Baby Mice/ Ethics

The kitchen has mice. Mice live in the kitchen.
For the first time in my life, I live with dogs but no cats, so this is an issue.  I also have two pet rats, who look a lot like big mice.  So. 
Irritated by the nibbles taken from a bag of tortilla chips, I set traps.
I caught two mice, and tried to quash my internal dilemma: if I am a keeper of pet rodents why kill the mice pooping on the counter? (A: because pooping on the counter is gross.)

Then, there was a baby mouse trapped in the sink. Tiny.  So small.  It's whole body would have fit in the circumference of a quarter.  It had freakishly long hind legs though, hopping desperately to escape the sink.
I was too overcome by its cuteness to kill it, so I trapped and released it outside (where it has likely died).
Then I felt bad.  Poor baby mouse!  It had never been outside before.  How was it to survive?  It probably suffered.

Days later: another tiny mouse in the sink.  Tinier, even.  The body small enough to fit in a nickel.  This one I trapped, and released on the kitchen counter, whereupon it scurried into the toaster.

Now: tiny poops in the dishrack every day, and I am anxious about the toaster's cleanliness.  I am skeeved out (wish I'd killed all the mice) and optimistic that I'll find another tiny adorable grasshopper-like baby in the sink (wish I could stroke all the mice).

Where'd the Humor Go?

I've been struggling to be funny.  The blog has suffered because funny requires me to self mock, and that's hard if you think you may have critical readers.  It's also hard if you're working to obscure the identities of four children while being specific about their wonderful wackiness.

Humor is essential to survival though, the valve in the pressure cooker's lid.

I need it.

Today's pressure cooker:

I am in Baltimore and it is too hot.

Father is in hospital (he can't hear me on the phone and I don't know if he's about to die or about to, against doctor's orders, discharge himself: both are possible).

Father is Mother's caregiver, ergo Mother has been moved to respite care, and is distraught that Father doesn't recognize her voice when she calls him in hospital.

Neighbor (whose husband died three weeks ago) doesn't want to feed their cats or look after their house anymore because it is too much responsibility.  She advises I call other neighbor (Eee.  But other neighbor always reams me out for not hopping on a plane and being there even though I have been out twice in the last 4 months.)

Brother is in an addiction recovery house somewhere in Vancouver (but which one). Either that or he is on the street.

Funny, maybe, is how this mimics, exactly, the feel of a thriller based on paranoia and suspense.  What is going on?  I don't know,  father doesn't know, mother doesn't know, neighbor doesn't know, brother doesn't know!

Time to call the hospital and see what the nurses (who can't legally tell me anything over the phone) are willing to illegally let slip.