My Flog for February 3 - Dead Mouse, Dead Fish - One Freaked Me Out, One Filled Me Up ....

I like rodents as pets. In the past, I've been Mommy to gerbils, hamsters, guinea pigs, and even a cuddly rat named Charlie. However, my friendship to these extends only to the ones I can buy at the pet store - and not the dead ones I find lying on the floor when I go to work.

So okay, is it really dead, or just asleep? Because if I go near it, and it's asleep, and it takes off and runs helter skelter, maybe up my leg, I would freak out and be reduced to a babbling mass of nerves. Closer observation showed a tiny pink eye staring into space, so I assumed it was dead.

Now if it had been on the outside porch of a home, such as mine or Steve's, I would just poke it with a stick to ascertain its deadness, and then pick it up very gingerly by the very tip of its little tail, and fling it in the bushes, preferably in a neighbour's yard. However, I couldn't do this inside the store, so I just got close enough to cover it with a garbage can until I found a braver person.

This happened just after I opened the store. An older couple came in (well, not that much older, to tell the truth. Older people than me are getting pretty scarce by now) and I asked the husband if he was brave. Really really brave?

'Are you a manly manly man?' giving him no chance to back out of my request, which he accepted willingly and, with a paper towel and a plastic bag, passed me a corpse I could handle - and I said a little 'ashes to ashes' thing as I tossed it in the outdoor garbage bin.

I spent the rest of the day nervously awaiting the search party, but thankfully, none showed up.

• Breakfast - Blueberry Pancakes - I took half of yesterday's breakfast home, and tossed them in a hot fry pan to heat them up - they were a bit too soggy to put in the microwave. They weren't great - even yesterday they weren't the best pancakes I've ever had. Coffee. That was great, that was good.
• Lunch - Vegetarian Soup for Steveston Bakery. That was so rich and thick and delicious, if one didn't know there was no beast parts in it, one would never have guessed. A roll.
• Dinner - Fish, Chips and Coleslaw from Mr. Pickwicks. Mr Pickwick makes the best fish the best home cut fries, and the best coleslaw. The only problem is, once you've had a couple of bites of fish and a few fries, you feel stuffed.

We didn't eat the fork - the fork is just there so you can see how big the fillets of fish are. And these pieces? Well, these are the leftovers, after Howard, Steve, the two kids and I filled our tummies. Burp.

• Snacks - Apple Tart, Vanilla Latte, half a diet Pepsi

And here is the beautiful Apple Tart, custard on top, delicious spiced apples in the middle, pastry on the bottom. Yum - mee. I didn't forget Howard when I was at the bakery - I bought him a big round chocolatey Rum Ball. Hopefully he won't picked up with a DUI offense on his way home from work, as he'll probably eat it for his lunch tomorrow.