On why I am not an outdoors-woman

We went for a long walk this morning: our neighbor Jean, her dog Georgia, Elisabeth, Maggie and me. We walked through neighborhoods, to a tennis court. Then we walked on the cross-county trail back to our neighborhood. This trail is paved and winds through wooded areas, next to a stream.

As we walked, Elisabeth picked up trash. She has an eagle eye. As you'll remember, we have cats. They LOVE to play with toy mice. Elisabeth said, "Jean! Look what I found!" She was bent down picking up ------- a dead mouse. I might have screamed "OH MY GOD ITS A DEAD MOUSE" like a pre-teen girl. I know that I scared the daylights out of poor little Elisabeth who immediately dropped the mouse and burst into tears. I tried to comfort her, but she was really upset. I explained that we can't pick up dead mice because they have germs. And that she'd need to refrain from touching her face until we got home and could wash her hands. She told me, between boo-hoos that she thought it was a toy mouse. And then we set off on our way home. Elisabeth still crying. Me apologizing profusely for scaring her. Elisabeth walking with her little arms at 45 degree angles from her body, so that the germs wouldn't get on her clothes. She walked the entire way home like that. Except for when she was so distraught that she couldn't climb the huge steep hill up to our neighborhood and made me give her a piggy back ride.

I even tried explaining that the germs couldn't be that bad because our cats kill and eat mice and they're still alive. She didn't buy it. She thought she had some sort of horribly caustic substance eating away at her flesh. And it was passable between people. She was plagued, in her mind.

After we got home and washed up, she was still feeling melancholy. So I gave her some crackers and let her relax on the couch for awhile. About 45 minutes later, she came to me with her palms up and asked what these little red dots were. She had fallen down on the pavement yesterday, which I think caused the little dots, but I'm pretty sure she thought the end was near.

As much as I overreacted to the dead mouse, I'm pretty sure the Academy will be sending Elisabeth an award for her performance today. I think there's a very good chance that the entire overreaction was staged as a way to get out of going with us to the grocery store (and it worked).