The Mouse Ran Up The Clock...

A couple nights ago, after Age commented on the sound of scurrying that comes from her walls at night, I too heard it but from the insides of my floors. I ignored it after having only ever heard it once and not hearing it again for a few days. Unfortunately, Age woke up this morning to find that her cereal box had been chewed through in the middle of the night by what we can only assume was little mouse teeth.

Having mice (or mouse) in the house doesn't bother me. It reminds me of the time I woke up at home to my cats chasing a mouse around my closet at 3am. I plunked a bucket on top of it, covered the bucket with a chemistry text book (just in case it was stronger than the bucket) and left it for my dad to deal with later. I assumed that at some point during the twelve hours I was gone that day (swim practice, high school, weights at MCC) he would have disposed of the mouse. I got home however, and the bucket was sitting right where I left it. I really, slowly carefully lifted the bucket up a tad to see if he was still in there (no idea where I thought the little guy would have escaped to..) half expecting it to book it out from under the bucket, causing me to round up the cats and start the whole chase all over again. Unfortunately (but luckily at the same time?) the mouse had probably suffocated throughout the day and all I had to do was put it in the compost outside.

I think I would much rather be more careful about what food I leave out and live harmoniously with the mice (or mouse) than set up traps. My roommates however disagree, and decided that immediate action should be taken to rid the house of the pest(s). Luckily, on my walk home from work tonight, my landlord drove by and we chatted about the mice a bit and he knows a guy who knows another guy who happens to be cousins with his cousin and this guy has a bunch of humane traps that he wants to try because he (and I quote) doesn't want to snap their heads off. Not only am I very pleased, it further confirms my theory that everyone on the entire island is somehow related, and if not currently then they will be soon via marriage.

If the humane traps don't work and we eventually are forced to use the traps that are not so humane, I might have to ignore Lynne's advice and sneak nolan's Cheese into the traps overnight while my roommates are sleeping!






For the time being, I am watching the bachelor and finishing up a laboratory report on carbohydrates. In food lab, we baked 4 different batches of muffins, each with a different type of sweetner (sucrose, sucralose, fructose and cyclamate) and I am discussing how the maillard reaction and gelatinization impacted our final products. Interesting stuff, and for the record...NEVER cook with sucralose (Splenda) if you want your product to taste delicious or be nice and golden brown.

In other news...I am officially an intern!! I am really really excited but there is a lot of work to do this semester before I start my first placement. I am hoping to intern in Toronto this summer but there is a very big possibility I'll have to stay in PEI for the entire summer to do my first round of placements here. A lot of stuff to figure out between now and the official start date-April 26th! This internship was the only reason I came to PEI, and I've been stressing about it for the past four years so I'm especially glad all the stressing and worrying is finally over!