The art of conversation and saving Mus musculus.

I am consistently tempted to start these blogs with "So.." as if I’m breaking awkward silences that arise between two people who either have a lack of substance to their conversations or who have been forced into a situation that transforms small talk into a real conversation.

I try hard to be polite in almost any conversation, even if the person is the last person I want to talk to that day or even if I’m extremely upset with someone and want to kick them in their baby makers (male AND female) but I guess the hardest part is initiating the conversation. I regularly "chicken-out" of conversations with a fear that I am going to embarrass myself, flow my words into the deep black hole of awkward silence or out of nervousness. Then I will say "So..".

BUT! There are many times when a conversation is streaming steadily and I say "So" to indicate that I’m going to change the topic to talking about love life (it is a carried out "Soooooo" though), oh how predictable, although many a time people think I say it out of discomfort perhaps because they think they have insulted me. Rarely am I insulted by any such murmers unless it includes distasteful sexist remarks, racism, pure-stupidity or animal cruelty. No i don’t think it’s "sweeeeet" or "awesome" if you went hunting with the boys on the weekend and shot a (gorgeous) kangaroo or possum because it is a pest. I happen to like animals so a conversation about hunting and roadkill is a digging yourself your own grave. Unless you are talking ’Buck Hunter’..that is a different story.

While we are on the topic of animals and while I get on the subject of their instincts..yesterday I had the pleasure of holding in my hand a beautiful complex mass of cells of Mus musculus, or in more general terms a ’house mouse’. It’s beady little eyes sprinkled with dirt gazed up as me, his wiry whiskers surveying the air and his little limp body tucked into my palm. I saved him from the evil jaws of my ginger cat, Pippin, who had caught him and was playing around with him like a hot potato, throwing him around between her paws while she rolled in the dirt under the rose vine. The tiny mouse, so vulnerable, was in shock and his lifeless limbs uncurled in the dirt. I saved him and caressed him in my hands. He was still alive, his chest rising and falling as I observed his injuries..a torn ear and a medial wound oh his back. I knew he was going to die soon so I stroked his crown to calm him down and his eyes slowly closed as he endured his injuries. His chest still rose and fell. I took him to the empty housing lot down the road in my nightwear attire close to midday (how embarassing!) and rested him under a tree that still remained after the large lawnmowers had demolished the lovely long wild grass and weeds.
I revisited him later but he had passed. "The sole quiet thing". At least he died in peace instead of in the mouth of Pippin the Murderer. But as sad as death of living things is to me it is all a consequence of animal instincts to hunt for food, although Pippin is very very spoilt by my Mum who buys her great quality meat as well as Dine cat food.

Pippin.
(Thanks to my amazing photography..)


And to totally change the subject I can’t wait to read the heading articles on sleep in the new ’New Scientist’ magazine. I have been carrying it around with me all day.
:]

The murderer in her hunting pose