Sorry about yesterday! I have once again banished Froggy to his “londry baskit” until he sobers up. But we did go to a play last night and there was a character named “Froggy” in it. It was The Foreigner, by Larry Shue, performed at Ypsilanti’s Riverside Theatre by the Morrisco Art Theatre group. Mouse played the role of Catherine Simms, a rich young debutante engaged to a preacher/KKK guy and that’s about all I’ll say about the plot and characters.

I’ve lost count of how many plays Mouse has acted in, directed, costumed, or whatever. That all started when she was eight and that is a story for another day. It was a little weird last night. I mean, the play was very, very good. The cast was wonderful and we were all rolling around on the floor laughing. But swirling around me throughout the night were little wafts of “Mouse”, “is that her real name”, and a whole lot of comments about how beautiful she was, yada yada. Including from the folks in the seats directly in front of us. Well, of *course* *I* think she’s beautiful. She’s *my* baby, fer kee-reist!

Throughout it all, I sat there incognito in my third row seat, a baggy old kayak woman, who nobody even suspected was the mother of the glamorous (sorry Mouse but yes) young actress on the stage. When the folks in front of me were discussing her name, I almost said something. “I’m her moom and I did not name her that. She named herself. Yada yada.” Because she did name herself. She wasn’t really all that crazy about the name I gave her. And yaknow? That’s okay. I’m not all that crazy about the name I was given either. I live with it and I would prefer to be called Kayak Woman over Cordelia.

So. The story is. Mouse was given a beeyootiful puffalump style mousey for her first Christmas. The Uncly Uncle and The Beautiful Gay gave it to her. They also gave one of those mouseys to Mouse’s cousin Dave, who is the same age as Mouse. She was only eight months old that Christmas and so she didn’t really attach to the cute little mousey at that time. But, about a year later, we were at the annual Courtois Christmas party and the cute little mousey just happened to be among the stuffed aminals in our entourage. Mouse was carrying Mouse around and Dave thought that Mouse had *his* Mouse, so he grabbed her mouse away from her. I don’t know if that all made sense and I don’t exactly remember what happened next but I know that it was after that little incident that Mouse became attached to Mouse.

And so, she started to call herself Mouse. She was Mouse in nursery school and then reluctantly went by the name on her birth certificate from kindergarten through middle school. And Mouse ever since. And that’s the story and I can’t divulge the name that’s on her birth certificate. And I didn’t say anything to the folks in the row ahead of me either. Mouse was doing her job as an actress. Why spoil that by conjuring up an image of a cute little toddler dragging a stuffed mouse around.

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