Mice and Memorial Day

The holiday weekend brought a glut of cars to the highways, most of them around here were headed north to open up summer cottages on one of Michigan’s 11,000 inland lakes or going to cabins out in the boondocks where off-road recreational vehicles reign supreme. Over 3,000 other weekend warriors on the roads were pulling campers or were loaded up with camping gear headed to one of the state campgrounds. The lucky ones had reservations for the coveted campsites right on the beach. There is nothing better than waking up to the sight and sounds of water lapping the sand and seagulls looking for breakfast. Scoring a campsite away from the beach under the White Pines comes in a close second. Michiganders love Memorial Day weekends and it might seem like the original meaning of the holiday gets lost in mini vacations but it hasn’t. The stream of cars going in and out of the cemeteries the week before the holiday is as much of a tradition as having hot dogs and hamburgers on an outdoor grill. The military memorial services still go on. The Scout troops still clean up the veteran’s parks. The cemeteries are bright with flowers and flags and fresh cut grass and we remember... Boy, do we remember with feature stories in the media, war movie marathons on TV, Facebook posts and personal blogs.

This time of the year I'm wistful remembering trips up north. I cross over the highway and see the bumper to bumper traffic below and wish I was down there on my way to or from having fun, but my days of camping are long gone. Instead, I joined the homebody Michiganders who flood places like Lowe's and garden centers for do-it-yourself project supplies. The homebodies hate having sand up their bathing suits, fighting traffic and sharing showers with spiders in rustic campgrounds where a midnight walk with a flashlight to the public bathroom will not be enough to scare off the raccoons looking for careless campers who forgot to lock up their food.

I came back from my trip to Lowe's armed with ammunition for the war I’ve planned against mice. I have two coming to my bird feeder---at least I think I’m seeing two different size mice---but I’ve never seen them together. I want them dead because for the past 3-4 winters I’ve had signs of mice in my basement. I bait them down there, they eat the d-Con and I rarely see them dead. But I can’t bait them outside because of the birds and rabbits. First I tried a trap that the mice are supposed to go inside and not be able to escape but a clever mouse sprung it and moved it two feet off the path to the feeder. Next I dug a plastic paint pail into the ground below the feeder and I put a few sunflower seeds in the bottom. The birds should be able to get out if they go after the seed, but I’m told mice will not be able to climb up the slippery sides. Three days and no mice in the pail. One side of me is relieved. I don’t want them to suffer for days trying to scale the white wall before giving themselves a heart attack and I don’t think I could drop a rock on a mouse trapped in the bottom of a pail. I do own a BB gun but I’d probably shoot into the pail and have the BB bound back and put my eye out instead of killing the mouse. Can mice swim? Could I drown them?

It breaks my heart but after the rest of my birdseed is gone I’m no longer going to feed the birds except for those that eat jelly and the sugar water. I found a little stash of seeds in the basement and that was the last straw. No wonder condo communities have rules about feeding birds. I will miss seeing my cardinals and woodpeckers. Maybe I’ll get one of those videos they make for cats to watch of birds doing bird things inside the TV set.

My husband worked at a funeral home during high school and the experience indoctrinated him for life to the importance of being there to support the living and remember the dead. Decorating graves for Memorial Day was a big deal for him. I remember it all. Oh yes, the holiday get-aways but making sure the family graves were well tended before we went. I have not been to the cemetery yet to tend to Don’s stone but I’ll go soon. Half of it will be covered over with sand and I’ll carefully clean the gray granite and glue another Snoopy trinket on the corner that by fall will be in the pocket of some random kid...unless this year I put the Snoopy on the bait platform of a mouse trap that can snap down on little fingers that try to steal it. I suppose there’s a rule against that. Like condos, the cemeteries around here have rules for everything. ©

Don, I still miss your "Snoopy days."

Memorial Day: Year Three

 

Oh, cripe, Memorial Day is coming again! It will be my third since Don died and I'm still not sure how I want to design my personal traditions for marking this sadiversary/holiday. I’d feel guilty if I didn’t do something to acknowledge the M word day. Before Don’s stroke we had a long standing tradition of going to eight or nine grave sites in cemeteries spread out over several counties. He cared about decorating his ancestors’ graves. He decorated graves with his parents long before I came into the picture and after they died, we took over the “route” and I was decorating graves of people I never met. We only did it once after his stroke when I finally put my foot down and in a nice way I told him it was too much to ask of me to push a wheelchair around rural cemeteries with their uneven ground and with the other obstacles life had thrown at us. He understood. At least that’s what I tell myself. It’s not like he had a choice. Whoever controls the car keys controls the schedule and right-side paralyzed people, like he was, usually lose that battle.

