So lately I’ve been trying to be more productive. Nikki has been being so good lately! She’s been working so hard on her new design site and it is SO CLOSE to being done! I can’t wait until she gets all the last little kinks worked out and opens it! It will be great! It looks really neat and professional and she has thought of absolutely EVERYTHING! I’m so excited and proud of her. Once that’s up and running she can focus more on making new themes which I think she really likes. I’m really impressed by her. Unfortunately, she’s also sick for the first time, pretty much, since we moved here. The warmer weather was really helping her immune system but something slipped by and knocked her on her butt. Or rather, it should have, but she likes to pretend like she’s Wonder Woman so she pushes herself and makes it worse. Like she said, though, she actually did take it easy today, with only minimal computer time and some knitting.

This past Saturday we went to Knoxville with my grandparents and Winnie. I really wanted it to be fun and some of it was but for some reason, the day was just kind of blah. We went to an Asian market which was cool but it wasn’t the one we were supposed to go to. Still, I bought Nikki and I some candy (Pocky and YanYan or something like that) and some orange drink she likes. We also went to Best Buy and played with the video games while my grandpa picked up his repaired computer. We also went to the pet store that Nikki and I went to on our anniversary/Valentine’s Day (oh crap, never wrote about it) and saw that the blizzard leopard gecko is still there but we didn’t get him. Finally, we ate at Salsaritas (like Chipotle) and went home. Actually, Nikki ended up getting sick at the restaurant so she didn’t eat. Poor baby. On the way back we talked about how the economy is crap and I think that led to us feeling down too. Umm, when we got back we watched some Academy Awards but once my grandparents left I stopped watching because I find that stuff boring. It was nice to play with Brody, though. I miss him.

So with the animal stuff I was talking about in the last post. Well, we decided to get that one girl ferret but when we went to get her, she had been sold ealier that day. It was a big downer. Then I fell in love with a cute little white with dusty ears and nose but we didn’t get it either. I wanted to but I knew we shouldn’t. It sucked, though, because there were stupid boys there that wanted to get the same little bunny and to keep it in a live trap. One even said he promised not to shoot it. Great. But yeah, we decided not to get any animals for now. I really wanted one since I had gotten into that new animal mode but I know it’s for the best. So instead of getting a new animal right now, I decided to spend my money on taking care of the ones we already have. Now, obviously I take care of them, but I mean routine vet care. I decided to go ahead and take the kitties in for their shots so they will be up to date on everything. This means I won’t have to worry about it when Merlin bolts the door and I can start volunteering at a shelter around here and I won’t put my own kids at risk. Spunky is all fine because he had to be up to date so I could work at the kennels. After the cats, we’ll just have to get Rufus up to date and then everything will be great. Umm, also, besides getting shots, I’ve decided to finally get Akima spayed. Now, before you get mad that she’s almost 4 and only now getting spayed, let me explain. Akima came straight from the pound in Ashland, not the shelter, so she wasn’t spayed when I got her. I was going to get her spayed right away but I got a bad feeling whenever I thought about her going under. I’ve learned to listen to my feelings so I waited. Then when I had no more bad feelings, the problem was that I had no money. I finally started making money this past summer but by then I thought I’d wait until we were here since the vets up there are corrupt and money hungry. So that is why she is getting spayed now. Tomorrow morning a little after 7:30 in fact. Queue me getting nervous. I always get nervous when kids go in and have to be put under. Of course I do. You worry about people too. But see, I’m also hanging under this huge cloud of guilt. I feel so bad that I waited this long. This is my baby and I feel like I’ve put her at huge risk because I didn’t just go ahead and do it when she was a kitten, before her first heat. If i had spayed her on time then her risk of mammary cancer would have been reduced by a huge amount. Now she’s just as susceptible as a non-spayed cat. Of course, she won’t be at risk for uterine or cervical cancer anymore but still. I feel like a failure. Nikki tells me that it was good to listen to my feelings but I still should have done it sooner. If my kitten gets that cancer later on in life I don’t know what I’ll do. Anyway, for now, I just want tomorrow to go smoothly with NO complications. Please keep her in your thoughts and send her well wishes? I truly appreciate it. It helped Gracie, after all! So yeah, tomorrow we drop Akima off at 7:30 in the morning and then when we go in to pick her up at 4:30, we also bring the boys and they get all their shots (or in Merlin’s case, start boosters). In total it’ll come to over $300, which sucks, but I want my kids to be healthy and safe.

