hat

[adrian_turtle]

I never want to leave the house without a hat again. Not because I need a haircut (although I do. It's long enough that strands are tangling in my waistbands again.)

It's just that I went out with my head uncovered on Saturday, and a mouse fell on my head. (We're ok. I broke its fall and we both scurried off squeaking.) I have been wearing hats fairly often in recent years, for protection against sun and rain and strobe lights and fluorescent lights. This should push it from often to always.

Comments

[pameladean]

I HAVE QUESTIONS. P.

[adrian_turtle]

I HAVE ANSWERS.

When it's not seriously cold or raining, I wear hats with rainbow ribbons. I think people recognize the hats more than they recognize me. I also have a warm knit hat and a very waterproof hat with a chinstrap but no ribbon.

(Or did you mean other questions? ;-)

[pameladean]

Hee!

I actually was interested in your hats, and am delighted by the rainbow ribbons. But of course the pressing question was, where did the mouse come from? A rain of mice is not a thing we need, though I guess it might be apposite.

P.

[adrian_turtle]

There is a bike path that goes over the road with a little bridge. The mouse probably ran across the path and hid in the weeds under the fence...not realizing there are only a few inches of weeds beyond the fence.

[sonia]

Oh dear. I'm sorry to hear that. I'm glad you and the mouse are okay.

"both scurried off squeaking." I'm laughing (sympathetically, really!) and remembering the time a young squirrel fell out of a tree right in front of me on the sidewalk, scolded furiously, and scurried off. Could have been my head, I now realize!

[conuly]

Poor little mousie!

[adrian_turtle]

Or maybe lucky little mousie? I suspect it was running away from something on the bike path overhead, and it's a long way to the ground from there. But it fell from the bridge to my head,then from my head to my forearm, then from my arm to the ground.

[amaebi]

You should think of this whenever you doubt you have been of service in this world-- should such an erroneous state of mind ever invade you.

[oursin]

Eeeuuuuw - but at least it was not a tortoise, as happened to Aeschylus? which would have had rather more serious consequences.

[adrian_turtle]

I didn't know that about Aeschylus. It seems like a comic way to go, for somebody in his line of work. But you remind me of "Bold plunderers of Demeter's hoarded store!" as young Simonides tried to describe the mice of Apollo.

[amaebi]

Where is young Simonides? I don't remember him.

[adrian_turtle]

I was thinking of "The Praise Singer." Upon further reflection, Mary Renault might have been making it up, but it was one of those details that just felt convincing and stuck in my head.

[amaebi]

Ah! I only know Mary Renault on the most casual level, so I had no idea. That I don't know about it is no indication of its classical canonicity.

[mrissa]

Good heavens.

[adrian_turtle]

I'm almost positive the mouse fell from a bridge, not directly from the heavens.

[mrissa]

Sometimes the word "almost" is less comforting than we expect.

[amaebi]

Thank goodness it wasn't a tortoise.

[silveradept]

Goodness, me, that's a surprise for both of you, I'm sure.

[siderea]

...

...

...

AUGH.

I don't know what I was expecting when you said you never wanted to leave the house without a hat again, but it was not this.

[amaebi]

Wow! And so far as I know there's no luck tradition associated with having a mouse land on one's head.

I hope it bounced off rather than scrabbling with its tiny paws.