Today has been a day of mixed emotions. For the bad news, which is really more life affecting than the good news, Scarlette has died. The good news is that my mother and I brought a new pet into our lives, Tootles the mouse.

For almost fifteen years, our beloved Subaru has speedily rolled the highways of Ontario, Quebec and New York State, providing us an enjoyable, secure, very manual ride. Only in the last year has she suffered the effects of age and giving me a little more grief than I was accustomed to. I came of age in this car. I learned to drive at her wheel. I've gotten her stuck places, gotten in trouble in her... My first (and, so far, only,) speeding ticket was had on the 115 to Peterborough on one of those hills where you just don't see it coming. I think I'd been doing about 40 over the limit at the time. Right up at the end, driving along the 401 last night, I was doing about 135 in the left hand lane through Whitby when she politely informed me that something was wrong with a bad smell and the heater going dead. I knew at the side of the road, even before the tow-truck driver arrived, this time was different. There was an appology in the way she died, still with enough kick in her battery to provide me with music while I waited.

Today, when the garage called and said that she was going to need a major repair, the mechanic suggesting to my mom that it probably wasn't worth it, I wasn't surprised. He wished this had happened before I had her outfitted with new tires, and I have to agree there, but it had to happen sooner or later. In my two years and a bit of having her all to myself, I became even more attached. Everyone that knows me knows I love my Scarlette. It's not surprising that I cried. I love my car. She has become an extension of me. I drove her to the barn and back so that she reeked for years of horses. I packed her up full for trips to and from the cottage. Only last week I was loading and unloading hundreds of stakes and signs following the election. In fact, I was planning to touch up her rust spots with paint and vaccuum her out sometime this week.

I only wish she were small enough to be burried in the garden like Placi was. I love my car.

So, on now to the happier news, albeit news of much smaller stature. Tootles the mouse entered our lives when Mom went down into the furnace room to prepare it for a visit by the furnace man. This small ball of fur with a short fieldmouse tail came tootling (hence the name) right up to her. When the furnace man arrived, the mouse was still darting about, obviously trapped in the room. It probably got in through the fieldstone foundation and slid down the sheer concrete walls, unable to climb back out. The furnace man, apparently unable to work with a loose mouse in the room with him, covered the tame little thing with a bucket. When he and Mom were settling up after he'd finished his job, he jokingly said, "Well, now all you have to do is put it in a cage and start feeding it."

Our intention had been to put it out in the back compost heap where there would be tasty things to eat all winter and lots of warm shelter (yes, it really is THAT cute a mouse). We certainly weren't interested in killing it. Then I said as Mom and I discussed how to procede with Operation Mouse, "It's nice. We'll put it out and then Chester can eat it." Moments later, Mom had left, heading straight for the pet store in order to buy a small rodent cage. I watched the mouse in the bucket as it enjoyed the muslix we'd provided for it and as soon as Mom returned with the cage, we set about making a home for the little thing.

It has died and gone to heaven, at least metaphorically. I has alternated in sleeping in its food dish, eating its food, tootling about the cage exploring everything, and scratching itself on top of its little wooden house. Willi is utterly spellbound by Tootles and has approached the cage from many angles including sitting down upon it. Tootles, for its part (we haven't sexed it yet) pays Willi almost no heed whatsoever and even deigns to fall asleep right in front of Willi's nose. So, anyway, Tootles the mouse is a lovely addition to my mother's house, where it will remain and hopefully live out a long and mousy life full of seeds, clean shavings, and security.