Okay, now for the productive part. Most of you know, I’m sure, but I worked a lot today on defining and setting rates for different pet care services. (h njj                       ~Zane) If you haven’t already looked at it, I’d appreciate anyone else checking out my Livejournal: forpawz. I’m going to add more as I go along and I’ll be dropping off more flyers around town. Nikki made me really nice looking ones. Then it’ll just be up to the universe to hopefully answer. Anyway, I want to thank all of you for offering me so much support. I do get down and feel like I’ll never do anything but you don’t give up on me and when I put my mind to something, I can get it done.  ^_^

And now for your favorite part: the photos!

Drake Stealing Some of My Desert

Nate Climbing the Bed

My Mom and I Grooming Rufus

Giving Spunky a Manicure - Spoiled Pup!

Akima Being Cute and Playing Around

Again, please send Akima your well wishes. Let her heal quickly and be back to her cute little self very soon! I love you, kitten! And everyone, of course!

Filed under: Cats, Dogs, Ferrets, Furry Kids, People on February 24th, 2009 | 7 Comments »

Hey everyone! Oh man, have there been some things going on that are yanking on my heart and mind. First, I’ve been trying to make an impact on the world. I want to be someone. I want to help the world become a better place. I guess I’ve been inspired by lots of things. So I started writing a letter to one of my mom’s friend’s a couple weeks ago and finished and sent it to her yesterday. This woman is amazing! She has lived all over the world, in all hemispheres, in North America, Europe and Asia. She has traveled even more places and written for travel magazines and taken amazing photographs. Now she lives in Canada and guides a few safaris to Africa each year. It’s mind blowing! She’s like an embodiment of my hopes and dreams (though I’d also want some more hands-on work with animals). Anyway, if you ever want to check it out, her website is mamatembotours.com. So there’s that.

Then there’s the Dusty thing. It got me thinking. I didn’t like that one site that I showed you since most of the messages were negative. It made me want to start a new site that had nothing but good thoughts and images. Kind of like what I did with mine. Just showing all the loved cats and other animals out there.

Random Thought: I want a hungry! You know, that cute little orange dude from the weightwatchers commercials! He’s got eyebrows just like me! *does eyebrow things just to prove it*

Anyway, I think it would be a good place. You know, kind of like what I wanted to do with this place but it just didn’t turn out that way. People could send in pictures of happy animals and it would put some love in the world. Then that got me thinking about an idea I thought of awhile ago where I wanted to make a site called I Love Shelter Dogs which then became Animals. But yeah. Just a bunch of pictures and stories of animals rescued from shelters. We could have features and obviously link to the ASPCA and Petfinder and other such sites. And I could start a resources page for shelters around the country. I know there’s lists like that other places, but could it hurt? But basically, I think it’d be good because people can talk about numbers and statistics regarding shelter animals but if you put faces to those beautiful souls that were rescued, I think it would have a stronger impact on people. Besides, who doesn’t want to show off their wonderful rescue babies? Anyway, it’s something I really want to do but I don’t have the expertise to make a site like that and Nikki is busy doing real work. Still, what do y’all think?

