My Family and Other Animals

I have had trouble sleeping the past couple of nights. Thursday night, even though I had to get up an hour early to make it into Oakland for a 9 o'clock meeting, I didn't get to bed until 11:30 and I woke up promptly at one when the cat was doing some kind of nocturnal kitty version of Riverdance in my bedroom. No amount of "persuasion" (read: yelling and chasing out of the room with much invective) was working to keep the stupid cat out of my bedroom and quiet, and I ended up getting back from my daylong business meetings feeling like hell.

This morning, we had to be in Palo Alto at nine. Once again I went to bed long past midnight and once again, the cat decided to express herself via interpretive clog dancing in my bedroom in the wee small hours. This time I was better able to ignore it, but when I woke up, the Pirate was saying "Hey, come and see what I've found!" That's never a good sign.

"What I've found" turned out to be some kind of little rodent. Apparently, this little guy's been holing up in our bedroom, and our fearless huntress has been single-minded in her pursuit of the little beast.

But what is it?


I'm kinda stuck between a baby rat (it's head-to-body ratio is far too large for a grown rat, and it was only about 4 inches long in the body) or perhaps a weird feral gerbil. It was almost cute. Almost. Of course, my cat thought it was almost breakfast.

I'm surrounded by wildlife. It plagues me, mocks me and otherwise hangs out in my vicinity. Shortly after the pictures were taken, the Pirate took this little guy outside and threw him up on the hillside. On the one hand, he's gotten a reprieve from my cat. On the other hand, that hillside is chock-full of hawks, snakes and coyotes. Baby, it's a wild world.