Dealing with Fibromyalgia Pain, Letting Go, Finding Peace

I practiced martial arts for many years and have written about that time before in this blog and in my original website called SkyScraps.com.  Imagine my surprise though when a friend told me about a technique to help with the gnawing pain of fibromyalgia.  And what surprised me wasn't that there was a technique I hadn't investigated.  There are plenty of those.  What surprised me was that one of the first things martial artists learn is to use their bodies as weapons and the influx of adrenalyn when going into a fight to stiffen their arms and legs.  In fact, we were always told to keep the fight techniques simple because of this stiffening.  The better fighters, though, were always able to maintain fluidity in their fighting techniques flowing from one hit to another block to a third strike and then circling out to start the cycle again.

Fluidity, letting go, circling are all essential in moving from pain into non pain.  Stretching helps muscle stiffness, meditation helps mental stiffness.  But perhaps the most powerful technique, for me at least,  is asking a leg or an arm, or a hand,  or a back to 'let go of pain.'  As I sit here typing this post, my hands don't hurt, my typing errors are fewer, and that comes the awareness of pain creeping back in and reminding my muscles to let go. 

Pain in my case is a habitual frame of mind and body.  Relearning how not to live in pain will be the work of the rest of my life and I think I can live with that.

May all beings know peace.
namaste  

Rescue on St. Patrick's Day and a Cat Called Elvis

I feed the stray cats who live in my neighborhood.  Every morning the cats know to come over to my front porch for breakfast. That way  I keep track of who is a new stray cat and how the regular strays are doing in all sorts of weather.  Some of the cats are true ferals and only eat at night or when they think no one can see them.  Some cats belong to neighbors who think cats in busy suburban neigborhoods are perfectly safe being outside all the time.  Generally these cats are fixed and have collars and know where they live.   And then there was one cat who either had no owners or very neglectful owners who never bothered to get  him fixed and then let him out to run around in the neighborhood. 

So I have been keeping an eye on this cat.  He has been running around with a cat called Elvis.  Elvis is the character of the neighborhood.  He trips people, jumps up on legs and twines around ankles being as cute as possible.  But show him too much attention and you will get clawed.  Recently, Elvis has been hanging out with a small orange tiger stripe cat.  Very friendly, very sweet, very hungry and very male.  This lasted  for about 3 weeks with Elvis showing the younger cat the ropes of being outdoors.  But it couldn't last forever.  Elvis started striking out at junior as the younger cat matured and I made a mental note to get ready to pull junior to safety.

That meant getting out the cat carrier, making sure it had a towel in it and everything was stowed in the car for a quick drive to the local FOHA vet.  It also meant taking the initiative and talking with the intake officer of FOHA about helping this poor little guy.   I also talked with the medical officer who knows about every vet in the area and has all of them on speed dial and email contacts.  (I mean, doesn't everybody have their vets on quick call?  If you are rescue, this is standard operating procedure because when things go wrong in rescue they go wrong very fast and you need to be able to get help as fast as possible.) 
 
But I am happy to relate that things went very, very well today.  I scooped up Elvis (while putting out the breakfast in my 'jammies).  He  was trying to beat up junior.  And I told him 'no.'   Then I  ran upstairs to get dressed and headed to the car.  Naturally, junior was no where to be found, but I heard the squirrels hissing at something and looked down at the base of their tree.  And there was junior. 

"Little man," I called to him.  "Come over here."  And he did because he knew everytime I called to him before he would get hugs, protection, love and food.  All powerful motivators.   Building trust is essential in what I do.  It takes longer to rescue building trust but it makes for a much better relationship between the cat and the human going forward.  So once the cat came over I gave him a hug and then just held him close and got into the car closing the door and putting him into the cat carrier. 

Job almost done because then I needed to call the medical officer to make the date for me at the vets and then needed to drive out there.  Once I was there, junior and I figured out his name from one of the other dogs named Murphy who was there for an early morning appointment.  Seeing as it was St. Patrick's Day, junior became Patrick Murphy which really seems to suit an orange tiger striped yearling who weighs all of 7 pounds 5 ounces. 