Then, yesterday we went to the pet store in town that we hadn’t been to before and found the cutest little ferrets. Now we’ve agreed to not get any more little ones but we figured looking wouldn’t hurt. We’ve turned away from plenty of cute babies before. There were 4 ferrets there, 2 light and 2 very dark. The dark ones were TINY (as in too young to be there, really) and boy were they feisty! As in pretty mean. These things were smaller than our girl rats and yet one of them bit the crap outta me. It’s okay, though, because I’m pretty used to ferret bites so when it’s just my hands I can take it (though feet and face will ALWAYS hurt). Anyway, I like the lighter ones and Nikki and I fell in love with this cute little girl. She looked a lot like a lighter Nate and while the other light girl was prettier, she was sleeping most of the time so we didn’t get to know her. We also looked at the bunnies, birds and reptiles there. My mom had this sulfur crested cockatoo totally in love with her and giving her kisses and dancing with us and all. But really, most of the hour and some we spent there was with the ferrets. Oh man did we want to bring her home! But I’m responsible and Nikki doesn’t have the money so we came home without her. Still, we couldn’t get her off our minds. We said no more little ones but we’ve also wanted to get the boys a little sister for a long time. See, I like having 3 ferrets because when the unthinkable happens and you lose one, it’s really nice for the there to be more than one remaining because ferrets get MAJORLY depressed when they lose friends. Drake is around 5 now and Nate is around3 so it’s already time for a new one if you go by my timeline. Plus, it’s not like we’re just racing out on a whim. Our Jingles died in August of last year. I still haven’t talked about him because it was too hard but I’m thinking it’ll be time soon. *sigh* Anyway, we kept thinking about the ferret and so today we decided to go back. We couldn’t decide if we wanted her to be there or not because we knew it’d be hard to leave again. When we go there, the two dark ones had been sold – in ONE day! The lighter ones were still there, though. Funny thing, we fell in love with the other girl today. The one that is, I hate to say it, prettier. Obviously they’re all adorable but this one is VERY light, where her head is almost white and it continues down into a triangle on her chest. And we actually got to play with her today and she was just as sweet and her ruby eyes are so beautiful. Oh, and at one point I dropped her, on hard floor. Okay, so she leaped from my back, but I still felt bad. Seriously, I can still hear that sickening thud in my head. I checked her over and she seemed to be okay. *big breath* Leaving today was even harder. We so wanted to be able to take her home! Of course, we’d feel bad splitting them up, but there’s no way we could afford 2. Hell, we can’t even afford the one. Well, I wish I could spend my money on her but I really just shouldn’t. I wish I had started my dog walking/pet photography/training/pet sitting job already. Then I’d know I had money coming. But, it’s just a bad idea. And that sucks. I don’t know why we’re so attached this time. It just happens like that sometimes. Man, if only. I just know they’re going to be gone before we could get the funds. I just told them I loved them and that I hoped they got good homes.  Meh. Don’t know what else to say about that.

And, I hate watching shows where women, especially big women or non-white women, are so close to winning things and then they lose. Like the Wheel of Fortune I’m watching right now. Why am I so empathetic towards people like that? I don’t know, but this silly old show is really getting to me. I hurt watching her feel dumb/sad. What is wrong with me? Oh YAY! The woman just won $4500 in the speed round and it make me so happy! ^_^

And down goes my mood. I also forgot to mention that earlier I gave the rats some tortilla bits for a treat and then I saw that Morgan was choking on it. I got a little scared and told Nikki to look up what to do. See, I had a hamster die in my hands because he choked to death. That was my little Squirt. It had happened a few times before and I’d always managed to save him but then… I just couldn’t do it again. He died right there because I couldn’t help him in time. Yeah. Anyway, she seemed to get over it on her own pretty quickly but then we got more bad news. I looked at her as she climbed up onto the bars and saw a lump under her armpit. Our little baby has a tumor. I’m almost positive it’s a mammary tumor which is common in female rats and almost completely benign. I had a rat, Liney, who had two and they both grew to about the size of a ping pong ball but they didn’t really harm her. As long as they can still move, it’s best to just let them be. If they get too big for them to function, then it’s time to consider surgery. So yeah, lots of things happening lately. It’s no fun.

