Bentley smells a rat!

This didn't need to happen, oh no, not on an Easter Sunday morning when all you hope for is a cheery visit from a fluffy little bunny handing out candy eggs.

What I got was a rat.

I have never SEEN a rat before. I have had nothing to DO with a rat, ever. But there it was, hunched on top of my bird feeder, its snakelike tail drooping down, looking more dead than alive except for its skritchy little whiskers and trembling little nose.

I didn't want to think about an entire colony of rats living in the tool shed. So I told myself, over and over and over again, that there HAD to be just this one rat, this lethargic-looking thing that we could easily poison or snare in a trap, or, at very least, scare away.

Bentley was coping admirably. Though he was obviously traumatized, he dealt with the enormous stress in his usual courageous manner, by flopping over on his side and yawning. Bentley laughs at death.

The thought of an infestation in my house or even in my tool shed makes me want to move out. This was a HORRIBLE  creature, but it got worse, because later in the day while we were having a lovely, jolly barbecue in the back yard, this happened:

This. . . this THING came skulking beside the back fence and began skittering along at a dreadful pace.  My God - it was either the same rat, meaning that the rat would keep returning indefinitely, or. . .

It was a different rat.

"Maybe it's pregnant," my daughter-in-law said to me. OMG. Can't be happening. The grandgirls were screeching and whooping and wanting to adopt it, insisting it was "cute".

This is the same creature who brought Europe to its knees during the medieval plagues. NOT cute.

As a family, we will survive. We've surmounted many a disaster up to now. That absolutely does NOT mean we'll surmount this one. In fact, by the law of averages, our survival is about to collapse like a house of cards.

Oh God, I cannot look at this gif much longer or I will become ill. And yet, I cannot let it go. The hellish sight of  vile scampering vermin will be with me forever.

Thanks for the Memory

Thanks for the memory
Of rainy afternoons, swingy Harlem tunes
Motor trips and burning lips and burning toast and prunes
How lovely it was

Thanks for the memory
Of candlelight and wine, castles on the Rhine
The Parthenon, and moments on the Hudson River line
How lovely it was

Many's the time that we feasted
And many's the time that we fasted
Oh well, it was swell while it lasted
We did have fun, and no harm done

So thanks for the memory
Of crap games on the floor, nights in Singapore
You might have been a headache, but you never were a bore
I thank you so much

Thanks for the memory
Of China's funny walls, transatlantic calls
That weekend at Niagara when we hardly saw the falls
How lovely that was

Thanks for the memory
Of lunch from twelve to four, sunburn at the shore
That pair of gay pajamas that you bought and never wore
Say, by the way, what did happen to those pajamas?

Letters with sweet little secrets
That couldn't be put in a day wire
Too bad it all had to go haywire
That's life, I guess
I love. . . your dress

Do you?

It's pretty.

Thanks. . . for the memory
Of faults that you forgave, rainbows on a wave
And stockings in the basin when a fellow needs a shave
I thank you so much

Thanks for the memory
Of Gardens at Versailles, and beef and kidney pie
The night you worked and then came home with lipstick on your tie
How lovely that was

Thanks for the memory
Of lingerie with lace, and Pilsner by the case
And how I jumped the day you trumped my one and only ace
How lovely that was

We said goodbye with a highball
And I got as high as a steeple
But we were intelligent people
No tears, no fuss, hooray for us

Strictly entre nous, darling, how are you?
And how are all those little dreams that never did come true?
Awfully glad I met you, cheerio, toodle-oo
Thank you.

Thank you.

Black cat blues

The Modern Kitchen

NOTE. I don't know what year this little educational gem came out - the tags on it say 1950s, but I think it was much longer ago than that. Just the idea that boiling water in a glass container is revolutionary dates it to the '40s or even 1930s. But what really places it in time for me is the background music, a song called You Took the Words Right Out of My Heart, which appeared in a movie called The Big Broadcast of 1938 (Bob Hope's first film, and the first appearance of Thanks for the Memory - I might do another post on that one because the lyrics are so great).

Bentley beauty shot