Feel Good & Not So Feel Good Stuff

The last time I was there, packing boxes, we found a mouse in one of the drawers I was emptying. He went beserk. "Let me carry the drawer outside!" I pleaded, as he grabbed a stick and started trying to beat the mouse to death. "Hell, no, he'll jump out and get lose in the house!" was the answer I received, as he continued trying to beat to death the mouse. I had to leave the room. I couldn't watch. I had seen the mouse's eyes. He was cute. More importantly, he was one of God's creatures.

Understand, he has arthritic hands, his fingers are bent and cemented into place with no gripping power. To compensate, he had to place the stick between both hands, while he frantically poked the inside of the drawer, over and over and over again, as the mouse jumped about, trying to escape. Finally, he (not the mouse) screamed, in pain, "F*#k!" Instant karma's a bitch sometime. He had managed to jam one of his fingers in his killing frenzy. He thinks he broke it, since the knuckles were already messed up, having had a couple of aritificial joints and a couple of pins put in thirty something years ago, before the fingers twisted and turned on him. "Did you kill it?" I asked him, as I inched my way back into the kitchen. "F*@#k no, but I broke the bastard's leg!" I could see the tiny thing hopping about, dragging a rear leg behind it, as he tried over and over, quite unsuccessfully, to make it to the top and out. Now he let me take the drawer outside because he, himself, was now helpless and in intense pain. I was sorry for his pain. And I felt really horrible about the mouse, who had tried to hurt no one, but I had had no say so in this one, it was his house.

I turned the drawer upside down and watched the little creature scurry away lamely, dragging that leg behind it and making it's way into a plastic cup that was inside the hole of a cement block. It was frightened and trying it's best to hide. It's heart must have been beating triple time. I tossed a bit of spanish moss in it's direction, offering it refuge, as it changed location and was heading, now, for the security of a nearby bush. I hoped it would find the bag of Masarina that I had also emptied out into the yard, the one it had broken into and scattered across the drawer. It might be a bite to eat, if it would even survive now.

I don't understand stuff like that. How could someone be so cruel?

Next page...

Last night I was Captain on the music boat. I was fortunate to have a fantastic blues player on board. Once the music was over, I had to linger and clean up the boat, to include washing it down. The musician lingered about, too, as we discussed our "signs" and other such various and important philosophical things (yeah right). It was a nice, if not hurried, conversation, as I couldn't tarry too long on the clock, and continued working as we talked. I felt a wholeness inside, that I hadn't felt in quite some time, as we talked. I was having a conversation with someone, at length, who was listening to my every word, or so it seemed... as though I was a real person, worthy of listening to, with valid and interesting ideas. It was an even exchange, as I listened to his words, too... well, as much as I could, while cleaning the boat. I couldn't remember the last time that had happened, in a scenario such as this. The ex certainly had never listened to my every word, in any sort of philosophical type conversation (the guy who likes to beat mice to death with sticks). I am becoming a person again, one who thinks for herself and actually has ideas and values all her own. And they're not bad ones. I'd never even attempt to beat a helpless mouse to death, or any other creature. I don't even run over snakes, like some folks like to do. Ok, so I might kill a fly. Ok, so I do kill flies, but only when they are annoying me (I've never met a fly that wasn't annoying). And I kill ants too, but only if they try to sting me (I think if most ants try, they usually succeed). But that's about it. Ok, and roaches... and mosquitoes? Now let's move on, before I think I something else I kill.

A lot has changed inside of me, since we split. Maybe not so much changed, as much as having become "unchained". It is the feeling of sweet freedom. I had felt the same thing, as I walked out the door on the night we had split the cell phone's up, he relinquishing ownership of my number, and me setting up a separate bill to come to my address. I also had felt that freedom as I'd talked to my friend in Delaware, on my cell phone, and as I instant messaged with my friend who moved to Los Angeles. He always referred to my friends as "that" so and so... each friend of mine had the word "that" tacked in front of their name, as if they weren't really people, but "its" or "things". He's never even met them. And the ones he had, if they became "my friend", then they soon became a "that" too.

I'm enjoying this freedom, and I no longer have to witness things such as the maiming of helpless creatures, or listen to threats of poisoning cats, because he says they kill the birds... or wishing people would drop dead of a heart attack, because he doesn't agree with their green footprint... or having to hear him refer to most of humanity as a bunch of useless scum and maggots.

Wow! It's good to be alive!