But back up again? We’ve been letting Nate and Drake run around our room for awhile for the past 2 days. It’s messy in here so we were worried it wasn’t ferret proof but it turns out that everything is fine. It’s great to be able to let them romp around again. I know they appreciate it. Also, we cleaned all the rats cages today so they all got to come out and play too, even Chunky. Of course, he was a scaredy boy and he hid under the bed and then hopped right back into his cage when it was done being cleaned. But at least he still had an adventure. Okay, this is very much long enough. Good night all!

Nikki Playing With the Girls

Nate Attacking a Plastic Bag

Drake Standing Up to Check Out the Camera

Filed under: Ferrets, Furry Kids, People on February 20th, 2009 | 4 Comments »

Last night was long and boring. I tried doing all the research for my paper which I absolutely hate. Didn’t end up finding much since Nikki and I both spent about an hour trying to figure out if Science was paginated by volume or by issue. Did you know that there even was such a thing as different styles of pagination? Did you know that APA citations are different depending on the type of pagination? I know, I wish I didn’t know either. How dull is that? And yet it’s up there, wasting space in my head. I suppose, though, that since I also have most of the FreeCreditReport.com songs logged away in there too, I shouldn’t really be complaining. “F-r-e-e that spells free, credit report dot com, baby!” Anyway, I digress. So last night Nikki stayed up late helping me but still went to bed before me. Well when I finally got to bed I decided to wake her up with a barage of questions about her snake and then decide to let her sleep again. Only that doesn’t last long because I once again realize that my carabiner is missing and it upsets me. See, my carabiner is my good luck. I found it when I was on a summer trip in Colorado and while I could never use it for climbing since I don’t know if it was dropped, it has actually become part of my wardrobe. That’s right, it resides clipped to my pocket and it has very seriously been there since my sophomore year of high school. I really do think of it as my good luck so now maybe you’ll understand why I was so upset that it had been missing for going on a month now. I don’t know why it got to me so bad last night at around 1 in the morning, but it did so up I got to look. Poor Nikki woke up and tried to help me find it. Through some looking back on when I thought I’d lost it (around the time of the drag show) I finally managed to locate it in the pocket of my khakis which I had never checked because I forgot they existed. Now why did I tell you this story? I don’t know, because it’s important to me. And because I was keeping Nikki up in the wee hours of the morning before she went and took her final this morning at 8 am. Oops. Sorry baby!

Anyway, I was going to tell you about our adventures in ferret medicine but since I took up so much space blabbing about my carabiner, I’ll save that for tomorrow. Suffice it to say that I would so much rather give a ferret a shot than try and shoot even 0.5 mL of bitter tasting medicine down his throat twice a day. And today is only the third day out of 14. Joy.

Right before work I decided to pull out and play with our new camera. We were both so excited as I took out the 18-55 mm lens and clicked it into place, slid the battery into place and configured the clock on the camera for the very first time! Then in went the memory card and it was pure excitment. Heh, LS read the rather lame directions every step of the way – did you know when you take a picture you should take a stance with one leg slightly in front of the other and then push the little button to make it take the picture? Amazing! *shakes head* Anyway, it was so cool. Okay, the first pictures we took will never be seen by anyone because a Nikon is not made to take self portraits by holding the camera out at arms length. Yeah, I won’t even describe how awkward we looked. BUT! The next picture I took was of Spunky, then Akima, and Zane, and Merlin. I was so amazed at how sharp these automatic everything pictures were turning out that I ran about like some giddy little schoolgirl snapping off shots of everyone. Oh man do I love this camera!

I then took it to work where my first big panic-attack-that-can-only-come-from-a-brand-new-expensive-toy occurred. See, I was going around and taking pictures of the dogs when I had time because I want great pictures of all these great dogs that I’m going to miss so much. At first I was doing awesome and got a bunch of pictures from the playroom dogs without any mishaps. Oh man did I get some good ones! But then when I was trying to get a picture of this beautiful, old German Shepherd owned by a co-worker, he turned his head suddenly and slimed my lens with his nose! Oh no! I like tried to wipe it off but it was too gooey and then I ran into the back to try and call Nikki because I was so worried I had just ruined my new pretty. Of course, I was overreacting, but wouldn’t you? She called me back and I cried at her (not literally) about how I had already messed it up and she said she didn’t know what to do. But my baby is such a sweetheart, you wanna know what she did? I was in the back wiping down the cabins when she appeared around the corner with lunch, a drink and the lens cleaning kit! Isn’t she the best? The only problem is that the solution sucks. It leaves streaky residue on the lens. More sadness. It’s okay, though, because we tested it and it doesn’t even show up on the pictures I take. *happy dance*

