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

For the sake of random photos

You know what, I really enjoy when people put photos on their blogs. So today I'm going to just stick a bunch of photos in a post. Just because. I like photos.

Oh! The dramaticness! The intensity! Except not really!

I have an idea! Let's lay out all our tools and take a random picture!

I got my foot in the lower left corner there... gotta love those socks.

You would not believe how many blurry "saw" pictures we got.

A mouse's eye view of the maze. Possibly our most boring picture.

-Wendy

A note about our great herd of followers that we don't have, stuffed dormice, and a letter to the president

So I was thinking (a dangerous thing to do if you are Marie), and I decided that it would really help if we actually had some people to follow our blog. But we don't. Sad. So, if you are reading this and your name is not Wendy or Marie, you should follow us. I'm not kidding. And you should also get your friends to follow our blog because, ummm, because you should. Oh, and because when we become famous, world renowned scientists, you can say you followed us on Google Blogger.

Besides, mice are like totally awesome!!!

Really. They are. I'm not lying. By the way, did you know lying is a sin? It is. So don't do that. Lying, I mean. It's bad and you shouldn't do it or else you might go to the hot pla-

Wait, how is lying related to mice? Hmmm, wonder how I got on that subject...

Anyways, I've always thought that Three Blind Mice poem was really weird. Like, really, who sits around and writes poems about mice running around and having their tails chopped off? That's just sick. I mean, the tails would probably wiggle around on the floor after you chopped them off... SO GROSS!!!!

My little sister just read that bit about chopping tails off while she was spying over my shoulder. She ran out of the room screaming. Just kidding. She was like, "Marie, that is so weird, what are you writing, anyways?" I told her it was a letter to the president. She was quite impressed.

The other day when I was looking through my grandmother's hundred-year-old cookbook, I saw a recipe for stuffed dormouse. I still can't figure out whether it contained live mice or not but it seemed to be some sort of stuffing put inside a crepeish sort of thing and shaped like a mouse; ears eyes, nose and the whole bit. I wonder if you're supposed to de-bone the mice first??? It seems like that would be rather hard, don't you think??? In any case, it looked rather unappetizing and I don't see how anybody even came up with the recipe in the first place.

By the way, have you heard the one about the mouse crossing the road???

Dude 1: "Why did the mouse cross the road?"

Dude 2: "I dunno."

Dude 1: "Because it was taped to the chicken!!!!"

Both: "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!"

Dude 2: "Wait, why is that funny?"

Dude 1: "I dunno... Hey!!! Have you heard the one about the mouse who crossed the road?"

Dude 2: "Naw, tell me!!!"

So, yeah, you get the point. It is a pretty good joke. If you're a dude 1 or dude 2. If you're not, then you might as well have not read that because you just completely wasted your time. Oh, excuse me, I have to go eat a biscuit. So long for now!!!!

-Marie

Ps. Why do people say 'so long for now' anyways? Why don't they say 'so short for now'? Perhaps I am the first human being on earth to think of this... or perhaps not. Anyways, so short for now!!!

The Mice Are Finally Here!!!!

At long last!!! We have the mice!!! Only one has a name. Bambina. We'll probably call the golden one that but I haven't talked to Wendy about that yet... Anyways, yeah. The brown and white one doesn't have a name. It was supposed to be a guy mouse but the pet store didn't have any. So it's a girl. So much for Giuliano... My mom is pretty happy about that, she was worried that we would have five thousand baby mice running around the house... she's probably right :) Oh well, now that they are both girls, there is no danger of anything like that happening, obviously.

When we were picking them out we considered getting rats instead. Our mom vetoed that. She says they're unsanitary. I think they're cute. Except for this white, wrinkly bald one with red eyes that we saw. They called it a hairless rat. I don't see why anyone would pay $16 for one of those. It was disgusting.

We also looked at gerbils but it said that they are

most active at night so we didn't get one of those, either. Besides, it said that mice are most active during the day and that you can teach them tricks. So a mouse it was.

When we brought them home in the car, they were in this little white box with holes punched in the sides. Immediately after we drove away from the pet store, the mice set to work trying to chew the holes larger so that they could escape. Fortunately, it was not a very long drive home and their attempt at escape was thwarted.

Now we are working on getting them used to us since they never got handled at the pet store. The golden one is actually pretty friendly but the brown and white one gets nervous when you pick it up. Soon we will begin our experimenting...

You know, that's sounds really cruel when you say it like that. Hahaha, I hope PETA doesn't read this, they'd be all over us. But it's not really cruel at all. I mean, you have two mice and you put them through a maze... Not a big deal. I think we (Wendy and I) are well on our way to becoming the world's most renowned mouse scientists. Maybe. Or, maybe not. In any case, it costs $20 to get our autograph... Just in case you were wondering.

-Marie

Ps. Here's another picture of the mice... they are SOOOOOO cute!!!! My parents hate mice, but I don't see why, they are really adorable. The mice have to live in the garage because

my parents have had a "no rodents in the house" rule since my sister's hamster escaped from its cage and got loose in the house. (It drowned in the sump pump, in case you were wondering.)

Of course, that doesn't mean they don't ever come in the house but mom and dad don't have to know this, do they??? Earlier today I had them up in my bedroom. (HORRORS OF HORRORS, right?!?!?!?!) They were playing on the floor when my dad came upstairs and knocked on the door. Of course, I couldn't just let him discover my like that so the mice were stuffed back in their carrying box, stuffed in the closet, and the doors were closed. That incident ended well but I don't think it would have if he had known that the scratching coming from the closet was a real live mouse. Ahh, the things kids do these days...