Sometimes you just have to save yourself

I'll see if Kristen remembers this story.

When we were in college our senior year we lived in a pretty crappy apartment that was cold and drafty and we had a little mouse problem. The mighty Poopus was on the case and cornered a mouse in the kitchen.

K was upstairs - I think in the shower or something - and I saw the mouse, the cat and basically started to flip out. K heard me screaming and blazed downstairs in her bathrobe to see what was going on.

She screamed, I screamed the cat was like, "What?" - that's when we realized that nobody was going to do anything about the mouse and that we'd have to deal with it ourselves. Kristen tried to distract the cat. I grabbed our other roommate's winter glove and gently pried the mouse out of the cat's clutches and flung the offending mouse out the back door.

She went up to get dressed, I washed my hand about 3 million times and we never spoke of the incident again.... 'cause that's what roommates do.

Who is murdering the gross pigeons of Evanston?

Someone is killing pigeons. Sure pigeons are gross, and many people view them as rats with wings. My relationship with them has never really been that hostile. So, I wouldn’t care except that I’ve had three unfortunate run-ins with pigeon parts – a pigeon head, a pigeon wing and a partial pigeon leg with foot attached. All three parts had been ripped off – it was gross and a little horrifying.

I was thinking that the culprits were cats. But that didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me because I’ve never actually seen a cat running loose in Evanston. I’m sure it happens, but in all the years I’ve been here I haven’t seen it. Plus, all the parts were in the more “urban” downtown region of Evanston where there is nary an animal in sight.

Yesterday the mystery was solved in as much as I’d like it to be. On top of the old Marshall Field’s building lives some Peregrine falcons. The building has been converted to condos and no one can do any work on the roof because the protected birds have been roosting there for a while. Apparently the falcons are fond of your run-of-the-mill pigeon. And I guess the Peregrines are messy eaters.

So the moral of this story is that if you’re ever on the north side of Chicago and see pigeon parts, it could be a cat – how pedestrian – or it could be a Peregrine falcon.

Case closed.

Toodles to the Queen Mum
I’ve never been a Royal watcher or Anglophile, (although I do enjoy many fine BBC programs) but I have pulled my head out of my own life for a short moment to think of the Queen Mum. I guess I liked her. I know absolutely nothing about her except that she was the Queen’s mum, she was a cute old lady and she had a fondness for big, bright, flowy dresses with giant, smart hats. And of course the pumps and purse matched. She was old school and she was clearly the most fashionable Royal after Diana.

You’ve got to admire a woman who’s not afraid to wear a poofy, lemon yellow dress with a matching hat.