After Nikki left I sat at work alone and actually worked on my paper. I got 2 pages worth of introduction done, too! Yes! Go me! It still needs work mainly because I didn’t cite anything. Yeah, I’m doing it all backwards. I wrote what I want to put based on the knowledge I already have since I just pick up random tidbits of everything and now I have to go out and find places that say those things so I can cite them as my sources. *raised eyebrow* Yeah, that’s just how I roll. My parents helped me find a bunch of articles though since they have access to the DuPaul and Harvard databases so hopefully I can get that done tomorrow. Then I have the conclusion. One step at a time. I can do this.

After work Nikki took me to Walmart so we could get new cleaning solution for my lens. Walmart didn’t appear to have any but after much searching high and low (and around and around the same small section of store) we found a pen type deal that has a retractable brush, a spray top and a nice cloth that won’t leave fuzz all over the lens like the crap thing I got with the camera. It made me happy because I saw one when I was researching our camera and thought it was cool. It’s like spy gear for my Nikon! Dun dun dundun dun dun! Okay, I’ll stop there. After that we came back, stuffed ourselves with all sorts of good food and digested over an episode of Charmed. Now we need to do the whole ferret thing and then I need a shower and Nikki needs sleep. So much for packing – and my dad is going to be here in 3 days! >_< Good night all!

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You thought I was going to forget your cute thing, right? Nope. It’s Wednesday, too! Here’s your video!

Filed under: Cats, Dogs, Ferrets, Furry Kids, People on December 10th, 2008 | 7 Comments »

Today has had its ups and downs. I slept in until nearly 11 because Nikki was sweet and let me sleep while she showered. Then we were up and got to work. We were really good this morning. Nikki cleaned a lot, I vacuumed the living room and bathroom, and wiped down all the mold in the bathroom too. Actually, LS helped me because I wiped it off and she cleaned off the vinegar I used. Yep. Nikki made the place look so nice. And then there was no time left to do any more so we just hoped the place was clean enough for them to get an idea of how the place looks and that they’d like it. Well, at 2 I got bored and pulled out Nikki’s pottery and started wrapping it. At like 2:45 Nikki called the people and the woman said she’d forgotten about coming to see the place. Great. BUT they are supposedly coming to look tomorrow. Apparently their furnace blew this morning so they got caught up in that. Which sucks for them but I suppose it might be good for us? It might mean they need a new place more quickly. I don’t know. The other prospect is gone because the girl she wanted to move in with had her house burn down recently and can’t afford to move here. Not even kidding, that’s true.

Random: Merlin is currently eating the plastic wrapper from a fortune cookie while climbing over my weights like they’re a mountain. Strange things like this don’t even phase us in this family. We are crazy!

After we found out they weren’t coming we kinda stopped working. It’s like we both need pressure to motivate us to actually work on something. Such as my paper. I’ve barely touched it since that one day and it’s due this coming Friday. Along with a poster and presentation! Ack.

I’ve been a pretty big jerk today too. I don’t mean to be and I feel really bad about it, but I get mean when I get stressed. I try to make up for it by baking biscuits and giving hugs but it doesn’t really fix the problem. I’m sorry Nikki.

Umm, we got to actually tape some boxes today which was cool but man does this tape suck. It breaks and doesn’t stick and generally gives us a hard time. Oh well, why should it be easy, right? We came up with a system for putting different colored stickers on the boxes to symbolize different things such as if it’s to be opened in Tennessee or if it can stay on storage or if it’s fragile. That made me feel productive. We also desperately need new boxes but they had none at the school or the grocery store. We have to go back to the school on Monday for boxes but that means we’re pretty useless until then. Okay, my goal for tomorrow is to pack Nikki’s pottery and most of the clothes we have. We don’t need that many for the 2 weeks we have left. What else? Oh, meds and supplies like that. Yeah. And as many of my books as we can with the limited supply of boxes. And, of course, I should work on my paper.