All that remains after I dropped him off at the FOHA isolation room to wait for his neutering operation is to locate Elvis's owners address so that I can tell the medical and intake officers just in case Pat the Cat actually has owners even if they were careless with him.  And then tell the Fairfax County Shelter exactly where I first saw him and where I think he might have lived considering who he was associating with.  So tonight I get to amble down the street and make a note of the street address to email to the officers at FOHA.  And if he doesn't belong to them and isn't claimed in 60 days by anyone else in this area then he belongs to FOHA and can be adopted out. 

Until we neuter the owners and save the animals may all beings know peace

Yea for finding a way to get phone photos onto computer

I have had a memory stick in my camera for about 6 months but forgot where I put the adapter.  I looked everywhere -- no luck.  I went to Target, Best Buy, and finally Radio Shack.  Whew.  Now the pictures are in the computer.  Finally.  I hate needing something and not being able to find it.  Frustrating experience.  If I ran the universe I would have all adapters for memory sticks be the same size.  Sometimes too much diversity is just a marketing technique to keep customers.  Grrrr

Typing is getting tougher, folks

Typing is much harder these days--probably due to the fibromyalgia pain getting worse.  What is making typing even harder though is that my keyboard skills are deteriorating.  My fingers hit multiple keys at once and all of a sudden my screen goes blank or my text goes somewhere else on the page.  It is weird.  I am sure there is a fancy long name for this condition.  I just think it is annoying, frustrating and weird.  Gah.  More later after I do a little research to figure this out.

News agencies found

I am a sometime news junkie.  It depends on what the news is covering.  The best news coverage I find comes out of Japan itself from www.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld.  Or just go to http://www.euronews.com/ on your computer and that works as well.  Fascinating and far less strident than the U.S. news.  Less personality and more news.   It is too sad that disasters force me to find new sources for news.  The last time I had to do this was after 9/11 when U.S. news sources were far behind the curve of the news.  BBC covered events faster and more thoroughly.  Since then, I try to stay open to other ways to learn.

May all beings know peace
Namaste

New Uses for Old Things

My cats and the Friends of Homeless Animals cats have taught me that nothing is waste.  They play with milk bottle caps and the stips of plastic that secure them.  They curl up in litter boxes and in feeding bowls.  The more scared of the cats curl up in litter boxes and literally guard their own turf.  But even my cats at home reuse litter boxes are places to curl up into.  Especially my big cat who is either a Norwegian Forest Cat or a Maine Coon Cat who is too big for most laps.  He loves curling into the box. 

More things that can be recycled include old sweaters.  Take them apart at the seams and then wind the wool up into a ball for a later project.  This is also a lot of fun to do with the cats who want to play with the string jerking along on the floor. 

Hand Juicers can be used to squish whole canned beets to use in salads as well as draining tuna fish for terrific sandwiches and additions to salads. 

Doublesided tape can be used for those pesky art projects that are too expensive to frame if you are unhandy like I am when it comes to wood working.  Talk to me about embroidery and art projects or word work and I can hold my own.  My eyes glaze however when you talk with me about squares and saws and mitre boxes.  And don't even try to talk with me about clamping a frame shut while it is being glued.  I go into complete brain freeze just typing this.

Old tennis balls are great back rubs if you live alone.  Just put them on the floor and lie on top of them wriggling to get the sore places where they to be to get relief. 

More to come as I go through the scraps I have around here.

A Tsumani of Local Proportions

And here in the U.S., we face the budget tsunami caused in primary part by the deceitful practices and unholy alliances between Wall Street and Capital Hill.  And the ripple effect is enormous and just becoming clear to all of us this year.  Wisconsin and Ohio are on the Front Lines but every state has serious budget problems.  The problem started in the 1960s with the entitlement programs.  What most of us don't realize is that many of those programs were shifted from the federal budget to the States.  The federales essentially forced the states to maintain them.  But didn't offer states much support.  States have tried for years to find ways of funding but failed.  If this situation were the Chicago Fire, we would be seeing the firestorm of states failing.  State afte state faces the alarming situation of cutting budgets humanely.  Can they do it without dipping into the extremist politics of Wisconsin and Ohio?  I believe they can by pointing out to the national government that this shortfall comes from long term policies -- not short term bad budgeting.  That is not going to be a popular position but it, sadly, is the truth.  And how, then, will the government be able to pay for these short falls coming back to roost?  Again, I don't know.  Probably raise taxes or cut programs themselves.  America, the land of diminished possibilities.  America, the land of the not free.  Sure, we are free to vote but are we free from Wall Street control and fallout and political doubledealing?  Not now and probably never were.  The old song, "St. Peter, don't you take me 'cause I can't go, I owe my soul to the company store."

