Cosmic Bubbles

Terro cards in the kitchen and mice running the lath, ahhh…two signs that spring is in full force around here. At least the terro is doing it’s job. There is now a daily engorgement circled ’round the sweet viscous drop of poison rather than ants running rampant in the cabinets and on the counters. I cleared all the food from the cabinets and switched it with the dishware that was in a freestanding cabinet, which probably helped, too. I decided to check out the terro website and learned something new. It’s nice to learn something new everyday, isn’t it?  I learned that collections of dead ants are called midden piles, the dead ants that have been removed from the main colony. I’m happy that the terro, as opposed to tarot, is working for the kitchen ant problem.

Freestanding furniture seems to help with both the ant and mice problem. The mice run inside the walls at night and I recently found evidence of them eating soap bars in the single closet in the house, in the bathroom. Some of these soaps I have had a while, they are my single personal pleasure leftover from my previous life. I have some favorite soaps, like lily of the valley, and seaweed soap, orange, lemon, lavender, jasmine and patchouli are good too. Vetiver and patchouli are really nice earthy scents that I like in perfumes, too. These are good-for-the-soul scents.

The mouse seemed to have a favorite as well since it really went after the gardener’s soap. There is probably honey in it. Chew marks won’t prevent my using the rest of the bar though, it’s a good bar of soap I got from Cincinnati’s Summerfair last time I attended. I used to get my yearly soap supply from such events. Now that I don’t get to go anymore I am glad I overbought when I could afford it. The bath has always been my little sanctuary, a little spiritual rest and relaxation in each day. There are times I wish I would have purchased infused oils and stockpiled those because those make baths special, too. Of course the day my water turned a wine color was special, but I think that had to do more with the city water service than with anything spiritual, soothing or special.

As I have said, my life is much different nowadays and the only womanly pampering I get is self-given, so I need to be creative. There hasn’t been anything else in my life to make me feel like a woman for years but for daily chores. And now that I have terro in the kitchen ant hunts are confined to smaller areas, so I can have cleaner counters again. I know ants just have their jobs to do too, but I prefer not having ants and mice droppings in my kitchen OR bathroom. I guess it’s something that comes with city living and delapidated-to-the-point-of-falling-down houses.

You know, once upon a time I actually HAD a pet mouse,  and that was before I was ever married with children. It was in the disco days when I lived in Cincinnati and later moved to Cleveland that I worked at a place called the Mad Hatter, and my mouse used to go there with me for an occasional night out. It’s funny I got away with having a mouse in a place like that, but who would’ve noticed anyway but for the people I would show him to. I called him Buio. Some of my male friends would put him in their pocket and scare women, which I thought it was a strange pick-up line, but my having a mouse probably was a little strange as well. Nowadays, I prefer the mice live outside and the cat doesn’t bring any in to play with.

Back to the tarot part of the post though, my mom and sister used tarot cards a lot years ago, and I dabbled a few times just to see how close they came to real life, like the daily horoscopes. I have a couple of decks of the cards someplace, which I have often thought of displaying as art, but, until I have a finished wall there really is no sense in getting anything else out. I have plenty of art with no place to display it now. I do have fond memories of my mother and her tarot cards though…something she did just to amuse herself. I could use some amusing myself. I have a couple of collages and anagrams that I did within the past couple of days that were not posted, so I may as well get those together for a post. Now, as to whether anyone reads it or not…