Mouse Medicine

I've spent the better part of this week terrorized by rodents.

On Sunday, I had my family over for brunch to celebrate my mom's birthday. Everything was great, including the Double Chocolate Orange Torte, which I will definitely bake again. After all the presents were opened, and everyone went home happy and full, I cleaned up, putting the garbage into trash bags, and vacuumed. As my family can attest, I even sprayed down all surfaces and wiped them clean while they were still here.

My one mistake was leaving the bags inside the kitchen instead of putting them outside in the trash bins. I woke up Monday morning to find a mouse tail industriously waggling from the top of one of the bags.

Now, when faced with something I really don't like, and really don't know how to handle, I know of go into this odd "This isn't happening" mode, which I'm not proud of, but it's a good coping mechanism. I tried to ignore it, but then reality set in and I took my empty trash can and swooped it over the trash bag. Looking for the closest heavy thing to put on top of it, I found my mega-bottle of Tanqueray gin, leftover from a party 3 years ago and put it on top of the can.

The gin was remarkably appropriate.

I dragged the bag, with the can on top, and the gin on top of that outside to the trash cans and managed to get the bag into the can with a modicum of freak-out. It was early in the morning and a girl's got to go to work!

So imagine my surprise when that evening, after midnight, I was awoken out of a sound sleep to some sort of rustling of conclave of rodents, which SCARED THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS OUT OF ME. I've never had a problem with mice, or rats before and as a good New Yorker, I always keep any open container in the refrigerator, whether it needs to be refrigerated or not. (I still have friends who make fun of me for putting cereal in there. Hey, there's a reason I've never had a problem with roaches or rodents!)

So there I was at 12:30 am faced with cold, hard fear, running all the way down from my throat into my belly, and I had no idea what to do except lay there, terrified. It's very rare that I can't tap into my inner Mafiosi Vinny, who you met in an earlier post, but he was nowhere to be found. So, not only was I scared out of my skin, but I was feeling mad at myself to boot because I should be able to handle this sort of thing. After a half an hour of deliberating with myself (and adrenaline rushing like a junky in heat) I finally called my landlord, who was reassuring, so kind, and well, awake. He said he would take care of it the next day, which he did, in the form of traps, a sonic deterrent, and a really nice voicemail which left me feeling better.

Except for the fact that I haven't slept all week. I haven't felt quite safe in the apartment, and I'm a little mad at myself for feeling so vulnerable. I mean, the last time I felt this kind of fear in the middle of the night, was about 8 years ago when I heard what I am sure was gunshots in the middle of the night. Even in my slumber, I knew get the hell out of bed and hit the floor. (My preservation instinct is usually quite keen.)

My dear friend Diana said that animals often cross our paths to tell us something, and we should pay particular attention if its an animal that we usually don't see--case in point, the mouse. So I looked up the symbolism of the mouse, and here is what www.zimbio.com had to say:

Humans have long had a love-hate relationship with tiny Mouse. On the love side, we have Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Stuart Little, etc. On the hate side, we have traps, science experiments, carrying disease, and eating holes in walls and bags of food.

Why does mouse affect us so? Why do we see pictures of people standing on chairs trying to get away from Mouse? More than anything, people that are scared of Mouse are really scared of Mouse's power. This tiny animal is a great example of "small package contains big power".

I also read this on www.linsdomain.com:

Mouse medicine is both a great power and a great weakness.

It is good to pay attention to all details, but bad to over-analyze every little thing.

They will make the simplest task fraught with difficulty.

Everything must be in order in a Mouse's house.

Often, Mouse people are fearful of life. You should try to see the larger picture

Even if you live in a small house in Los Angeles,

you are also part of the Earth, galaxy and universe.

If a Mouse totem has recently entered your life,

ask yourself Have you become too focused on one or two activities

and neglecting opportunities around you?

Or are you trying to do too many things at the same time?

Mouse medicine can show how to focus

and how to attain the big things by working on the little things.

l have to admit, I found this all very useful. One could say I've been a bit too focused on my teeth, and all of the heavy connotations that they have had for me in the last nine months. (And all the things that I have convinced myself that are off limits because of them.) But maybe the beliefs that I hold on to so tightly aren't quite true, and slowly I'm starting to see that. More and more I've been smiling as an act of defiance, daring anyone to react to these braces, and as I've begun to forget about then, I've also noticed that less and less people are paying attention to them. Quite frankly, the braces are such a small part of what I could be paying attention to--and perhaps should be paying attention to. As I said in my last post, I'm feeling more and more of a need to make goals, and attain them, and though I'm not entirely sure how to go about that, at least I'm tilting my head in a different direction. Maybe this little mouse came around to quite literally shake me out of my slumber and start making things happen, even if it happens slowly but surely.

Thanks, Mouse, for the wisdom. Much appreciated. Now get the hell out of my kitchen so I can get some sleep!