Update #34 [Playing Cat & Mouse (or Mouse & Cat)]

Well – well – well . . . today is supposed to be a cat and mouse story kind of day – or at least that is what I dreamed – but now my noggin’ has gone screwy and skipped past the cat part of the equation.

So – I suppose that we will just do the unnatural and start with the mouse – even though no one ever starts with the mouse . . .

There I was. In a building – an office – an office building – walking towards the copy machine – my brain sponging over from hours and hours of hard work (mostly) – when – out of the blue – there was a grey streak – a furry grey shot in the dark. There was a mouse – and for a split second – it was on my foot.

My unfortunate reaction was that of a high pitched young girl – and it carried all the way to the department next to us – where I was deservedly mocked.

My only reaction – the only move that was left to me – was to jump on the pile. So I called out “But you guys don’t understand . . . that thing ran so fast – and so close to me that my skirt actually blew up . . .” At which point – in giving myself a good natured ribbing – I had paid my societal dues – and everyone moved on.

Everyone except me – that is. Now I am totally obsessed at finding the little guy . . . life in an office can get rough – sometimes – and I need all of the pals that I can get.

Thus ends the mouse section of our day – in theory – there will be a cat section to follow at a later time.

Friday Photo [#34] – Ancient Machinery

Strange Series of Rabbit Photos [#2]

The Wheels Have Fallen Off . . .

Since going away for a week – and not having “teh internets” to guide my typing hand . . . them gosh darn wheels have popped right off of this – here – blog. I have been catching up – with the catching up – and looking hard into the future – and all I have seen is the nose to the grindstone – only to have my nose ground.

With all of that – lack of excuse – I bring you a tiny nugget of a story – in which no one is either hurt – or yelled at – with the hope being that more stories will flow smoother in the coming days.

My little yellow car – Oscar – has been dutifully sitting under his rigged and ragged house – just waiting for me to return – and rock around town. So when I got to town – and discovered that his key had been left in the temporary headquarters – I was sad . . . and so was he.

Then the key came in the mail – they nice mail person hid the “overnight” package inside of the “security” door by the kitchen – where it escaped my notice for a few hours. When the key was found – I ran to the back yard – where I remembered that a little bird had told me that Oscar was all but out of gas. I opened the shed – and grabbed the gas can that says “lawn mower” on it – and remembered that it has an oil and gas mixture in it – for smaller engines – like edgers and weed whackers and what not . . . so I put it back and grabbed the unmarked gas can.

After I dumped the whole gallon into the car – I realized that the unmarked can was the one with the oil and gas mixture – and that I had potentially killed my poor car. I hopped in and accidentally pumped the gas – which I forgot I wasn’t supposed to do – because it floods the engine and then turned the key. The engine kept going rrr-rrr-rrrr-rrrr . . . rrrr-rrrr-rrrr-rrrr around and around and around. Fear was welling in my stomach. I even went to the lengths of pulling off the hose that leads to the carburetor to pour a thimble full of the life-giving-to-car-fluid (that is gas – in case you needed to know) – but still nothing happened . . .
Next – I grabbed the other (unmarked) can – and dumped all of it’s un-oiled contents into the tank. After waiting a couple of minutes . . . I tried the key again. The engine turned over a couple of times and then roared to life with a thick plume of blue smoke.

Due to the looming potential for rain – I couldn’t really leave the yard – but – boy did I enjoy driving around that 40 (forty) by 40 (forty) foot slab of mud for the rest of the afternoon!

The moral of the story is to always pour a tiny bit of the gas into the top – to see if it is blue-ish (that means oil) – or gas colored . . . and that way – you (probably) won’t injure your loved car.

Ant 96