Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Learning From Mistakes and a Lesson in Mousing

We gathered tonight to prepare for our first gig as a newly formed band. We also had a small furry little univited guest in our home. This made for an interesting night of fun and adventure. Before I expound upon MaizeyCat's adventure, I wanted to show you a specimen of learning from and correcting mistakes. While we were rehearsing tonight, we decided to give it another go with the mini-cam and take a new video of the newly arranged (and still being re-arranged) Blue Star Highway. It looks spectacular. We realized that there were some issues with the viewing of the last video and, when copying the code from the site, I realized that I had chosen the option of not allowing external sites to embed or, even view, the video - which explains why you could see it sitting there on my site (if you were lucky), but it would merely sit and display the ever-frustrating "LOADING..." message for an eternity. Here's our next attempt. It plays on MY computer, as did the last one - and on all of my sites - as long as they were viewed from MY computer. I hope that you can see this one!!



Back to the Mousing Lesson: Picture two cats - one black & white, one brown tortoise shell and extremely furry sitting watch for DAYS in the same spot - a hall doorway that connects that addition to the rest of the house. Imagine the black & white cat, the elder of the two, letting her vigil lag a bit so that she can observe and tutor the younger furball. Two cats. Sitting. Patiently. Watching. Waiting. Until SUDDENLYthe furball darts from the room like a lightening bolt. Those of us observing this thought that perhaps she had found some stray catnip lying around and had a little Cat Party of One. Then I saw that she had something in her mouse. Without looking close enough to identify the object, my gut told me, based on their actions of the last few days, that the unfortunate victim was the hunted mouse. We were ecstatic for our little OCF - she had caught her first mouse (that WE were aware of)! I, out of some sick instinct, screamed and jumped on a chair - I'm SO ashamed -, while PC sat right down and watched her, with the pride of a father watching his child master the skill that he had been teaching since the child was old enough to walk. He had the camera out, the words of encouragement. When Maizey would drop the mouse from her jaws to bat at it, the mouse, scrambling for any hope of escape and, its life, bolted with a brown-black ball of fur bolting behind at break-neck speed. The poor mouse would run, Maizecat would follow - except the one or two times she lost track of Sir Speedy. When that would happen, PC would direct her to the poor little varmit and encourage her not to give up the hunt.

This went on for quite a while, unfortunately with Mr. Mouse escaping into the scads of plastic grocery bags that we save for any number of occasions. Oh she was SO pissed off! All that, and no mousey for snack. We rewarded her for her effort with a tiny piece of turkey lunch meat. She sat. And watched. And waited. And is still waiting 5hours later. I don't think she'll be nestling her furry little face in my nose tonight while I'm sleeping. I bet she'll be up on patrol.

SmallBoy did ok with the mouse. Don't get me wrong, he freaked when he realized that Maizey had not killed and devoured the critter, so freaked, in fact, that he got to the point that when I sent him to brush his teeth, he was convinced that the newly drippy tub faucet was mice and refused to go back in. I assured him, hopefully without lying, that the mouse was no longer in the house - that if, indeed, it was still in the house, that MaizeCat had caught it and was having a nice little snackypoo. Outside of this episode, though, he was better at this mouse-in-the-house thing than I.

Ladies and Germs, I must hasten to bed, as my dearest husband is anxiously awaiting my arrival, and my head is very heavy. Let me know if you experience any problems with the video. As with the last, I linked it up on North Country's myspace. TTFN, my loves.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh my GOD you guys are so great. I called Child into the room to watch it with me, and even ignored the phone when it started ringing during the middle of it. Yes, it worked PERFECTLY today (Thursday). I have even sent it to Uncle J, Uncle J, my FATHER, and two other cousins (Sheff and Carson -- who was named after Carson Pirie Scott, btw). I told them who you were, the children and child-in-law of Meem. Knowing that the three boys of Gramma probably haven't handled YouTube before, I hope they can access the video. But, the other cousins will be able to do it!
Way to go. Any other YouTube videos???

Anonymous said...

yes yes! it worked! I LOVE IT!!! you guys are SO GREAT! i would SO BUY YOUR CD AND PLAY IT AND GROOVE TO IT EVERY DAY! i'm excited for you, my dear! YOU ROCK, woman!! you have the voice i always wished i had!

Anonymous said...

oh my you have a lovely voice! blew me away!

Wade Rankin said...

Way cool. I even went to the myspace site. After seeingb the band member pics, I gotta say -- that is one scary looking bass player.