I had lunch today with Janet, the wife of one of Dave’s co-workers (Gabe). It’s funny, we’ve hung out with them on several occasions, and I like them a lot, but it’s always been couples activities. Janet and I have never done anything that was just the two of us. We’ve had dinner at each other’s houses, we went out with them for Janet’s birthday, they came to our wedding, etc., but the husbands were always there too. So today was good because it was interesting just to sit and talk for a couple of hours, to learn a lot more about her, and to relate to someone who’s kind of in the same general life situation as I am. I think I may finally have a normal female friend here in the Northwest (as opposed to Psycho Krissy, who I don’t even talk to anymore because I can’t take the drama), and that’s a very good thing.

And thanks to Gabe & Janet, we now have plans for Halloween – there’s a funky/hippie neighborhood north of downtown Seattle where there will be a “freak parade” at midnight on Saturday night, and we’re all going. So that should be interesting. I volunteered to be designated driver, because I’m nice like that. Also because I seem to have lost the taste for alcohol over the past couple of months, I just haven’t wanted it much at all. Kind of weird, but not that unusual for me. Anyway, that is bound to be interesting.

In slightly ickier news, the other night I noticed two of our cats (Cleo & Greta) circling one of the chairs in the living room, very interested in something underneath it. Knowing it couldn’t be good, I shooed the cats away and scooted the chair over. Underneath it was a teeny-tiny baby mouse. Now, I know that my mother says that baby mice grow up into big mice, and that I should’ve just let the cats have at it and be done with it, but I’m not that cold-hearted. So I called Dave, and we got a big tupperware thing and tried to trap him under it, so I could set him loose outside. Only as soon as I lowered the tupperware, his terror-paralysis suddenly came to an end and he decided to bolt. I ended up pinning him to the floor with the edge of the container. I tried to pick him up (since I had him trapped), and he bit me. He didn’t break the skin, but it hurt, and I still had a minor freak-out about germs and rabies and whatnot. As soon as I dropped him, he took off. After I finished scrubbing my hands with large amounts of anti-bacterial soap, we found him halfway up the living room curtains (he had scaled them like a cat). So Dave used the tupperware lid to shoo him off the curtains and knock him into the container, and I ran him way out into the far part of the yard to set him loose. And as I dropped him off, I told him to have a long, happy life, and to please never come back into my house. I hope he understood me.

Oh, and more cat news: you know the stray orange kitty who comes around our house to eat our cat food but technically isn’t ours? He used to be friendly with all of our cats, but it seems that all of a sudden, our female cats are scared of him – they run from him, and won’t go outside if they see him out there. Beaumont (our one boy cat) is still buddies with him. I know the orange kitty (and yes, that’s the best nickname I’ve got for him so far – if I give him a name, then he’s sort of ours, and so help me God, we do NOT need a fifth cat) is a male because he’s pretty well “equipped”. That’s the other reason why I’m not crazy about him coming in the house – I’ve seen him spraying trees in the yard, and I really don’t want him to do that to my couch. Anyway, I haven’t got actual proof (just a couple of loud fights in the yard where I witnessed shrubs shaking but didn’t see anything), but I suspect that the reason the girl kitties are scared of him all of a sudden is because he’s trying to mount them. And our girls were fixed when they were babies, so they probably have no idea what the hell he’s doing, or they think he’s attacking them. I told Dave, “I’m not sure if it’s a full-on kitty rape situation, or if it’s just some unsolicited humping.” We later decided that Unsolicited Humping would be a great band name. Or even better, as a sign to hang outside of one’s business. Anyway, since he seems to like coming around our house regularly, I don’t know what to do about that, short of trapping the orange kitty and taking him to get snipped, or getting the girls some kitty self-defense lessons. (Meow means meow!) Any ideas? I’m sort of at a loss here.