The Floors (Done). The Wine. The Mouse.

The dining table and the rug have been moved back into the dining room to sit elegantly and gracefully on top of the new floors. The same day the table goes back, the semiannual wine shipment arrives from Il Gioiello.



Now, Plot and Duck had been smelling a strange odor in the studio while they were doing the floors. It was untraceable, but smelled like -- well, like a dead something.

A few weeks earlier, Plottie had been watching TV on the sofa when a gray blur shot across the room and disappeared into some unfindable spot. Plot was sure it was a mouse, but -- so where is it? And where is any sign of it?

Then, after the floors in the kitchen were finished, Plotnik walked out one morning and there was a dead mouse (baby) in a corner.

Put it together, and it adds up to mice. Since it's Winter Cleanup Time, Plot pulled the sofa out to vacuum under a little secret spot where he keeps unused instrument cases, and: Yup.



The little buggers are truly amazing. They'll get into the most inaccessable places. But no more. A barrier to entry has been erected and spackled over. Not this time, mousey.



The Annual Noe Valley Voice Christmas Party was last Friday night. It's always fun, and even more so when Bill Leeman (left) brings his special zinfandel and hides it where nobody can reach it but us. Corrie, Duck and John the King look like they've been enjoying that zin.