Once upon a time in the world of reality on a nearby street on the west side of Buffalo, we had a strange morning a few days ago. My father decided to exercise his manly testosterone via the demolition of two windows and the space between them which will eventually become the only window in that room giving more seating in the room and more living space. By the way - the day the demolition starts is that day before the wind storm.

My mom and I are upstairs comfy sitting on the couch under warm toasty blankets trying to have one of those easy mornings we so enjoy when we are aloud to have them. I see something out of the corner of my eye. YIKES! There is something crawling up the lace curtains in the computer room. I told mom as calmly as I could that there was a mouse crawling up the curtains in the other room. She went and got a large butter tub and a magazine and put the tub underneath the mouse as it was crawling up the curtains and she then hit the curtains above the mouse in order to get the mouse in the old butter tub. ALAKAZAM! Thud! Thwap! Mom exclaimed I got it!

We quickly run down the stairs to the front door me opening all the doors along the way until we got to the front door where she threw him into the flower bed in the front of their house. Quite proud that we accomplished this feat we decided to watch a movie and have a relaxing day!

Several hours later, into the early evening after our normal daily activities of meals, paperwork, paying bills, being online doing research, et cetera... We settle into a evening of television watching. Both of us hear a noise like someone is squeaking. High pitch sort of noise and then we see a little tiny visit dart out of the computer room and in the end was running all over the house looking for we think it's mother, whom we had evicted earlier that day. We tried for several futile hours running around after the mouse to no avail.

Brainstorming as to how to get rid of the mouse, we decided to see where we could try and catch him. We gave up for that evening. Next morning after we have eaten breakfast, we had a day off from our weekly activities and decided to bake early in the morning. We were making almond danishes from the food network via Paula Deen's web page. Excellent and tasty. While we were waiting for the dough to chill we noticed the mouse in the bathroom. We quickly ran into the bathroom and closed the door thinking we've gottem now! He he he he. He was so tiny and cute, we ended up laughing ourselves into hysterics as we rearranged all the furniture in the bathroom into a lump of things piled into the middle of the room. Just when we were ready to give up we found him again and we about to corner him and he began to do flips to get away from us and we began to howl with laughter. It couldn't be helped it was absolutely silly that two grown adults in a locked room could capture a one inch mouse. We gave up and went to make lunch and watch television.

We didn't see our friend right away but when we had just forgotten him we discovered there were two of them one an inch long with a little round butt and the other about an inch and a half and less cute. Which explains why we thought we had one trapped in the bathroom and then saw him again, so when we went into the bathroom to answer the call of mother nature decided to leave the door open. They had gotten us, though they probably never knew it.

Now we are wondering how do we get rid of them. Evening comes after errands and shopping, dinner. We settle in for more television watching in the evening and we have a guest. The little mouse was impossible to catch but he like my tiger slippers. He seemed to be playing with them. I tried and experiment. I put socks on and he disappeared. Until the next night when I had my slippers on and guess who. He would come out and look at the TV, I swear! We gave up trying to catch him in the open and just watched him laughing. True we were a bit frustrated. The other one seemed to disappear and then reappear when you least expect it.

This morning I woke up early due to some difficulty with my sinuses and were crocheting on the couch with my Tigger slippers and guess who comes out from underneath the couch between my feet our cute little mouse friend. He went over to his spot and looked at me like why aren't you watching the TV. My mom was still sleeping and I didn't want to wake her. So I just watching him thinking how can I catch him. No ideas I kept crocheting. I swear this mouse was cleaning his paws and looked over his shoulder at me then the TV, like turn it on already! I decided to do something different. I got onto the computer and played a computer game. There was my little friend playing with my slippers running behind furniture where I couldn't catch him. Two hours pass like this. Then I hear a rustling plastic bag in the other room and see him climbing into a cardboard box. I thought - I got him now! I took out the bag which is how he climbed in the box. Started taking out each of the plates. As I was doing this I noticed he could climb up the Styrofoam with his claws. So I gently pushed him off and continued pulling out all the other plates. Until I had an empty box, closed the lid and open the doors and heading for the front door. I called to mom and told her about how I caught him and we were kind of sad to let him go, but he was SO cute. I tried to gently throw him out side into the flower bed, but he kept running to the back of the box. So finally I had to flip it over and let him crawl out. He looked scared. I told him to stay still because the neighbor was walking their dog and when he passed the mouse seemed to disappear into the flower bed.

I kinda miss the cute little mouse with the round butt and his personality. Yet I was pretty proud I caught him. Two field mice evicted and one to go!

Somedays I wonder how this world works, you can be in the middle of a crisis and then it's over, kinda like a hurricane, one minute life is normal (whatever that means) and then BAM (kick it up a notch) and then back to normal life, except it's not all the same as it was before, something is different. Maybe it's me, or no maybe its you. Hell maybe it is us both.

SIGH " A Mandan elder told me, when you don't know what to do pray, not so much like a WWJD, but when there is nothing left to be done, do the one thing you can control yourself and give yourself to a higher power." Before I left this wise and weather faced man I had asked him is there something you would do now with all your knowledge that you didn't when you were my age. His eyes twinkled in the evening light as the air dropped degrees cooling the earth and the meal I just served. He rocked in his chair, looked at me and motioned for a light for his pipe. He smoked it and I sat there waiting for the answer and I began to discover something, it is good to take your time with things. I began to feel just his presence, the aromatic scent from the pipe, the night descending on the prairie, I was homesick and thinking of all that the people I missed meant to me. He cleared his throat and I had forgotten that he was even there or what I had asked him. He looked at me and said "Yes?" I was slightly puzzled coming back to the moment we shared and then it struck me like lightning the question I had already asked him, the words evaporated long ago, but he looked at me and said " When I was young and foolish, I wish I would have known the power of prayer, the way I do now. SO when life pulls you this way and that, pray. PRAY!" He took a long drag on his pipe. "If you never remember me, remember my words to you, child, Pray!"