Sunday, May 23, 2010

Is this Paris?

Mousie and Flippers found themselves in Paris on a very particular, peculiar day. It seems the Champs Elysees was turned from a boulevard roaring with cars and trucks into a colossal garden, full of things green and growing. There were forests and lawns, rows of peas and squash, and even a mouse-sized beach of sea salt. This being France, the first thing Flippers found was lavender - wonderful wonderful lavender. He had trouble staying awake after this photograph was taken:Mousie then found an olive tree. It was only a little olive tree but Mousie is only a little mousie so it was very big for him. He liked climbing it because he could finally see above the heads of the millions of people coming to see the new Paris park.And then he found some tomatoes. This was starting to make him a very hungry mouse - all of the perfect ingredients for a fabulous salad. Unfortunately nothing was quite ripe so Mousie had to be content with feeding his imagination...Then Flippers found something entirely unexpected - family! As is a well known fact, all spikey things are, of course, related. Since Flippers and pineapple are both also very sweet, they are, in fact, close cousins. It was a joyous reunion.Finally Mousie found his own private spa - a square meter of pure and natural French grey sea salt from Normandy. But the sun was very strong and Mouise quickly became thirsty so he and Flippers went off in search of water and instead found break-dancers. Now Mousie wants to learn how to break-dance.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Across the world and off again!

Mousie's backpacking trip with Basil the Bear went to Africa! Land of hippopotamouses and mousephants and wildemouses and rhinocermouses and the mousepanzee. Mousie so dearly wanted to see these amazing creatures, but alas, it was the dry season and Mousie was in the Gambia. There were lots of goats, and some cows, and chickens and donkeys, and one friendly baby antelope, but mostly what there was was a surfeit of peanuts. Mousie likes peanuts, but only so much. They are a distant relative, after all - Mousie has sometimes been classified as a nut. But back to the point, few beasts. There were also some birds, but most of them would have liked to eat Mouise so he stayed far away from them. (The day the vultures visited the village Mouise stayed curled up inside his sack inside his bag inside the backpack...)

So Mousie had to find amazing things to do, and boy were there amazing things to do! Lots of people calling him "Mousebab!" and wanting to know his name and wanting five Dalasi, but how Mousie could carry five Dalasi nobody knows. Lots of really noisy and bouncy and old and very large (for a mouse, not a person) buses to ride to other places. The mysterious, but delicious, Tapalapa and the Niebbe Sandwich (distant cousin of the muffaletta.) Lots of dusty paths to walk... There was no end to Mousie's scampering about. He even got some fabric and found a tailor to make him a mouse-sized Gambian shirt.Actually, Mousie is about to get dusty all over again, so he has postponed his bath until after he returns from his next adventure (on which he might visit a very old wall while avoiding crafty sand dunes and may meet a leprechaun who will give him a thimbleful of uisce beatha.)

Abaraka bake, shalom, and slainte.