My first Memorial Day without Don was all about the condition of his newly placed tombstone and the unseeded ground around it. I cared about the unkempt condition of the stone because it would have bothered him. But I didn’t feel like it was his finally resting place---still don’t. I like to believe that his spirit resides where we threw part of his ashes to the winds near a ghost town along Lake Michigan. He loved the mystique of that place. Or his spirit could by roaming his old family farm where I also left some of his ashes. That first summer that followed my first M word day I Johnny Appleseeded ashes in so many places, I finally had to make myself stop. Still, that first Memorial Day I brought my tools, seed, elbow grease and water to the cemetery. Then I leveled the ground, seeded the soil and cleaned the dirt out of the engraved letters on the stone. And all of that is not something I can carry on, one year after another to set a tradition.The grass is growing and dirt long longer fills the lettering up.

Year two Memorial Day weekend was a long, lonely stretch of time when it seemed like the entire world was off having fun but me. My arm was in a cast and I couldn’t go to the cemetery or anywhere else without asking someone to take me, which I didn’t do. (See what I mean about the car keys?) And that was certainly not something I wish to carry on, one year after another to set a tradition. So Plan 2014 evolved and it includes staying off Facebook so I don’t have to see photos of camping trips, cottages and picnics we used to attend. And I decided Plan 2014 would include a project around the house. Your mission, should you choose to accept it widow lady, is to keep busy. This week I’m going to buy a boat load of perennials and decorate everything that doesn’t get out of my way. Even the dog might get a flower in his collar if he comes looking for affection out on the deck. 

But I’m feeling the pull of the cemetery, too, where they only allow footed urns that the sexton ends up putting on top of the stones and leaving them there for the entire summer. It might make the mowing easy but that’s not going to happen to me, Buster! I’m not covering up Don’s name and vital statistics---those two dates with the all import dash in the middle. I love that dash. I spent forty-two years of my life as part of that dash. God, he was only 28 when we met! It seems like a hundred years ago. I know we can’t go back and wishing I could only wastes the time I have left, but if I could I’d like to think I wouldn’t take so many things for granted. When we have it, we think love and companionship are always going to be a part of our daily existence. Surprise!  

So instead of an urn full of plants to sit on Don’s tombstone I will take my tube of super-doper glue and put another Snoopy themed trinket on the stone. By July 4^th it will be gone, the victim of a crime or dried-out glue and a strong wind---I don’t know which and don’t care to know. But if I ever go over there and find a little kid peeling Snoopy off the granite, I’m going to paddle his little butt. I wouldn’t really do that, of course, but his mother is going hear about it. Don was rarely without a Snoopy near-by. He had two Snoopy watches, a half a dozen coffee cups and tee-shirts. You always knew he was in a good mood when Snoopy (or Mickey Mouse) showed up.

Last week while looking for stuff to sell on eBay or in my mall booth I came across his vintage Snoopy music box. It plays Happy Days are Here Again and I never liked it which, of course, makes me feel guilty now for not allowing him to display it in the living room. (Why do we humans argue over such meaningless things like decorating a room? I should have found the compromise and let Snoopy dance in the living room six months out of the year.) It should be easy to let go of a music box I don't like, right? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had it in and out of the mall stock box! Cripe, maybe I should super glue it on Don’s tombstone and hope a determined little boy in a grubby romper suit will come along and steal it. If it wasn’t made out of glass I’d do just that. But I can visualize the sexton’s lawn mower throwing a stone and breaking the top, leaving behind just the wind-up base playing Happy Days are Here Again with the winds winding it up from time to time. And wouldn’t that give the people visiting Don’s neighbors in the cemetery something to talk about. "Why, his wife must be happy her husband is dead!" one old widow woman would say and her friend would reply, "I've never seen anything more disgusting in my life!" And if I was in ear-shot I'd say: "Happy Memorial Day to you, too, you judgmental old bitches." ©