Until all beings know peace, pray for Japan and the victims there
Until all beings know peace, pray for all who have lost in New Zealand, Katrina, and any other global disasters and
Until all beings know peace, pray for all the pets who are put to death due to the Wall Street engendered foreclosures and short sighted landlord policies when it comes to allowing pets to come with their owners.

Namaste

Is it Just Me?

What news agencies are forgetting....Japan is such a small country that what affects one part pretty much affects the whole nation.  Tokyo is only 150  miles away from the Fukushima nuclear plants.  Williamsburg, Virginia is about 150 miles away from Metro DC.  No space to run if something happens like this kind of event.  This is not like Hiroshima.  These are plants built close together on the coast that for whatever reason (tsunami or earthquake) are now at emergency levels that brave plant workers are working to fix.  Such an intense time.  My heart goes out to all who suffer there, who survived but lost everyone and everything, who face situations beyond comprehension.


I am a child of the first generation to grow up after WWII. I grew up near one of the nuclear research facilities in Northern Ohio. We were all very aware of the dangers so the nuclear drills of hiding in hallways and under desks, of listening to the loud booms of jetliners and dropping to the floor, are familiar to me. What was not spelled out at the time was the afterlife issue of radioactivity. That fact didn’t come out until much later.



What worries me about the Fukushima Plants in Japan is that the evacuation zone is so small. That research facility in Ohio? I lived maybe 15 miles away from it and we all knew it would be too close if something dreadful happened. If I were living in Japan right now, even Tokyo (150 miles away) would be too close. Perhaps I am too much a child of my generation to see anything but destruction in nuclear power. I don’t know and cannot judge at this distance how the Japanese government is doing. I do know that the alarmists in California are just that...alarmists. If they were so committed to being scared then why on earth weren’t they up in arms when the state next to them, Nevada, was used for testing? Why weren’t they protesting then? Was it because our own government told us that these air tests were perfectly safe? Ouch! That is exactly what happened. And I fear that is what is happening in Japan today and am sad to see them duped like we were.  


May all beings know peace --
Remember them all in your prayers, folks

Settling in America (Overview and Opinion Alert)

Settling in America. Sounds like the title of a History Channel program, doesn't it? Settling, setting in roots, establishing a family dynasty, making waves, making wealth. Settling means all that. It also means settling for what is reality now. Settling not for excellence but for getting by. Settling for bad jobs, bad government, bad representation in Congress, finding love on the internet, finding knowledge in online schools that advertise and aggressively pursue students, settling for not enough rather than for ... put in your own dreams. Settling for letting dreams flutter away like those lunesta moths on commercials. And isn't that just the reason why lunesta and other sleep aides sell so well?

Now we can argue that perhaps people shouldn't dream about home ownership, education, good jobs, healthcare, or wealth. Perhaps we can even argue that government has no business being in the business of providing mortgages, tax breaks for homeowners, educational loans, work place regulation, Wall Street bailouts, or public funding for the Public Broadcasting Corporation. I disagree. I think the government should be in the business of making a difference in peoples' lives. It should be there pointing the way towards excellence, towards learning, towards a safe future for its citizens.

Sure, people overspent in the 1980s and 1990s and on. Sure, the people were egged on by the media to 'buy, buy, buy.' Luminaries like Allan Greenspan kept saying that we were in great shape. President Clinton boasted of reducing the deficit. President Bush said he had been handed a government in debt and then there was 9/11 and we citizens were all exhorted to make America strong...spend money. And truly all this persiflage was spamming the minds of the citizens.

So, my question is just when did we go off track in this country? Everyone will have their own opinion on this. But in my own life, I would have to say around the 1970s and 1980s. Those years saw more change than the 60s. I know, I know, the 60s were magical. Women stopped wearing bras, the English invasion of rock stars, short skirts and then real mini skirts with high heels, the Pill, Roe v. Wade, Twiggy, Vietnam, and all that folk singing. Exciting stuff.  Iconic times.

But in the 1970s and 1980s, we saw stagflation, no-fault divorce forcing more women into the workplace and away their kids, from being there to wipe bloody knees and care for them to relying on the television to keep the kids company during the day. We also saw the defeat in Vietnam, President Nixon, Vice President Agnew, Watergate, Disco (god help us!), the American Embassy takeover in Iran, President Carter's inability to deal with it, OPEC, demoralized citizens who felt that the revolution was right around the corner and began to build bunkers.

