forever?

Because it does to me, and I’m a little worried about my introduction to society next week.

But there are things that are certainly helping it along.

Like yesterday, in the middle of the day, just as I’d posted my concerns about our cat Nicki being a failure as a mouser, a MOUSE RAN ACROSS THE LIVING ROOM FLOOR, in broad daylight! and Nicki just sat there, sleeping.

My daughter and I did the customary “Eek! A mouse!” shriek and climbed onto the sofa so that the mouse wouldn’t attack us, and Young Ladrinka, summoned by our screams, ran into the room, demanding to be told what was going on. We told him that the mouse ran under the sofa (of course we had no idea where the mouse ran, but under the sofa seemed mousesish) and Young Ladrinka grabbed Nicki and started to try to shove her under the couch, so that she could do what God intended cats to do.

Unfortunately, Nicki wasn’t interested, so Young Ladrinka came up with an idea of getting a piece of cheese and sticking it under the sofa so that Nicki would pursue it (or that the mouse could have brunch) and I had to be the big bad meanie and say that NO CHEESE UNDER THE SOFA.

And then, as Nicki popped an Ambien so that she could resume her so-rudely interrupted catnap, I did the only thing I could think to do and called mama to complain, once again, that Nicki was a complete failure in the mousing department.

Oh, you should have heard mama defending Nicki. She was like Nicki’s personal Dream Team.

First, she suggested that Nicki wasn’t really sleeping when the mouse ran right under her stupid pink nose, but was rather “pretending to sleep” as part of a cat-and-mouse game. I had several problems with this, starting with the fact that Nicki is no Meryl Streep and ending with the fact that Nicki was snoring while the mouse was running around.

Then, mama suggested that Nicki injured the mouse during the night and the mouse was therefore disoriented and was out in the middle of the day because..I guess he was looking to get medical attention or something. I don’t know. I had to cruelly reject that theory too, because the mouth seemed in the height of health and was practically carrying a yoga mat with him.

Finally, mama told me that she thinks that Nicki had this mega one-on, one-off strategy, whereby she’d chase the mouse one night and then take the day off, thereby giving the mouse a false sense of security, only to pounce on the mouse and destroy him in the next 48 to 72 hours. A Shock and Awe, if you will.

I don’t know. I think Nicki may be some kind of pacifist vegetarian.

The other problem that I’m having, and I apologize that I can only write about in the vaguest terms, is that we are having a sort of a dispute with some other parties, who for once are not related to us, and when we talked at dinner about the best way to handle it, Young Ladrinka came up with “let’s kill them!” And although it was obviously a joke, boys will be boys, you know, Husbandrinka could not stop himself from saying, “this is America, son, and we resolve disputes in the court of law.” I swear, he talks like that. And so I said, “yes, but don’t forget that you’re Italian American, honey, so, wink, wink, let’s keep Young Ladrinka’s plan in our back pocket!” and he got super offended because he doesn’t think it’s funny to make mafia Italian-American jokes.

So I won’t.

Today is Nicki’s birthday. She’s two, which is like two and a half in cat years. I never understood that “dog years” nonsense.

And when I say “birthday” I’m estimating because the orphanage didn’t keep good records. When we adopted her they told us that she was about six months old. Come to think of it, they told us a lot of things, but they forgot to mention that she had fleas. I don’t know how old they were. Our kids did some calculations and came up with August 31st as her birthday.

Last night I got an email from my friend P.K. who said that she tried to leave a message on Nicki’s Facebook page only to find that it was gone. She was alarmed. So I asked my daughter what happened to it and she said that Facebook suspended Nicki for … I’m not sure exactly what, my daughter thinks “not updating her account often enough.” Which doesn’t sound right to me. So then I emailed P.K. back and asked what the hell was she going to post on Nicki’s wall and she never got back to me. I can only assume that she’s now following Nicki on Twitter and communicating with her that way. Get it? CommuniCATing. (I’m sorry. It’s been a long vacation).

Okay, back to Nicki.
We are now at the dacha (my parents’ house upstate) and last night as I was sleeping and dreaming of a better tomorrow, I heard Nicki running around in our room. I turned on the flashlight just in time to see a mouse run by and wave to me, with Nicki in hot pursuit.

Obviously this was one of those life or death situation, so I woke up Husbandrinka. Now, in case you ever wondered, Husbandrinka is the rare type of man who does not enjoy being woken up at night, even to be told that there’s a mouse in the room. He thought that we should just let Nicki take care of it because “she’s the cat.”

A little Third Reich, if you ask me.

“You know that once she kills it, she’s going to put it on our bed, right?” I asked him. Because if I’m not sleeping, neither is anyone else.

And Husbandrinka said, “Don’t tell me these things as I’m trying to sleep!”
My protector, ladies and gentlemen.

The bad news is that there was no mouse on our bed and I must assume that the mouse, like the hills, is still alive.

I called Mama with this tragic news in the morning.
“I think Nicki is special,” I tried to be politically correct.
“What special, you’re special,” mama said. Mama seemed to think that Nicki was playing with the mouse.
“Why would she play with the mouse?” I asked.
“Because it’s fun for cats. It’s like that thing before sex. Foresex.”
“Do you mean foreplay?” I asked, waves of nausea washing over me.
“Exactly. They play, then she kills.” (Incidentally, this is why you should never talk to your parents about sex.)
“That doesn’t sound right to me,” I said. Because in my mind, the cat is a ninja-like assassin who doesn’t have time for these cat and mouse games.

Oh.