Monday Open Thread : a Mouse Came to Celebrate and Brought No Gift...

... unless you consider toxoplasmosis a gift. Since Polly slept on the porch the night before, I suspected she had brought it through the propped outer door. The fearless house mouse made no effort to hide and that behavior was enough to extinguish Polly's hunting instinct. She gave it a couple desultory swipes but since it refused to act like prey, Polly curled herself inside the cat bed and I scooped the mouse up and tossed it outside.

When it came back while Polly was asleep, I recognized the potential symptoms of a toxoplasma gondii infection. 

I should mention that spouse and I were celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of our relationship on the screened in porch, and the mouse crashed it, scampering around our feet and stopping periodically to look up at us like, 'Sup?

Here's just about everything I know about the bacteria*:

• Mice eat the eggs of tg in cat feces. 
• Not only cats, but they eat a lot of mice and we fools pick up their poop. [Simpsons "Did we lose a war?" gif]
• Forms a cyst in the part of the mouse brain which disinhibits it, causing it to more-or-less throw itself into a predator's mouth. Or in the path of any kind of danger really. Like that drunk frat boy devouring ghost peppers, cannonballing into the dirty pool, or hitting on the ladies with a sociopathic self-confidence.
• Completes its life cycle within the cat and the eggs exit through the back door.
• Repeat repeat repeat. Beautiful in a way. [some Lion King gif]
• It's common; estimated that a third of the US human population carries it.
• Seemingly harmless to humans (but potentially harmful to a fetus), but more research needs to be done. Tommy's infection in Trainspotting would be... unusual.
• Still, wash your damn hands thoroughly.
• One weird correlation in a relatively recent paper; girls around the age of twelve who have cats seem to have a higher incidence of schizophrenia later on. I learned this after my daughters were past that age [shrug]. I will be watching for symptoms in an uncreepy way throughout their early twenties. Everyone needs a hobby.

Dropping it in the plastic qt Tupperware in which I've transported many rodents before was painlessly easy. Mouse was like, Cool where we goin I call shotgun. I had to go to the store anyway so I released it into a bush on the walk, about half a mile from home, where it will probably be eaten by a cat or falcon or fox or rat. Just as likely smushed by a car or caught in a trap or deconstructed by a lawnmower, but since it's in my nature to be impressed, moved even, by such a tiny intrepid thing, I hope it goes on to have adventures like that medieval mouse in Redwall. Godspeed, Martin!

Disinhibit yourself like an infected mouse, and chat about whatever, like no one's even reading/listening. 

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* Please feel free to correct any misinformation about toxoplasma gondii I may have unintentionally spread in my ignorance. I'm no scientist. Add to it what you may know, especially if you are John of House Wet Blanket. A scientist acquaintance who specializes in tg research passed through here a few years ago while moving from the Boston area to the Pacific Northwest. She is delightful and is delightfully named Feliz. Ask me how hard it was not to make cat jokes while she was here. I could email her some questions, but I don't want to bother her with "Sup. It's been a minute. That thing you just spent ten hours in the lab studying? I have some questions. Explain to me like I'm 5 LOLOLOLOL" Nah.

** Weekend movies were Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, Manhunter, and Godzilla Minus One. The last is the only one I hadn't seen before. We watched TP: The Return episode 1, and I'm reading The Talented Mr. Ripley because I somehow haven't yet. Last album/collection I listened to was Travel Edition 1999 - 2005 by Saint Etienne.