books, mice, and bluejays

This morning I’ve been sorting books to go to the Goodwill. There has been a baby Bluejay up in the garage rafters crying for hours. Now Mama Bluejay has showed up, so they are both flying around up there. The big garage door is open, and so is the man-door on the side, and now that I have left the scene, and my cat Dottie came in also, maybe the jay will be able to figure out how to fly out.

Speaking of Dottie, she is an in/out cat, and she usually comes in at night. She brought a mouse with her a day or so ago. I saw the little thing laying belly-up on the kitchen floor, so I grabbed some paper towels and picked it up carefully so I could toss the carcass out the back door. But omg as I gingerly gripped the creature in the towel, it woke up (I assume…I thought it was dead) and tried to escape. My reaction of course, was to scream. I hurled the mouse out the back door, paper towel and all, and haven’t had the nerve to inspect the still-there paper to determine its fate.

The book situation is slowllllly downsizing. The thing is, the books came from actual physical shops I had at one time, and the inventory has been culled at least once. It is sacrilege to me to throw a book in the trash, no matter how bad it is condition-wise. The Goodwill will not take encyclopedias, no matter how good they are, so I have them piled here and there waiting to be disposed of. If I was not such a good person, I would just slip the boxes of encyclopedias and other textbooks into the Goodwill cart outside when they aren’t looking…but I wouldn’t do that. 😉 I also clean each individual book as I pack them in boxes to be donated, and try to avoid passing on any book I think is unfit for children. I don’t mean porn, but those “Romance” novels can have pretty racy covers… I do not believe in censorship of information, but I do believe that some material should not be available to youngsters without their parents’ knowledge.

Back in the day my Dad used to glance at my reading selections. There was a book that he did object to, and asked me not to read it. I not only read it, but I had to really study it to determine just what Dad thought I shouldn’t read. I never did find out what content in that book he didn’t approve, but I know that it wasn’t about race, or gay people, or whatever. (I did not know until I was a married adult that any “whatever” hanky panky even existed.)