And I’m worried because I just found a bump on Spunky’s lower lip. And he chipped one of his front teeth, too! He already has a back tooth that has been totally sheered, is rotting, and needs to be removed. Now there’s this one. And the bump. I’m worried. It may be a wart (which are totally disgusting, the Twins at work had them and it’s just. . . yeah) but he’s supposed to be too old to get them. Perhaps he’s stressed with all the packing, though, and that has lowered his immune system. Plus he has scabs on his back and really dry skin. He may have been slightly allergic to the shampoo I used to bathe him before Thanksgiving but I thought I’d used the same kind as always. My poor boy. I just want him to be ok. I feel like a bad mother so much of the time because he’s constantly moping around. Always. Nikki says it’ll be better when we leave. I hope so. Grandma (my mom) is going to spoil him rotten! Anyway, I’m going to ask at work what they think about the bump and then I may or may not take him to the vet up here (they are ridiculously expensive – it would cost like a third of the amount if we wait for Tennessee). I’m not going to risk him just to save money, of course, but since I bought the camera I’m trying to save as much as possible. I hate that I finally decided to spend my money on something for me that I really want and now I just constantly feel guilty about it. It’s not a good feeling. Anyway, I’ll keep everyone updated on the pup.

I seem to be even more random today than I normally am. That’s how my brain has been lately – all over the place. And now for pictures. Since Carolynn has requested them (via her mom) here are some pictures of the ferrets!

Caught You!

Don’t they look like they were just caught getting into trouble?

Aww, Sleepy Boys!

Drake always hugs the other ferrets. He’s such a good boy. So is Nate.

Filed under: Ferrets, Furry Kids on December 6th, 2008 | 7 Comments »

Hi everyone. How were your days? Mine has been long and kind of hectic. I worked at 6:30 today, which is hard enough for me now that my sleep schedule got switched back to my old going to bed after 12 thing. Plus like I mentioned earlier, we had a stressful week so sleep was even worse than it would have been otherwise. Okay, and I must place some blame with how good Charmed is, too. We start watching and don’t want to stop and think “oh, it’s just one more!” all night long! Anyway, today was our bath day special at work. We had 32 dogs come in for baths today! 32! On top of the boarders and daycare dogs, no less. Now, I was lucky and didn’t actually bathe or dry anyone. I just tried to keep everything organized by checking in dogs, marking off when they were bathed and then crossing them off when they were done. I also checked them in and out on the computer and made up all of their invoices. Then there was herding all these dogs into different places around the building and making sure the non-social dogs didn’t attack anyone else. Oh, and let’s not forget trying to chip frozen poop off of the black top and cinder blocks in the play yard. That’s right – frozen poop. That chips apart and sends bits flying everywhere that some dogs feel are necessary to chase down. Not even kidding. Oh, and since everyone loves them, Remington and Browning were there again today and they’re just as cute as ever.

Okay, onto the introduction of the day. Jennifer so kindly decided for us that tonight was a ferret night! And so, without further ado, I give you Nate – as a baby!

Aww, the Little Rascal!

