Paging Dr. Sacks

I'll get back to the Christmas ornaments in a minute, but first I have to share the latest developments in AssyVacitude.

Last year (in one of my best posts ever, if I do say so myself), I mentioned a little something I found stashed in the attic with my Christmas decorations. Little somethings, actually. These:

Sparkle guessed correctly that they were year-old Christmas puddings, and there was much discussion in the comment section regarding whether or not said puddings were still edible. Johnny and I and Nana said yes, pretty much everyone else said OH MY GOD, NO, and Jean at Renovation Therapy (who was then I Love Upstate) said she'd eat it if I sent one to her. So I did.

She ate hers and survived. But Johnny and I never did get around to eating ours, because we had a little medical emergency on Christmas Day that distracted us. We were going to eat it on Kings' Day, but we forgot, and so all year, in the back of my mind, I've been gleefully anticipating re-introducing the now-two-year-old Christmas Pudding and finally putting some of it in my mouth. Yum!

In fact, I tried to talk Johnny out of making pudding this year, because we still had this one and I figured if we hadn't cracked it for two years, we probably didn't need another seven of them kicking around. But he insisted. So we made the damno-puddings, sent a couple of them off to Ireland, and now we only have this many left kicking around:

One Friend says she'll try it when she comes in January, but not until after the conference that she's coming up to attend. Because, even fresh, she doesn't really trust it not to make her die.

So anyway, a few days ago, I got up at god-awful o'clock a.m. like I always do, and as I was walking to my office I saw Dodo sitting at attention on the bathroom floor. The boy cat. Now, don't get me wrong, he's really dumb, but he's not usually dumb enough to park himself on the tile on the coldest night of the year. "What's up, Dodo?" I asked him, but he said "Don't bother me. I'm... I'm thinking."

Thinking? Ha! This cat doesn't think. The only time this cat does anything even close to thinking is when he's in pursuit of a mouse. At which point he goes all Rain Man on us. Once, a few apartments ago, he actually sat sentry on a pair of pants for seven hours because he'd chased a mouse into the leg. Got 'im, too, when he came out. I'm telling you, this cat is an idiot on most days, but he is a savant when it comes to--

Oh.

I'm putting two and two together now, but the other morning (god-awful o'clock, remember) I didn't get it until I heard the nibbling. It was coming from the bathroom ceiling, and it stopped when I walked in. At which point Dodo looked at me and said "Would you ever fuck off? You're spooking the horses!"

"Sorry, dude," I said, backing away on tiptoe. "But I don't think you're going to get 'em. They're in the ceiling, man."

"Do I tell you how to write?"

"Well, no. But that's cuz you're a--"

"Exactly. So you just go into your little office and you make your little jokes, and I'll bring the bastard to you when he's finished. Yeah?"

"Yeah. Jeez. Sorry."

But he never brought 'im. Because (ahem) the bastard was in the ceiling. Of which I had proof positive when I went up the attic to fetch the Christmas decorations and discovered a chewed-open bag of flour on the stairs (we had no room in the cupboard so we put it on the attic stairs; so what?). Then I found the chewed-open bag of popcorn for the tree.

Now, I do not generally concern myself with mice. Spiders? Yes. Earwigs? Oh my god. Snakes? Well, they're not generally a problem in houses around here. Cockroaches and miller moths and other insectivorae? Yeesh. But mice I can take or leave. They don't bother me. The cats keep them out of the kitchen, and I don't so much mind if they pass a chilly winter in my attic. I don't have to keep the flour up there, and the popcorn was never intended for human consumption, anyway.

But then, tragically, I found this:

It still smells good -- it still smells great, in fact. See? Smell it!

But I don't know how long it's been open, or who might have been crawling in around. So I dasn't cut off the chewed-up bit and eat it anyway -- which was, I admit, my first inclination.

So now I'm considering shutting Dodo in the attic for a while. Just for a day or so, while it's still warm out. I'd put a dish of water up there for him, and a litterbox and all, but maybe I wouldn't give him any food. Let him fend for himself, if you know what I'm saying, tooth and claw. The more I think about it, the better the idea sounds. I will, of course, have to wait for the next Awakening, however, because by now he's totally checked out.

Either way, I guess it's a good thing we made those extra puddings after all.

Did sum-bud-dee say pud-ding?