Marlowe caught a mouse today. Suffice to say that the rest of this post will not be for the squeamish.

I think Maggie heard it first, but Marlowe was very persistent and caught it. We let him play with it for a little, hoping for a quick kill. Silly us. He was the gentleman and let Maggie play with the mouse first. It astonished me how gentle she was with it, reaching out with velveted paws to tap it. This phase did not last long, of course.

In all, I don’t think the mouse was in the cats’ possession for much more than a minute. I kept trying to tell myself that this was nature and that I should stop being squeamish. Yeah… that would have been fine if they hadn’t just been toying with the thing. I mean, watching it try to get away with a broken leg was horrible.

So, Rob scooped it up in a tupperware and we discussed the most humane way to kill it. The cats, meanwhile are looking for another mouse.

My suggestion was to wrap it in newspaper and smack it on the head with a hammer. Rob concurred. In her youth, Maggie just presented me with a dead mouse so I’ve never had to make this decision before.

On the whole though, it’s nice that the cats are earning their keep. Right?

The post labled, “The Bride Replete” is about half of my current story in progress. I wanted to show it to some folks who were helping with my chemistry question to give them some context, so I posted it password protected. If you were reading Shades of Milk and Honey, it uses the same password as that.

If you are curious, I’m happy to give you the password, but realize that it is raw text and cuts off mid-sentence.