For those of you that don’t know, my husand (aka: Chucklebutt) leads a fairly Buddist lifestyle when it come to living creatures.  He kills absolutely nothing — much to my chagrin.  He rescues baby birds and bunnies, not to mention spiders, crickets and scorpions.  He has been known to rescue dying plants and transplant dead bushes.  He reminds me of that guy on the commerical who gets upset by the anti-bacterial Kleenex.  Anyway, Chucklebutt loves all God’s creatures.  So this is the way our conversation went last week when he came in the house to tell me we had a visitor in our garage.

Chucklebutt: We have a visitor in our garage.

Jiggle Puff:   What kind of visitor?

Chucklebutt:  A mouse.

Jiggle Puff:  You’re not going to set mouse traps are you? 

Chucklebutt:  Of course not!  I don’t want to hurt him.  He’s really cute.

Here are a few photos of Chuck and his new friend. 

I call this one, Chuck and Morty.

Chuck told me that in this pic he had just learned that Morty was lactose intolerant.  Apparently he could not eat cheese.

Awww!  A man and his mouse.

Things were going along swell until the following evening.  Apparently Chuck was working on his bike when he discovered that Morty had eaten his way into a piece of his soft luggage.  This did not please Chuck and he woke me up with the simple statement, “The mouse has to go.”

And so, with a resounding battle cry, the war had been waged.

Don’t worry, Morty wasn’t actually hurt.  The following pictures are merely a dramatization.  I’ll keep everyone updated about the saga.

In other news, yesterday was a gorgeous day to live in Arizona.  Driving home from work, ths sun was gorgeous on the mountain and the weather was unusually cool.  We went from 110 degrees at the beginning of the week to 64 by the end.   We were supposed to go camping up at Clear Creek this weekend, but their lows were 38 degrees!  That’s a bit nippy for my taste.  We’ve decided to go hiking in the Superstitions tomorrow in hopes of making it to the top.  

I love the dark clouds against the mountain with the sun shining in front.

Chuck and I had a mini photo shoot since the weather was so awesome.

I love the way the beams of sunshine stream through the clouds.

Me being cheeky.

This is the second time this season that this cactus has bloomed.  It smells as delicious as it looks.  I love the raindrops on the leaves.  We had crazy rainstorms yesterday and Chuck took this right afterwards.

When we were coming back inside from the photo shoot, we noticed that we had company at our bird feeder.  Hummingbirds amaze me.

Last night we rented a bunch of movies and we watched one which was hilarious!  “Botched.”  I recommend it to those that like quirky slasher movies.  Chuck and I guffawed.  During the movie, we had yet another visitor — this time in our bathroom and not nearly as cute as dear old Morty.

Yes, Chuck had to catch him and study him for a while.  I, on the other hand, got the ingenius plan to see what he would look like in black light.  

So cool!  They really do glow in black light.  Afterwards, Chuck let him loose outside.  Such much for my theory that cats keep your home scorpion free.  I think our girls are just plain lazy.

This evening, I made a new recipe (one that I will not be repeating) and set a very cozy table outside.  I bought a whole bunch of vintage linens at our local antique mall today and couldn’t wait to set the table.

I don’t know if you can tell, but I have two different tablecloths on the table.  They remind me of April Cornell.  Perfectly shabby.  I bought a whole bag full and didn’t realize what I had until I got home.  I love the layered look and these two pieces fit perfectly together.  I wonder what sort of parties they have seen — what sort of family gatherings they have decorated.  The laterns were from our first anniversary (paper) and this is the first time we are using them..  

During dinner, our mouse friend decided to grace us with his presence.  At first, he scared the crap out of me because I thought it was a big bug; but when I realized it was just a cute mouse, I relaxed and enjoyed watching him scamper about.

Wish us luck on our hike tomorrow.  Hopefully we’ll summit.  Happy Memorial Day Weekend to everyone!