My people have been talking to their people. Contracts have been waved. There has been pleading, the promise of bribes, but so far nothing has worked.

My cats refuse to act as karmic sponges and eliminate the rodent who has been running wild nightly for many weeks in my kitchen.

My husband, a Buddhist, does not want a mouse trap set.

The situation is becoming intolerable.

Zubby is working to rule at the moment, which for him means that he is guarding the couch to make sure that no one breaks in and steals it. This is a job he will take on for eight or ten hours at a stretch, only shifting slightly to make sure he doesn't get bedsores. His devotion to that couch is unparalleled.

Zoe is downstairs guarding our woodstove, to make sure no one breaks in and steals all 600 pounds or so of that. You want that stove, you gotta go through about six pounds of house cat to get it, Mr. Man. I'm sure you're quaking in your boots, eh.

I've been hoping to redirect their guard shifts to a nightly patrol of my kitchen countertops, but so far that appears to be a low priority item on the feline "to do" list. Hrm.

So I have shifted my negotiations to the spousal unit, hoping to coax agreement for a trap. This will be a delicate dance indeed.

At a party a few months ago I was gabbing away with a friend of ours who teaches sociology at a Montreal university. He mentioned that he uses something in his course that I said to him a while back about my marriage.

See, I told David that in December of '74 when I married Paul, I married a man who was Christian, urban, ate meat, and worked in a office. But over the years that man turned into someone else--a Buddhist, rural, quasi-vegetarian, self-employed carpenter. Um, yeah.

The Paul I signed on with for the lifetime plan is long gone in many ways. I know the Marn he married is gone, too. I told David that's why I think so few marriages make it now, because we're exposed to many more influences than our parents and grandparents ever were, that the odds that we will change radically over our lifetimes are much higher than they were in the past.

And to me that's the challenge of a long pairing, to make room for the changes, to leave a space for the person to be, to stay connected through it all.

But then I'm probably as full of crap as the mouse who nightly decorates my counter, eh.

I've been thinking that maybe I can coax the spousal unit to let me buy one of those humane mouse traps, take the mouse for a long car ride, and drop him off on the other side of the valley. Worth a shot since the fuzziest members of the family refuse to take a karmic hit for the team.

*Sigh.*

You know, twenty-six years ago, if you'd told me that one day I would try to convince my husband to let me chauffeur a mouse, I would have peed my pants laughing.

I'm telling you, the things we do for love ...