'Je parvins à faire s’évanouir dans mon esprit toute l’espérance humaine.

Sur toute joie pour l’étrangler j’ai fait le bond sourd de la bête féroce.'

Okay, so, yes, I was lying on the fainting couch, staring at the television, still drinking Champagne (on top of Benadryl, valerian, and melatonin) willing myself unsuccessfully to be as sleepy as I was tired, when the adorable and not-to-be-killed-at-any-cost Vermin made an appearance on the desky-drawery part of the gossip bench, peeking out from behind the vase.

Significant! Now I know his quadrant! His vector! His zone! So I thought strategically and placed his 2 litres of freedom (humane Diet Coke trap) underneath it! Brilliant!

Whereupon a ridiculous thunderclap struck (apparently we're under an Extreme Weather Advisory), the mouse ran and hid, the cat climbed up the balcony/landing/whatever precisely it is, ran through the bedroom, pushed open the door, and leapt onto my chest (which, accompanying the rest of me, had just resumed recumbent position on the TV-watcher's 'couch') in the living room,

and I'm as nonplussed as I was two hours ago --

except that now as part of my campaign of engendering sleepiness I have stared with unassailable vacuity at the Law and Order, or The CSIs, without any idea of what is going on or any ability to care, and now I know he is agile, and thus more or less fine. Well, physically fine: I'm not making odds on anyone's mental state at this point - his, the cat's (who almost immediately after the second roar of thunder gave up his post on me - unaccountably, from what I know of dogs, all of which is manifestly irrelevant here - to take up residence on the 'ottoman'/bench/pillow storage which lies vulnerable and unprotected beneath two windows in the 'dining room') nor, least of all, mine. I just pray that once his psychic scars are healed, the little guy realizes he loves the combination of Diet Coke remnants and Friskies Supreme Supper more than physical safety.

If I knew the slightest bit about rodent or felid behavior all of this would be so very much easier. Like, if I actually owned a cat or something. --Wait...soft...listen: is that the pineal calling? I might actually be sleepy now, knowing that the mouse cannot possibly wake me up crawling around in my mouth... I just want everybody to be happy, to go on about their business, not killing things, not defecating or dying of starvation in my house, and not going for days without sleep for fear of rodents scaling ridiculous 'bed curtains' and camel saddles and ornamental 'bed foliage' only to give me oral or otic buboes or something beyond even my fantastical imaginings. (And I can't imagine what might lie beyond those!)

'Jadis, si je me souviens bien, ma vie était un festin où s’ouvraient tous les coeurs, où tous les vins coulaient.'

Now, not so much, frankly.