Productive day

I'm feeling very productive today because I got all the laundry done. I may be single and work at home but it has been a month and I'm out of underwear. The mail man and the neighbors prefer me to be dressed when I go outside the house. I also did the dishes. Yes, I have a dishwasher but it doesn't load and unload itself, drat it!

I stripped the bed and made it with clean sheets and moved the bed so I could get to the books that fell off the bed and between the bed and the wall. You'd have to see the cramped little bedroom to understand. My queen size bed just fits in the niche with just enough room for books to fall behind the bed. It's a major undertaking just to make the bed, let alone excavate fallen books and magazines. And no, I didn't find any money. Drat again!

I have also spend a good part of the day doing some marketing -- that is writing marketing. I've been finding new places for old articles and stories and rewriting some ideas to slant them for other markets. I've also written another article for Writers Weekly, which will bring in a few dollars, and worked on some stories for Smithsonian magazine. Like I said, it's been a productive day.

I also spent some time discussing literature with my favorite Missourian whose mom and dad are my second and third favorite Missourians and listened to Beanie rail at me for not answering the phone when I was at a crucial part of writing. She can be such a brat at times. At least I called her back.

I usually like to take it easy on the weekends because Sunday night I bag up the trash and take it out so I don't have to do it early Monday morning. I also put out the mail that needs to go Monday (usually DVDs from Netflix). Tonight I will put out a brand new contract for another anthology and a promised article. I'm quite pleased with the finished result and I always enjoy breaking into new markets.

It's quiet right now. Even the mouse has decided not to run around tonight, probably since I've decided to stop putting her food in the trap she keeps ignoring while she dines. I cannot understand what is wrong with it. It was quite effective on my thumb when I breathed on it and it nearly snapped my big toe when I walked past it. Unfortunately, it does not seem quite so intent on trapping the mouse.

I have determined the mouse is a female. The other trap caught her mate quite handily, but then everyone knows that females are smarter and wilier and males let their greed overwhelm whatever common sense lurks in the dusty corners of their brains.

Nothing works. I've jimmied the trap, put down potato salad (she loved it, but in small bites), tahini (got stuck under the trigger and kept it from springing the trap), butter (it was the last little dab and I needed to clean the dish), pancakes and corn muffins, and even peanut butter (organic, of course). At first I thought she had abandoned me but then the peanut butter began disappearing a few nibbles at a time until the trap and trigger were licked clean and not a hint of peanut butter remained. A dust ball blew across the trigger when I swept the floor and the trap snapped shut. Mrs. Mouse has even drug the trap across the floor and wedged the wire mechanism under the stove so it wouldn't work even if she danced on the trigger. Like I said, it's a female mouse. No male would go to that much trouble.

In the meantime, while I contemplate how to rig the trap so it can't be moved and will finally evict the Mrs. Mouse, I'm going to take out the trash and mail, take a shower, and slip between clean sheets before it's time to rise and dimly glow for another week of work.

That is all. Disperse.