being so tiny when I first picked him up and put him to my chest. He was rather inquisitive (as he always was) and decided to climb up my shirt to perch himself on my shoulder. I was deathly afraid at the time that I was going to drop him, so I clung on to him for dear life and hightailed it back to my mom’s car. I remember for the whole car ride home that he was mewling, though he finally settled down once we got him inside the house. He was interested in everything, but he seemed to be rather at home in the windowsill, and there are so many pictures of him perched up there.  He looks a little startled from the attention, but he was more than happy to stay in that window for long periods of time. In fact, some of the last pictures I have of him are in that same window. They’re a lot harder to look at as they were taken mere hours before he was put to sleep, but I know sitting in my window that overlooks the backyard and sitting in the plant window (where his last photo was taken) were his two favorite places to be. He could survey the wild from them. Mouse and Cuddles When we brought Mouse home, I also had a pet dwarf rabbit named Cuddles. That could have been the source for some serious conflicts, but Mouse was more playful as a kitten than vicious, so he got along with Cuddles relatively well and never hurt him. Cuddles was usually in a cage anyway, so they didn’t have a lot of interaction, but when we’d let him out and Mouse was in the vicinity, Mouse would follow Cuddles around and sniff him a bunch.  I have a better picture of Mouse and Cuddles together with Mouse’s paw around Cuddles’ body, but I can’t find it. So, this picture of them together on my bed will have to suffice. My scanner seems to have crapped out for the morning (not surprising), so I’ll tell a couple more stories that I don’t have pictures for and reconvene on Friday. Aficionado of Fine Bread Products One thing we found out early on is that Mouse was a big fan of bread products. He liked muffins, biscuits, donuts, cornbread, and even sliced bread. The first time we found this out was when we woke up one morning to find a bag of homemade biscuits torn open on the counter. What he had done is jumped up onto the three-foot high counter during the night, torn open the bag with his teeth, and proceeded to nibble on all of the contents. We were dumbfounded and nonplussed at the time, though it’s really rather amusing in retrospect. The Raccoon Slayer Mouse has had three encounters with raccoons over the years, and while the last two resulted in abscesses (one of which will be talked about later), the first one found him to be victorious. I don’t remember the specifics of this one very well, but I’ll set things up as best I can. We used to have a family of raccoons that lived in our attic and there are pictures of the mother and her babies coming down a tree one afternoon that were taken around the same time as that picture of Mouse and Cuddles up there. A couple years after those photos were taken, the babies had grown into normal-sized adult raccoons and were often seen in the neighborhood. At the time, Mouse was still an indoor/outdoor cat, so we hoped that he would be careful around them. I remember one afternoon in the summer that I had pulled the blinds on the window that looks out towards the neighboring house. There’s a fence that separates the two properties and right as I opened it, there was a raccoon walking across the top of it. The raccoon was oblivious to my actions, and it was also oblivious to the fact that Mouse was down on the ground, stalking it. Mouse seized the opportunity, jumped up to the raccoon with claws bared, dug his claws into the raccoon’s side, and yanked it off the fence. My eyes went wide as saucers and it’s likely the eyes of the raccoon did as well, as the raccoon bolted after this happened. Mouse, content at what he’d done, ambled after the raccoon for a moment, but decided that he didn’t feel like chasing the raccoon and sat in the yard. I went outside immediately after the coast was clear and picked up my buddy. He was fine and I was so glad. Part Two on Friday Time is running short for me and I’ve still got a bunch of stories, so I’ll reconvene on Friday and leave you here with a picture of me and my buddy in much earlier days.  Discuss this post at [The Forum of Jason Vincion]! Posted on March 31st, 2010. |
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 Compilation Volume Three |
 Shizz Block Volume One |
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[March 2010 Index] [2010 Index] [Index] |
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[A Farewell to Mouse] [Preparing to Lose an Old Friend] [The Chronicles of Mouse, Part Two] [The Chronicles of Mouse, Part Three] [The Chronicles of Mouse, Part Four] [The Chronicles of Mouse, Part Five] [The Chronicles of Mouse, Part Six] [The Chronicles of Mouse, Part Seven] |
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