I started writing this post on Facebook as a quick update but then it just took on a life of its own. It’s a great little capsule of what daily life is like at Purgatory.

This morning I awoke with god awful cramps, took advil, soaked in the hot tub until I felt human, got dressed, checked the mouse trap and low and behold I had caught the newest invader who yesterday gave me quite a fright as I was searching for my mousemitt that I thought I had dropped it while walking the property with the tree service guy.

I should probably back up a bit: see we have to get some trees moved in preparation for the great wall project and this guy was recommended by the engineers. I retraced all my steps, even out to the stables (which last weekend and this is having the roof rebuilt/repaired but that will all be posted about on Purgatory).

By now you’re wondering what a mousemitt is: it’s basically a small glove like thing with padding that protects the underside of the wrist and thus prevents RSI/Carpal Tunnel issues. Having had such issues/pain in the past, I cannot say enough good things about them. (If you want to try them out yourself, hit up mousemitt.com.)

Anyway, the upshot of walking all over the property a second time is that I failed to find the missing mousemitt. So, there I was standing in my office casting about trying to think where else had I been; I popped my head into my booth (for those unaware I have a large 4’x6′ sound booth in one corner of my office) and while I didn’t see a mousemitt I did find one of my little plush animals on the floor of the booth. I thought, “well that’s odd” as yesterday that very same animal (a small purple unicorn) had been on the floor again. I have a few such stuffed toys in my booth as sometimes having them about is helpful to divert my focus/energy when performing. They sit in a little thing I made years ago out of an IKEA A-Frame wine rack.

So I put the little unicorn back in his little slot still thinking “well that’s odd, this guy was on the floor as well yesterday when I walked in here .” I then wiggled the frame about and then I pulled it from the wall and looked behind it. I gave a loud,short scream of surprise as sitting there on the wall was…a mouse. Now we don’t have deer mice (I was confused about that last week) but instead we have California Mice. They normally live outdoors, but the lure of free bird kibble means we occasionally have one scurrying about the house. They are territorial so we usually have just one and last week we thought we had caught that one. We emptied the humane trap it was in out by the stables, but there’s a good chance the little guy/girl found its way back. Side note: these guys are incredibly cute and when they run they bound about with a series of hopping movements that make them look like bouncing fluff balls.

In my booth there is a hole for an air vent that has a small fan attached, as during long recording periods it can get a bit warm. Of course said mouse made a b-line for the hole and was in vent. Rather than freak him/her out, I got a humane trap from the kitchen and just poked it into the vent hole. In the pic to the left you will see the vent hole up near the ceiling of the booth.& Then I returned to my desk and what did I find on the floor camouflaged by the dark rug underneath it….the missing mouse mitt of course.

Fast forward to this morning and here’s a shot of the invader before I released it.

I used a Sharpie to mark its tail prior to release and if it shows up in the house again we’ll have to take it farther away–like say up the well tank–to release it. As we realize that just like the feral cats, we now live in the country and we’re going to have live mice and bugs and spiders and snakes plus the occasional dead critter to deal with. While we could shoot, trap-to-kill and wreak other deaths upon the lifeforms here, we are trying to find harmony. It’s just not sanitary for a mouse to be sniffing about the bird cages plus it pisses the boys off no end. Then there is the matter of the food stashing–in the last six months I’ve found stashes in my desk drawers, file cabinets, behind books and even inside my sewing machine. They seem to just love the Harrisons Bird Food the boys eat–as do the wild birds–as any stashes I find I don’t toss in the garbage but instead toss outside so the natives can have a free snack.

So that is a pretty typical morning at Purgatory minus the whole waking up with awful cramps. But hey, I’m a girl…that happens. The rest of the morning was spent working on some web posts (like this one) calling contractors to come clean the crawl space under the house and ordering a few more of those humane mouse traps off Amazon. Then it was time for the daily chores: cleaning the kitchen, feeding the boys, tossing in a load of laundry (we only usually do one load a day since we’re on a septic system), answering emails and doing some work for my father’s company. Later today I have a list of things I want to get done, but like most lists I might get to 2 of the 20 things on it as something will happen to distract me…like a bird will hit my window and be too stunned to fend for itself. (Although sometimes they break their necks and die.)

That is a common thing here as we have a lot of windows–28 individual casements (not counting the exterior transom windows in two of the bathrooms) plus 6 sliding glass doors. To make that number even more insane….the north wing of the house has transom windows throughout the interior. Thankfully no birds collide with those although sometimes Tenar likes to get himself stuck in one.

And with all this window talk I failed to mention all the glass paned doors we have…There are 6 if you count the french doors that separate the north wing from the rest of the house. We have in fact almost no “normal” doors in this place–most of the others are either pocket doors or accordions and only the closets in AS’s office and the recently remodeled guest bath have “solid” doors and I must say compared with the rest of the ones in the house they feel kind of…meh and hollow. Thy agrees…

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Oh and to make that window number even more insane…I did’t count the windowed front doors or secondary kitchen door, the skylights, or anything in the Studio building. At some point I need to start the window cleaning cycle back up, but of late there have been so many other things to try to get done….

Here are some more shots of my booth: