"Mischief"

Bro3 was the definition of "mischief" as he ran away from me to do exciting, fun, dangerous things and causing me a world of anxiety for his safety.  My puppy ran through the house with the end of the toilet paper, wrapping it around table legs and up steps until I could flatten him in a corner.  I have a lot of stories about Bro3 and that particular dog.  I'm still torn between exasperation and hilarity since neither of them actually died in their adventures.

Dog allowed me to leave the house for a limited amount of time.  If I was late, he took everything out of the refrigerator, including all those expired condiments I'd forgotten about, and arranged them all over the kitchen floor with the fridge door hanging wide open.  He sat in the middle of his plunder and gave me that look of "you deserve this for neglecting me".  I used baby locks, duct tape, and heavy furniture to keep him out of the fridge.  Nothing stopped him except my timely arrival.

Another time, the dog family was left in the fenced yard for the afternoon.  I came home to a rabbit head on my floor.  Ew.  Thankfully, I had a brother around for head removal while I checked out the rest of the house for the bunny's corpse.  It was laid out on my cedar chest, skinned and gutted, with icky slime oozing on the floor.  Hey Bro!  Would you mind taking this out too?  Yuck.  I cleaned it all up, and then wandered around saying, "this doesn't feel quite finished yet".  The cookbook, which had been inside the upper kitchen cupboard, was in the back yard.  The index was dog ripped to R stands for Rabbit.  That dog was so smart it's a good thing he didn't have opposable thumbs.

I don't suppose I have much of a point in all this other than to say we need "good" people keeping the world going round in predictable ways.  The mischievous make that world more fun (exasperating, anxious) and they give us stories.  I don't know what the proper proportion of good to mischievous should be, but I'm sure we need at least a few around.

We need raccoons too.  I'm not really sure why, but the world would be less interesting without them getting in garbage cans and fishing in decorative back yard ponds.  I spent a day this summer watching a coon family teasing my dog and trying to nab my fish.  The baby coons were just too adorable as they played in a weaving string of cuteness up and down and around trees, dropping sticks on my dog, barking at her barking.

Just doodles without much reason, but should "mischief" have reason?  I'm not talking about nasty mischief at any rate, just teasing play where nobody gets hurt.  But the more I think of doodles, the more I think that they're very important.  They're a meditation, sometimes give us an insight into ourselves, give us ideas for future projects.  I don't know that these will turn into anything other than what they are, but I can see making a raccoon like this out of cardboard.  Maybe waterproof it and put it by the pond to protect the fish?

Also, it's come to my attention that some people feel stressed when doodling because they're "not good at it".  Um?  You don't have to be good at it.  Nobody grades it or calls you incompetent, or if they do, get rid of those people.  Draw nonsense lines if that's what makes you feel happy.  Scribble with your eyes closed and see what happens.  Let a little mischief into your life.