Skippyjon Jones and the Mole in the Yard of the Coffee Stained Coffee Table People

My coffee table is so clean right now. There's a reason for this, and it's not because I eat organic vegetables which, with their relative lack of pesticides leaves me more energy to clean. No, it was not that.

I brewed a pot of coffee this morning and poured a wonderfully fresh cup which I brought to the coffee table (Ahh, the symbioticness of drinking coffee at the coffee table...) along with a toasted and buttered bagel. First, I took a bit of my buttery bagel and then reached for my warm, perfectly sweetened coffee. The buttery bagel transfered some buttery goodness onto my fingers which slipped as I tried to grip the coffee mug, and so instead of enjoying the brewed elixir, it spilled all over the coffee table and the contents of the coffee table and the floor. Dakota, not wanting to miss out on any important happening, immediately walked over and sniffed, then walked through it.

There was coffee-soaked mail, catalogs, coupons, coasters, a beaded table decoration, and a skein of camel colored silk and alpaca yarn. I immediately grabbed the yarn and took it to the kitchen to rinse it, because coffee-stained alpaca silk is less "Do It Yourself Dyed Yarn" and more "Crap-Colored Junk".

In other news, we have a mole in the front yard. The little guy is really going to town digging up holes in the lawn and flowerbed to the endless annoyance of my husband and myself but to the endless fascination of the neighbor cat. The neighbor cat is a beautiful Siamese who we have dubbed Skippyjon Jones in reference to the children's books my daughter loves about a Siamese cat who thinks he's a Chihuahua. That, and we don't know his real name.

I watched Skippy this morning after I got home from dropping OC at school. He was crouched down in front of the hole where dirt was being flung to the surface. His beautifully colored body was tense but still, his gaze intent upon the hole. Then the mole surfaced. I could see him from the car. It threw up some dirt, then stuck his head out for a few seconds before disappearing again. More dirt. Skippy watched.

And watched. And watched. And.............watched.

I kept waiting for him to pounce, looking for the telltale signs of impending pounce: the rear end shimmy, the twitching tail, but he kept hesitating. It was driving me nuts! I was cheering him on from inside the car, where I was because I did not want to get out and disturb him or scare the mole away. I could see his pretty kitty body tense, then hesitate, then tense again, as though he were internally struggling with the moral implications of killing a rodent. Either that, or he was considering what those ginormous rodent teeth might do to his beautiful coat. Hard to say. I kept watching him, hoping.

The mole disappeared for longer and longer periods of time, and that's when Skippy decided to pounce. Finally! He stuck his front arm down the molehole all the way up to his shoulder. Great! Scare the thing farther down the hole, you little silly little pretty boy!

I wanted to say 'grow some balls', but being as though he is a neutered male I thought that was just rude. He was trying, the poor, ball-less little guy.

I finally got out of the car and went around back to find our badass hunter kitty, Rum. That girl has killed moles in the garden before, all six pounds of spayed female. I wanted to bring this mole to her attention. She was, unfortunately, too itchy or tired or whatever to pay much attention to the rodent in front of her which she is genetically programmed to want to hunt. What is it with cats these days, fighting their biology?

For now, the mole is alive and well. I have no impetus to kill it, even though he's destroying parts of the lawn and flowers. I'm kind of hoping he'll go away on his own, especially if he is continually molested by cats who, although don't seem to pose a mortal threat, could tire him of having their arms stuck into his house. Can you see that? An exasperated mole, packing up and moving his things elsewhere?

Maybe it's me, or maybe I've read too much Beatrix Potter, but I think it could happen.