The world is cruel.

So... I could try to make this post sarcastic and funny like our other posts.

But some things aren't funny, and you can't make them funny. Even if I exaggerate and be borderline sarcastic, the bottom line isn't really funny.

By now you probably know there's bad news. You're probably guessing that something happened to the mice. Like they were in Marie's basement or garage or whatever, and one day, they weren't where they belonged, and they ran away, and haven't been found, and they couldn't live this long out there, and we'll probably never see them again.

Yeah.

We had so many great dreams. We were going to make videos and be all scientific and have a project binder and get extra credit in our biology classes. And the mice were going to have a good life and get peanut butter and the end of the maze with our special jar contraption. And we were going to write up status reports and take pictures and it was going to be so cool.

But then? Our dreams died with the mice.

It may not seem like much of a deal. I mean, it's only mice. We can get new mice. We can still take pictures and write reports. The maze is still there.

Sigh... those poor mice. They were destined for so much, but none of it came to be. One never even had a name. Someday they'll be completely forgotten.

It's sad, really, how all these plans could be destroyed so easily.

Project Mouse Maze is discontinued, for now at least. We'll post updates if we start it up again. Thanks everyone.

~Wendy

No-Name Is Diagnosed With ADHD

soooo, it's been a while, eh??? but i'm back.... :)

Yesterday I cleaned the mouse's cage. While I was cleaning their cage, I had Bambina and No-Name in a tall, green bucket in the yard while I washed out their glass cage; which was plastered with wet shavings, shredded cardboard tubes, and mouse food, among other things. The mice have this very very VERY ANNOYING HABIT of running around their cage like maniacs in the middle of the night, dumping their food and water and chewing holes through their cardboard play tubes. So I have to clean their cage like ALL THE TIME.... and it gets really annoying. Like, really.

Anyways, while I cleaning the cage, the mice were running around in their green bucket. I had my back turned and the second I looked away, my dog Sally came asniffin' (yes, that really is a word) and stuck her head in the bucket, trying to eat the mice. LUCKILY, I saw her. Then I screamed. And then, I threw dirt at her. She ran away, of course, and the mice were fine. But it was a close call.

So, anyways, I made an observation that day... I believe No-Name has ADHD. I'm serious. Once I put the mice back in their clean cage, No-Name ran around the whole cage for like twenty minutes. In tubes. Out of tubes. In circles. Over Bambina. Under Bambina. Across the wheel. Around the wheel. You get the point.

All this time Bambina was just sitting in the corner looking bewildered. Then about halfway through No-Name's great escapade, she crawled into her little cardboard hut and went to sleep.

Later that day, I had the mice on my couch; Bambina was in my lap, No-Name was running insanely back and forth across the top of the couch. So yeah, I don't think they sell pills of that sort for mice. But if they did, I would buy her some....

Well...

I discovered a flaw in my fabulous duct tape plan.

We have to take out the bottle sometimes.

Thankfully, there's plenty of pretty fresh water in the bottle so I can just leave that up to Marie. Which is my second point.

Um, Marie? I'll be gone. Like, all this week. Like, the mice won't have a caretaker. Like, I need to give them back.

Just so you know.

~Wendy

Duct tape and laziness

The mice have a water bottle in their cage, one of those pet ones that hangs upside-down. Recently whatever was holding it up kept breaking, so the water bottle would fall down. And then the mice couldn't get water. That was kind of sad. Nobody died, though, which was a plus.

Anyway, I decided to put an end to this problem with... duct tape. I made an elaborate water-bottle-holder and installed it in the mouse cage. It may not look nice, but I can assure you that that water bottle is not going to fall down. I was totally going to post a picture of it too, but I'm too lazy. You can imagine the Wonders of Duct Tape in Holding Up Water Bottles.

Another problem has been that the little hamster wheel (er, mouse wheel) keeps getting stuck in the little wood shavings on the bottom of the cage. Then poor little Not-Named-Yet, who is so fond of running in it, cannot run. The last time I checked on them Not-Named-Yet was attempting to exercise by chasing her tail in circles. It made me feel kind of sad, but I don't think duct tape would have helped.

~Wendy

In which the mice visit a rabbit and stay still for the camera

Earlier this week I brought the mice to my house for a visit. The other day I walked into the garage and found them asleep.

The garage is also where my rabbit happens to live. I wonder what she thought about the new additions. None of them are telling me much.

Mice are interesting pets. They are totally adorable, but thought of as pests. They don't take as much care as a bird (I have birds, I would know), plus they don't chew on your earrings (ARGH SAMMY LET GO) and annoying things like that.

We still need a name for little Not-Named-Yet. I was definitely going to get some adorable picture of her so that could help with the naming process, but every single one was really blurry. And I'm pretty sure it's not just my camera. In fact, I'm pretty sure that the only time those two mice stay still is when they're asleep.

