Does It Seem Like I’ve Been on Vacation

forever?

Because it does to me, and I’m a little worried about my introduction to society next week.

But there are things that are certainly helping it along.

Like yesterday, in the middle of the day, just as I’d posted my concerns about our cat Nicki being a failure as a mouser, a MOUSE RAN ACROSS THE LIVING ROOM FLOOR, in broad daylight! and Nicki just sat there, sleeping.

My daughter and I did the customary “Eek! A mouse!” shriek and climbed onto the sofa so that the mouse wouldn’t attack us, and Young Ladrinka, summoned by our screams, ran into the room, demanding to be told what was going on. We told him that the mouse ran under the sofa (of course we had no idea where the mouse ran, but under the sofa seemed mousesish) and Young Ladrinka grabbed Nicki and started to try to shove her under the couch, so that she could do what God intended cats to do.

Unfortunately, Nicki wasn’t interested, so Young Ladrinka came up with an idea of getting a piece of cheese and sticking it under the sofa so that Nicki would pursue it (or that the mouse could have brunch) and I had to be the big bad meanie and say that NO CHEESE UNDER THE SOFA.

And then, as Nicki popped an Ambien so that she could resume her so-rudely interrupted catnap, I did the only thing I could think to do and called mama to complain, once again, that Nicki was a complete failure in the mousing department.

Oh, you should have heard mama defending Nicki. She was like Nicki’s personal Dream Team.

First, she suggested that Nicki wasn’t really sleeping when the mouse ran right under her stupid pink nose, but was rather “pretending to sleep” as part of a cat-and-mouse game. I had several problems with this, starting with the fact that Nicki is no Meryl Streep and ending with the fact that Nicki was snoring while the mouse was running around.

Then, mama suggested that Nicki injured the mouse during the night and the mouse was therefore disoriented and was out in the middle of the day because..I guess he was looking to get medical attention or something. I don’t know. I had to cruelly reject that theory too, because the mouth seemed in the height of health and was practically carrying a yoga mat with him.

Finally, mama told me that she thinks that Nicki had this mega one-on, one-off strategy, whereby she’d chase the mouse one night and then take the day off, thereby giving the mouse a false sense of security, only to pounce on the mouse and destroy him in the next 48 to 72 hours. A Shock and Awe, if you will.

I don’t know. I think Nicki may be some kind of pacifist vegetarian.

The other problem that I’m having, and I apologize that I can only write about in the vaguest terms, is that we are having a sort of a dispute with some other parties, who for once are not related to us, and when we talked at dinner about the best way to handle it, Young Ladrinka came up with “let’s kill them!” And although it was obviously a joke, boys will be boys, you know, Husbandrinka could not stop himself from saying, “this is America, son, and we resolve disputes in the court of law.” I swear, he talks like that. And so I said, “yes, but don’t forget that you’re Italian American, honey, so, wink, wink, let’s keep Young Ladrinka’s plan in our back pocket!” and he got super offended because he doesn’t think it’s funny to make mafia Italian-American jokes.

So I won’t.

One year ago ...

• Good Help is Impossible To Get - 2009