Postcard 3 August 2014

           Sundays are nice. Genoa gets up to go to work. Today Harper got up to go to WARPED. Jim's still snoozing. I am considering a nice walk. Trying not to be cranky that we are out of coffee.
           As I rise, I go to the sliding door to let the dog out, cats in/out.
           My back patio looks like a Quentin Tarantino movie.
           Beginning dead center, there is a mound of internal organs that have become external. And alone. Just the internal organs. Externally placed on my patio. In a pool of blood.
            To the right, the kitten is snacking on what appears to be the hind quarters of a large rat. I assume rat as the thick tail is larger than anything I've seen on a mouse. Where the rest of the rat has gone is beyond me, but I do suspect the innards belonged to him.
             Closer to me is a small, dead bird.
             I open the door for the animal indoor/outdoor exchange, and then close it and walk away. It is too early to deal with this mayhem and I haven't had my coffee.
             After chatting with Genoa as she's waking up, I decide someone should hose off the patio. I don't want to do it, but there is no coffee and I don't want to go out and buy any. So. Someone should hose off the patio. Someone needs to deal with this.
             I look around and realize "someone" is me.
             I gingerly make my way to the garden hose. I do not like untangling the garden hose, as past mass murder scenes have proven that occasionally there is a tiny corpse tangled in the tubing. Once I turn it on and start hosing off the crime scene like a poor grocery vendor after a mob shoot out, I discover a small, dismembered leg on the left side of the patio.
              As grossed out as you are reading this, I have to tell you this is not the first time I have performed this ritual this summer. In addition to the rabbits, we have had numerous birds, mice and a few rats torn to pieces at our doorstep.  We have  not used our backyard for any proper backyard things since Genoa's graduation party, because circling the patio and the deck is a ring of decaying vermin. At first we tried to scoop them up into open space, but after two days it seemed easier to just hose them off and not walk on the grass.
              And that, dear friends, is Sunday.
              So I got that going for me.