I'll show you the pictures anyway, so you can see for yourself. And please refrain from making comments relating to the cleanliness (or lack thereof) of our garage.

  

Life's not fair, or, a departure from the topic of mice (except not really)

Marie has these mice at her house, two of them, Bambina and Not-Named-Yet. And then she also has our whole maze at her house too. And me? I just have me. That's why she has so much more content to blog about. (Don't get me wrong, I promise I'm not bitter about this.) See, PETA doesn't come to my house to investigate attempted mouse starvation.

So I could decide, hey, I just want to blog. I could talk about learning Seussical music on the piano or our lemon cookies on the counter or even how I've been reading my old notebooks full of randomness and they are hilarious.

But then that wouldn't fit with the blog. And blogs are usually centered around one thing (and often this one thing is the random ramblings of the blog author, but whatever), which is, in this case, mice. Particularly Bambina and Not-Named-Yet.

So I have to be creative. Like putting random photos with captions or introducing a stuffed monkey. Or talking about how I don't know what to talk about.

Which is all ok.

But usually somewhere in my ramblings about not knowing what to blog about I get some random idea. Which is, in this case, to name our unnamed mouse. Because really, it would be sad to go through life only referred to as Not-Named-Yet.

When Marie and I started naming the mice, we decided almost right away that they should have Italian names. Giuliano was an instant choice but unfortunately we can't use it because both of our mice are girls. Bambina was chosen from a narrowing-down of sorts, starting with this list. Which is where we will start again.

Now, I'm feeling kind of lazy today, so instead of actually picking some favorites I will let our massive group of loyal readers do it. Yup. That means you. Find some favorite Italian names, ones that would fit mice, especially these mice.

And if you don't feel like it, then just remember poor little Not-Named-Yet and that you're doing this for her.

-Wendy

The Mice Do the Maze and PETA [almost] Comes Asniffin'

Today was the mice's first time running the maze. They actually did pretty well for their first time; it took them only ten minutes total to find their way out :D No, actually I got pretty bored of them running into dead ends all the time so I blocked off all the side paths so that it was just one straight path to the end of the maze. Then I had them run it and as soon as they got to the end, I removed the mice and put them back in their cage.

I actually Googled "Mouse Maze Projects" and it came up with a few interesting articles on mouse mazes and some random bits of advice on how to successfully do them. One guy said it is nearly impossible to train the mice to run the maze unless you starve them so that they will make an attempt to get to the end of the maze where you give them food as a reward. I thought it sounded like a pretty good idea, seeing how our mice are so lazy but I think PETA would highly disapprove. Oh well, they're all a bunch of fluffheads anyways.

Speaking of PETA, I once saw a truck with the bumpersticker PETA: People Eat Tasty Animals. It was pretty funny :) Oh and next to it there were a bunch of NRA and Ducks Unlimited stickers. Another thing, the dude driving the truck was this giant woodsman-looking guy wearing camo and a giant beard, I laughed really hard.

Buuuuuut, anyways, back to mice. As everybody knows, today was really really really really really really really really HOT. The mice were in the garage, on shelf, in a stuffy little cage surrounded by gardening tools. I thought, "Ya know what, I would really hate to be a mouse right now." So I took their cage and smuggled them into the basement where it is really cold. Without telling my mom. Obviously. So, yeah, the things kids get away with these days...

They did seem happier, though, once they were out of the heat :)

Oh, and another thing about them being in the garage... our three cats, Tuffy, Trixie and Callie, kept trying to eat them...

<------especially my cat, Callie. Every morning I find her sitting on top of their cage, watching them. I think that I would find that very disturbing if I were a mouse. Bambina and Not-Named-Yet don't seem to mind, however. I was just worried that the wire lid might break someday and that would be the end of the mice...

Speaking of which, our dog Sally was also very interested in devouring our testing subjects and at one point she sat watching them run the maze while whining and licking her lips like the Big Bad Wolf Who Ate Red Riding Hood's Grandmother. So out went the dog with a, "Sorry Sally, no mice for you today and if you really are so hungry go catch yourself a rabbit." Yes, we are very kind to our animals.

The other day, my older brother saw Emille and I playing with the mice and he was like, "Ew, where did you get those?"

I was like, "From the pet store, they're for our maze."

I held one up for him to look at and he was like, "You know what, I really would love them if their tails weren't so long."

HAHAHAHA!!!! HE EVEN SAID LOVE!!!! Well, that really did catch me off guard because normally my brother hates rodents, so I just let the comment pass, labeling it as "Said-Without-Thought." Brothers really are interesting creatures...

So yeah, this is the latest new from the Project Mouse Maze Headquarters. Marie M., signing out... So short for now!!!!

-marie