mystery cat

Our cat caught her first mouse, and since then, she's changed.

She has a new demeanor. A sense of power and pride, of authority. I think this is some type of ritual every cat must experience, part of the change from kitten to cat. Our baby has grown up.

In other news, we have mice.

They live in our oven. Or under our oven. Somewhere near the oven where we can hear them squeaking and rummaging and (disgusting revelation alert) we can smell them when we bake. Yes, I use the oven. I will not let the mice win. But when I bake up my yummy breads (cranberry orange nut loaf yesterday, for example), the alluring smell of baking dough is tinged with the not too alluring smell of urine-infused mouse death. Not quite the odor I'm going for with this whole baking thing.

Our cat has started a nightly stakeout in front of the oven. If you sneak up on her and abruptly turn the lights on, sometimes you can catch her snoozing on the job, and she'll open up her eyes really big and look at you as if to say, "Me? Not sleeping! I'm hunting mice!" I've gotten so used to it that a few nights ago, I got kind of upset with her for slacking off when I woke up to find the kitchen tiles speckled with tiny brown pods of mouse poop. I approached her and accused of her of shirking her duties when D. admitted he'd locked her in the bedroom overnight (I think he misses her sleeping next to him). I felt bad that I had chastised the cat for not doing her job. Then I felt weird that I thought my cat had a job.

Well.

And, so, yes! She caught one. It was tiny and not entirely dead when D. found the cat sitting near it, watching it expectantly. Because I am a girl, I made him dispose of it. It was sad. The mouse was cute. It made me wonder why one four-legged furry creature is my precious angel (although, apparently, only when gainfully employed) and another one is a disgusting intruder that must be annihilated. The answer, of course, is that mice are gross. But I'm not entirely sure why.

D. disposed of the mouse but was pretty broken up about it. He returned dejected from the trash area downstairs where he laid the beast to rest in a spaghetti box.

Our cat still performs her daily vigils, sitting a little taller since her kill, more of a lion in her. There is a small hole in the woodwork near the oven that leads somewhere into the wall, behind the oven perhaps, or inside it. I don't know, but I know that it's a portal to the world of the mice. It's a tight squeeze for her, but she somehow manages to slink her way in and out, her hindquarters showing a bit of resistance as she shimmies them through.

She emerges with a gleam in her eye, her tail arched into a question mark. I don't ask what happens down in that hole, and she, being a cat, does not say.