Dear Folks, All evening long I've been haunted by what I had to do today. It was right before I started to put together my evening meal and I wanted to rinse out my soup mug and soup spoon I had left in the kitchen sink. Before I even turned on the faucet, I noticed that there was something else in the sink. A large black spider (large by household standards) was feebly trying to climb up the slippery sides of my sink. Oh great, another bug in my sink that I had to rescue. As usual I found a piece of cardboard to scoop him up and if nothing else dump him on my kitchen floor where I'd let him alone as long as he didn't slide into my sink any more. However, he wasn't as feeble as he appeared to be. No matter how hard I tried to encourage him to climb up on my cardboard he avoided it by running around every inch of the sink. When I saw him crawling under my sink strainer, I thought OK buddy that was your choice and I went back to rinsing out my soup mug and letting the water go down the drain. Of course, that isn't the end of the story. I no more than looked back down at the sink strainer and there he was again, on his last legs trying his best to get out of the strainer. I considered calling 911 but by that time I figured I had given him a chance far and beyond what any human would do and (close your eyes here) I turned on the faucet full blast! I hated myself for doing that and it's been haunting me all evening long. I killed him but then I really had to. I've had a long-standing code in my house. If you can't climb out of my kitchen sink, stay out of my kitchen. Fair enough? vee

Hi Vee and Kathy Sometimes they seem to leave us no choice, though if at all possible I rescue and release any bugs found in the house. There is a tower on this (my daughter's house) and the other day we were up there and noticed many lady bugs on the windows, saying to each other "we have to get them and put them outside before they all die". Yesterday morning (I was up but not fully awake) I noticed my daughter stepping out the back door in her pjs. She told me she had rescued a lady bug. This prompted her to leave the ladder to the tower down so I could rescue any still up there. Thankfully I made it up and down safely, gathered about a dozen of them, placing them in a plastic container with a lid, then set it outside. Later I noticed they had all made their way to "better living". Some how my daughters see Lady Bugs as worthy of rescuing, while spiders get squashed. This morning I hear screaming because there's a mouse in the house. It reminded me of Vee's mouse in the house saga. Communing with nature - outdoors or in - we each see it differently. Here's to bug-free, mouse-free homes. Evelyn