All of which laid the foundation for the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan. So far, so good. President Reagan had a positive effect on the morale of the country. No matter what you thought of the shape we were in, Ronnie was able to sooth, encourage and cajole when necessary. We ignored George Bush, Sr.’s comment of voodoo economics, those of us English majors who knew nothing of math. But even I suspected something was wrong, when President Reagan began his trickle down economic policies. I didn’t know what was wrong. I just felt I’d been sold a bill of goods by a huckster, a patent medicine salesman. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_medicine for an explanation. And, of course, President Reagan had plenty of advertising face time with General Electric and was an actor and politician.  He was really good at selling a bill of goods.

And the country has gone down hill from there.

At this moment in time, March 2011, Congress is split between people who honestly want to cut the deficit and those who are using the budget cutting issue as a bully pulpit to make the rich richer and the middle class into a poor relation that is not invited to the table to eat. The real question is does Congress support the people or the people who fund their campaign?

 The proposals that are being made to reduce the debt are ludicrous. God forbid that the politicians proposed long term solutions like honestly tackling medicare and social security, government fraud, and other abuses. The key phrase in the last sentence was 'honestly tackling.'  Oh, no, these politicians just go after short term fixes like reduce funding for abortion, pre-school education, educational loans, homeownership help, funding for families in need, and then redefining rape and when life occurs.  What bunkum!

And now these so-called budget cutters want to quit funding the Public Broadcasting Corporation. Getting rid of all the educational programming like Sesame Street or Front Line would continue this 'dumbing down' of the public forcing us to 'settle' for less. While it is not unconstitutional to cut public funding for PBS, it is against the ideals of the founders who felt that an educated citizen was the best defence against tyranny that democracies have. Think about it like this...the best way a tyrant can get into power is to keep citizens distracted. I am surprised, frankly, that the government doesn't fund reality programming and 24/7 news programs.

Let's not settle for less. Let's work for more.

Roll over Rolls Royces

Hood ornaments are so cool.  Silver Phantom Rolls Royces and Jaguars, BMWs and Masseratis are metal sculptures in motion.  Art Deco come to life.  Old silver screen films of the 20s and 30s always have cars with hood ornaments.  Hood ornaments showed style, panache and the wealth of the owner.  http://forums.aaca.org/f170/lots-neat-old-hood-ornaments-try-292971.html This link belongs  to the Antique Automobile Club of America which is pretty cool too.

So today when I look at my wonderful car (which is not a Silver Phantom or a Jaguar) I find my very own hood ornament....A squirrel.  A real squirrel!  Not one from this link  http://www.aandlhome.com/-strse-1108/squirrel-hood-ornament/Detail.bok even though those are cute too.  A real squirrel feasting on an acorn.  I guess we all have to eat breakfast somewhere!  Note to self...put out more squirrel food to keep the critters happy in this weird warm again/cold again weather we are having.

Meanwhile Happy March 1st everybody.

Word Work

Word prompt for today...Leaven v. Levity.  Both are rising agents.  Leaven (like baking soda) is great for raising dough into delicious bisquits.  Levity is great for raising spirits.  See how you can use both words in a paragraph you write of your own experiences.  Then make a drawing of a bisquit and a smile.  Or maybe a smile wrapped around a bisquit.   No matter how you approach words, always remember to play with them because they have the ability to raise your own spirits.

Mardi Gras in New Orleans

OMG, Wednesday, March 2nd, Ancient Druid's Parade!!!  So cool!   Hope to post pictures later this week.  Meanwhile, just google ancient druids parade New Orleans or go to this link.

"11 Krewe of Ancient Druids - New Orleans, LA Mardi Gras Parade ... Comprised of Carnival veterans from several other Orleans Parish parading organizations


www.mardigrasparadeschedule.com/krewes/druids/   "

Re-Purposing

I used to think I was just cheap.  I reuse everything.  In fact, I am too cheap to buy one of those fancy computer fans but my computer gets really hot when I have it on my lap.  So I thought about it and realized my plastic chopping board (which I never use because it is impossible to keep clean) fits right under my computer and keeps my legs a whole lot cooler.

