TUSAL Time and a Poll

For once, I may be posting a TUSAL photograph at the right time of the month.  You will note the preponderance of grey since I have really been moving along on the border to Midnight Moogies.  But there are small flashes of red, orange and green from the brief forays into stitching the flower and leaves in the lower right hand corner of the design.  I tend to reward myself with a spot of color every so often.  Since I run my TUSAL from April to March, so that I may offer my orts as nesting materials to the local backyard birds, my jar must seem unusually full.

I have been avoiding stitching the mouse in the main panel of the design because it is charted as the same grey as the border and because it is the only jarringly realistic mammal in that panel.  I have been thinking of changing it a bit.  I have thought of remaining realistic and just using a shade of grey a tone or two darker than the DMC 169 that seems to be always in hand lately.  But I have also thought about making it compatible with the cats by using some outrageous colors and patterns.  After all, it does occupy the same world as the cats and its evolution should have followed a similarly colorful path.  Perhaps, a horizontal band of large yellow Xs going across the body, three stitches high with a space between each so it doesn't end up looking like a checkerboard ... and the rest of the body filled with one of the bright blues.  I could, of course, just stitch it as charted but that doesn't seem quite logical.

So, I thought I'd ask for your opinions.  There is a poll in the sidebar.  I'll leave it up a week.  I am quite curious as to how others might choose.  For those of you who have been following along on this project, attracted by it, but knowing you would probably not stitch it yourself ... sort of the way I feel about all the lovely Hawk Run Hollow pieces I see on other blogs ... you could consider voting in the poll as a way of stitching the piece vicariously