A Mouse for Mousie.

Mouses are everywhere! There are city mouses and field mouses, sewer mouses (eeew...) and jungle mouses, door mouses and church mouses, and sugar mouses, marzipan mouses and chocolate mouses! Mmmm, chocolate mouses! Mousie had never met a chocolate mouse until he went to Burdick's in Boston. There he came nose-to-whiskers with tiny chocolate mouses galore! (...as well as a delightfully cheeky little penguin...but that's a different story.) A little white mouse with almond ears and a purple tail wanted to follow Mousie on mini-mouse-ventures. He looked up to Mousie and tickled Mousie and wrestled with Mousie, and Mousie was very happy to have a mousy friend (he has so many friends of other fuzzy species already, but no other mouses...) But unfortunately, this story has a plaid ending: mini-mousie melted!

Is a Mouse a Type of Fruit?

Autumn is harvest time, when all creatures - large as a house or small as a mousie - enjoy Mother Nature's fruits to the fullest. Sometimes the fruits are so good it is hard to stop eating them. Sometimes they're so fantastically delicious that we just want to become them so we, too, might be so plump, juicy and radiant, and praised, admired, and desired.

Mousie went on a harvest this weekend. Admittedly, he had some help - the fruits were not just amazing, they were bigger than him! For as much as a house-mousie as he may be, Mousie does so enjoy scampering up and down trees - balancing on tiny branches, being tickled by leaves, and chattering with the goofy and perplexing ants. And the trees are so full of deliciousness! Enough to feed Mousie silly for years! But the fruit is also so very pretty, resplendent in the colors of ripeness and sweetness. Even though the day was chilly and grey, Mousie felt warm and cozy when he found this Ginger Gold apple. But when Mousie found a tree full of peaches, he went just a little nutty (which certainly amused the squirrels...) There were so many peaches! And they were so ripe and fuzzy and glowing! Just look at this one:And then Mousie found a branch of peaches that seemed to have something missing. Or rather, this particular branch seemed to be waiting for something. And, in this moment, Mousie lived the dream. He became, if only for a moment, a peach - fuzzy and wonderful and totally happy.

Summer Hugs

Summer is the season for many things. Most especially it is the season for frolicking outside and eating outside and being silly outside. The important word here would rightly seem to be "outside." Going on adventures to seek friends and smells and treasure of all kinds, outside. Summer is Mousie's favorite time of year, along with autumn, winter, and spring, but we'll get to those in due course. For now, let's talk about summer.

What does summer bring?

No, I'm not talking about bugs or thunderstorms or sweltering heat - these only happen occasionally and usually can be avoided, especially by a resourceful mouse.

Foods? Mmmmm - fresh peaches and cherries and melons and nectarines and blueberries and strawberries! Oooo, strawberries - they even taste like summer, which really actually tastes like cotton candy. Mousie loves strawberries. They're just the right size to hug! So Mousie went on an adventure and found the perfect gem of a strawberry, hidden in what else but a leafy strawberry bush. And he hugged it.

Mousecafé

One of Mousie's favorite things is to sit in a café, watching the world go by, nibbling a sugar crystal or a crumb of cheese or some crusty bread - or sometimes indulging his secret love of coffee. Mousie has to be a bit careful with coffee because a caffeinated mouse is a very crazy thing, indeed, and Mousie doesn't want to scare the other guests at the café (who are often very surprised and amused to see Mousie at the café in the first place) and does want to be able to sleep at night! So he gets the smallest coffee he can find, which is invariably espresso and also invariably still much too big! It also has the benefit of coming in a mouse-sized cup that Mousie can hug if the weather turns a little chilly. Mousie likes that coffee is all of the things he is not - it is big and dark and aggressive and abrasive, smoky and hot, a little intimidating, and an acquired taste. It gives him courage to tackle the rest of the day.

Reuben the Sandwich

True to form, Mousie went out one day and found another giant food. In fact, it turned out to be another sandwich. (Mousie has started to wonder whether to be a sandwich one must also be HUGE...) This sandwich's name was Reuben. And Reuben is a truly beautiful sandwich - warm and juicy, crispy where important and delicate and plush where delicious. Reuben's only problem is being simply too big. And wherever Reuben goes, the potato salad, pickle, and cookie follow. Mousie was overwhelmed. And then very very full. And then very happy and very sleepy! Mousie thinks that once a year is about the most often he could ever visit the house of Reuben, despite wishing he could go every week!

Mousie's Wheel

Mousie gets lots of exercise scampering around the neighborhood and the planet so he has no need for a typical "hamster wheel." (Hamsters, unlike Mousie, are generally lazy and need the exercise.) Instead, Mousie likes to use a different kind of wheel when he goes on adventures with Sven the Volvo. Sven is friendly and capacious and comfortable and likes being tickled by Mousie's little paws as Mousie points him in the right direction. And when Mousie gets tired he can curl up and let autopilot take over, safe and comfy in the knowledge that Sven will carry him safely to the stars and back.

Sandy Mouse

Mousie is often skeptical of the supposed pleasures of going to the beach. For so small a mouse it is so far across the hot, rough sand to the water - even on the narrowest beach! And once he gets to the water he usually realizes he doesn't particularly like being wet and even the smallest waves send him soaked and sprawling. And his fuzz gets matted and he has to go take a bath to feel himself again... As if these issues weren't challenging enough, there is the ever-present seagull problem. They think Mousie looks like a tasty mouse - an understandable mistake given their severely limited intelligence and extreme, indiscriminate gluttony!

So right now you're thinking, "Why would Mousie, or I, for that matter, ever go to the beach?!" Your reasoning is your own, but in Mousie's case he indulges his love of basking in the tropical sun by taking full advantage of his own portability and the protective presence of larger benevolent creatures known as humans - strange as they may be. In short, he hitches a ride, comme d'habitude.