I also wanted to organize my cook books which were just stacked on the counter.  I also was getting ready to throw out my old wooden dish rack which never really worked for all my dishes.  One thing let to another and now my cook books are on the top rack of the disk rack and my paper towels are on the cup holder part of the dish rack.  So three items are organized instead of just the cook books.

So if I want to make cookies or stew, I can pull out the right book and get started.  And if I make a mess on the counter, my paper towels will stay dry!

Stormy Weather -- Not Just a Song

One of the advantages of having fibromyalgia is that I know when to turn on the Weather Channel to confirm why I hurt.  It's true.  I can predict bad weather.  I always used to laugh at the folk tales about folks who claimed they could make these predictions.  Old Wives' Tales, Hah!  Bah!  I don't laugh anymore.  I just hope that the tornadoes predicted in the swath of states tonight and tomorrow are not as powerful as predicted.  Fingers crossed everyone.

Favorite Fun Website for CatGeeks

 http://www.catslikefelix.co.uk/   This is the link for a massively fun website located in the UK.  Purina/Nestle created it.  Check it out.  Felix is a really cute animated cat who walks all across the screenm meows and has lots of ways you can play with him.  So if you are stuck inside an office and miss the sounds of a cat, pull up Felix for a quick cat fix.

Questions for the day...

Push Rewind in Time for Valentines' Day

Ever notice that when you stop doing something for a while -- like riding a bike or writing in a blog -- restarting the activity is often harder than when you did it for the first time?  Expectations are a big part of all of our lives and we expect to be able to hop in and do just as well as we did before we stopped.  It is no wonder that weekend atheletes are always nursing sports injuries.

Have you stopped doing what you love because of the economy, disappointments or health?  I know how you feel.  It is so hard to rewind the hope, faith and find the heart to go on.   But as a wise friend once told me, just do one thing a day.  A letter, looking at a job board, a small bit of writing, a small bit of work and keep going.  Pretty soon when you look back you will see that all those scraps you have piled up are actually achievements you can point at and use to create more passion for whatever you are searching for.

Stay in the fight, the game, your life,

Resonances

True Ghost Stories and Paranormal Articles

True Ghost Tales

Most people know of at least one ghost story that has been told as being true ... of ghost stories and for those of you who like to interact with others who are ... Ghosts have been known to move things around, or even to hide objects. ...

www.trueghosttales.com/

I reference this site since I have experienced weird stuff.  My experiences are  mostly physical, feeling and hearing.  I don't often see things.  I call these experiences  'resonances' but I am not sure whether this is the correct term.  I am only a novice in this field after all. 

The only two times I can remember 'seeing' ghosts were when the family ghost (doesn't every family have one? Just saying....) reached down for me as I reached the top of the stairs at my house. I was five at the time. He seemed sad but kind.  The really interesting part of this tale is that when I reported this to my family they said that many of the family who had lived in the house had met ghosts in it.  My father said he'd met a woman who appeared upstairs in the back bedroom I shared with my sister and that my great grandmother had also met this ghost.

I  felt things in this house -- fear of the bathroom and the hallway leading to it which had an opening to the back stairs.  I also heard steps coming up the backstairs and through the common room  each night.  I learned to read early and often to try to stay occupied while this was happening.  I'd even put a chair under the doorknob at night.  My folks soon put a stop to that.   My poor sister had to put up with me asking her to tie herself to me with shoelaces so that when the monsters under the bed tried to take me, he/she/it would also get her.  My theory was that we would be together.  Bless her heart, she only put up with this a couple of days. 

At 12,  I had several memorable experiences in the kitchen with a poltergeist bouncing  pots full of boiling water off of the stove and onto the floor while the family was in the kitchen preparing dinner.  Thankfully none of us  were burned though we all saw it happen.

When I was at university,  my dad always knew when I was coming home from university because his bed would jump up and down. My dad weighed over 200 pounds at that point adding more heft to the usual weight of the bed, mattress, headboard and covers.