Nate entered my life on May 10, 2006. He was a ferret from Petco. I know, I know – bad me. Anyway, he wasn’t really mine, at first, I guess. He was picked out by my non-ex girl thing (you know, emo-girl) and for awhile I didn’t want to get attached to him because I had learned how hard it is to split up pets when you go your separate ways. Of course, this is me we’re talking about, so I was in love within days. Little Nate had to stay by himself for awhile in quarantine to make sure the other ferrets wouldn’t get sick, but once he met the other boys, they got along famously. The other boys being Drake and Jingles – not ready to talk about Jingles yet (or his sister Echo for that matter). Nate has driven me nuts since the day I met him and he continues to do so to this very day. See, Nate believes that one cannot possibly eat food from the container in which it is deposited. No, instead it must ALL be dug out and scattered all over the cage level. Now besides it being a bit of a waste of food since some of it falls on the floor or is chewed up into tiny pieces which no one then wants to eat, it is also one of the most ridiculously annoying sounds to hear him tossing it out of his bowl. There’s the scraping of his claws on plastic, the scratch of ferret food against the bowl and the extremely loud sound of all those pawfuls of food falling a few inches to the floor below it. I don’t know how to describe it, just trust me – it grates on the nerves. And he knows he’s not supposed to do it either. When he does, we yell his name and it may stop for a second. Then he tries it again. This repeats until we actually stand up and move over to the cage at which point he jumps away from his food bowl and runs to the cage door and looks at us like he’s totally innocent. We’ve tried putting him in timeout, swatting his nose (with one finger, we don’t beat our children) and squirting him with water. None of it works. It is a trait he will have for life. Oh well, he’s our kid and isn’t driving your parents crazy kind of a requirement? We love him so much! And now for a picture of him more grown up…

Peeking Through the Bars

AGH! I would rant about how hard it is to take good pictures of critters as mobile as ferrets, but that would take too long. This was the best I could find at the moment – at least out of those photos of just Nate. It will have to do. Besides, that just means we’ll have to do ferret videos some day!

I hope everyone continues to enjoy meeting the babies and likes the stories that accompany them. Also, someone else (Leigh, perhaps?) pick a number between 1 and 3! Oh, and tomorrow I work 6:30 to 6 so I’m gonna be dead when I get home so I hope I don’t disappoint anyone. >_< I hate Fridays.

Filed under: Ferrets, Furry Kids on November 20th, 2008 | 7 Comments »

Continuing on with my ever-present theme of randomness, I give you a FERRET!

Drake Trouble!

This is Drake, AKA Drake Trouble. Sometimes just Trouble. Because that’s what he is. Pure and utter ferret trouble. And I love it! Of all the kids I have living with me, Drake is the one I’ve had the longest (I have an 18 year old cat living at my step-dad’s!) I got Drake like the first weekend I was back at school for my sophomore year of college (9/18/2004). An ex of mine, some friends and I went to Duluth since it’s the biggest city for hours around and stopped by Petco. At the time we already had rats and dwarf hamsters in our small dorm room so we needed supplies. When we got there we went to look at the ferrets and asked to play with them. Well, this little guy happened to be in there and we fell in love. He was such a sweety but also had a mischievous flair to him. Plus his markings are awesome! I tried to say no because I was trying to be the responsible one, but we ended up getting him anyway. His story is cool because it turns out he had been bought by someone else a week or so earlier but they had returned him that very day (just 3 hours earlier, even!) because one of the owners had an allergy. That to me says we were meant to be. Another interesting part of his becoming part of my family story? We had already planned to go to a movie and since we couldn’t leave the baby in the car, we snuck him into the movie theatre with us. That’s right! We took Drake to see Resident Evil: Apocalypse. He was a really good boy, even though he jumped at some of the loudest points. We took him home, snuck him into the dorm room, and there he lived with us for a semester until we moved off campus. Since then Drake has come to have many brothers and sisters and he loves them all – at least his ferret siblings. He’s such a good boy and Nikki and I love him to death. Drake was the first ferret that Nikki really got close to. Her first experience with him was cuddling on the floor in the bathroom where they were playing while I cleaned their cage. He was the one that made her decide that she liked ferrets. See? Every single animal came into our lives for a reason. It’s amazing when you stop and actually think about it.

Anyway, sorry this was so short. Trying to get it in under the wire here, so it’s posted today. Hopefully my life will become less hectic (doubtful) so I can write better posts and at more convenient times. Hope everyone had a good day today and will have an even better one tomorrow!

Filed under: Ferrets, Furry Kids on November 17th, 2008 | 5 Comments »