At 17, my sister went to college and I was left alone.  I started hearing breathing from her empty bed which came to a crest at 2 am on Easter Monday.  That night  started with breathing in my sister's bed, only much louder and gruffer than usual,  then the usual footsteps up the back stairs started and continued through the common area to the front of the bedroom I shared with my sister. By the way, my parents slept downstairs so I was all alone upstairs. Two women appeared at the end of the bed when the footsteps stopped.  They said, "let us help" and there I was, frozen in fear. Literally.  I rallied and sat up, waved my arm towards the door and tried to tell them to get away because I thought they wanted to force me to kill myself.  A fearful thought.  Then the breathing in the bed next to me started to get louder and louder at which point I ran through the two figures at the end of my bed and went downstairs to my parents' bedroom. They were already awake because of the noises upstairs and came immediately to my aid. My dad went up the backstairs with his service revolver and my mom and I went up the front stairs to corner whatever was making the noise. Nothing was there but the sounds. I stayed the rest of the night in my parents' bedroom listening to more footsteps throughout the night.

Later we learned that there had been a double suicide in the 1890's in the house of two women who were cheated out of the house by what they called a 'tombstone skinning lawyer.'  A volunteer at an local art gallery where my mom also volunteered told her about these ladies and about the attorney and brought her to the deed/will where the words appear.  I need to verify that the attorney was working in the town at that point and that he had access to the womens' legacy and took over the house when they died. But whatever these forces were, they lessened when my folks updated the kitchen (the oldest part of the house) and later updated the upstairs area. The upstairs bathroom still gives me the creeps, though, so whatever was there continues to this day.

Two other episodes happened in January 2000. My mother died and I knew it and woke up before the phone call. Later in the month, when I took my girls to my mom's memorial service at the church we attended, my youngest was skipping down the aisle on the way from the service and had her feet hauled out from under her, causing her to land flat on her back in the passageway. The family was all around her and several of them commented that this was the doing of my grandmother who was interred at the church in the columbarium. I tend to believe that.

Later on in 2002, I was checking my girls' rooms in the late night when I made a wrong turn and fell down the stairs in the dark. I karoomed into the wall on the far side of the stair rail and 'felt' a hand support me as I bumped down to the front hall. I only cracked a bone in my wrist. Hurt like the dickens but then again, I was alive for it to hurt. So I take the good with the bad.   I always knew  the house had angry resonances of other people who had lived on the land there.   But this energy was different from the background resonance I usually felt.  It was a gentle energy and not an angry force.

After my mom-in-law died in 2008, she was unhappy with me and hauled me off my feet in my new rental where I lived.  I know it was her because I had just returned exhausted from sitting shiva in Baltimore.  As I had 'cleared' the rental  of any prior  resonances,  I know it wasn't anyone else.  I took my bruised ribs and back to the doctors who appreciated the damage but were unsure of why I fell. Their hypothesis was that I was exhausted by her death and the stresses of sitting shiva with some of the most hostile people I'd ever met who came to sit with us in Baltimore.   All Very True. But still ....

So how do we protect ourselves from angry or sad  resonances???  I know, for me, that I absolutely have to recognize when I am picking up anger from those around me and learn various ways to shed the anger through meditation and writing about it.

 I pick up lots of feelings from others -- don't we all?  And often I act angry  not realizing that the anger is not mine but someone else's.  My advice?  Stay focused when you drive because drivers' express their anger in how they drive and anger is a powerful force.  Also realize that the corporate telephone systems we use when calling to ask for help -- the dreaded phone system of pressing 1, 2, 3 or 4 to access a human -- are tailor made to make callers furious.  Please recognize that and put the anger aside if at all possible.  Just don't carry the anger of others around with you.  Anger weighs more than than you think it does.

The Tale of the Mouse

As everyone who reads this blog knows, I rescue animals.  Ok, ok, perhaps not cockroaches when they march inside my place but very close to everything else.  I accept no excuses for not rescuing animals...not even when it comes to excusing my reckless endangering of backyard wildlife.

So today a lesson learned and my humble apologies to scaring a field mouse almost to bits.  I left the door open when the cats & I went out  to play and a mouse came in uninvited. When I back in with the cats, they had a marvelous time trying to find the mouse but he stayed away until this evening.   And tonight it was a one sided battle with the cats winning paws down.  My big cat Rory (seen above) caught the mouse and paraded in front of me with his jaws full of mouse.  The mouse got lucky because I threw a blanket over both of them and got the mouse (that I thought was dead) away from the cat.

I even got the mouse back into the wild (well, the front yard actually) after I found him trying to get out of the kitchen trash can where I had stashed him away from the cat.  He seems unhurt and hopefully will find his way to the backyard from the azalea bush.

All safe for now in this corner of the world.

Genius

Rachel Maddow's faux Oval Office statement tonight -- pure genius.