Thread Drift

[Nanci]

Yeah, Salsa, at least I have my snakes! My Choco non-eating snakes! (But I managed to stuff another meal down Addy tonight, and the little piglet Zee took two servings! He kind of makes me nervous now around feeding time, after the biting incident of last Sunday. I saw this report of a hognose bite on line, and it is nothing to laugh at...I am the best handwasher in the world now!)

Nanci

[Nanci]

Koko and Mr. Toad:

[salsabike]

Absolutely, and those snakes are the coolest. Is Choco not eating because he's getting ready to shed? But at least Addy is now eating. And Zee sounds pretty indomitable. How's Maizey?

You're an original, girl. Stick around.

My best friend is 3000 miles away in Albany NY. Thank God for email. Our phone bills used to be pretty big.

My sister-in-law's sister-in-law, with whom I play constant online Scrabble, emailed me a screechy complaint about her contractor. Ha. Given my recent and ongoing experience (now they've invaded our crappy little basement dungeon living space and it's all draped with visqueen so they don't totally trash our stuff and it looks like The Andromeda Strain), I just emailed her back and said, "I recommend a flamethrower."

[salsabike]

Great picture! Mr. Toad, who has a very important job. And is cute to boot. And Koko's shell is so gorgeous. It looks like banded agate.

[Nanci]

Choco just shed, so I don't know what his problem is...Maize is fine. This little "cuddling" incident actually made me a little nervous tonight- it almost looked like Koko was going to take a bite out of Mr. Toad. But he didn't. Buttercup, who has been a reluctant eater all summer, has turned into a little porker now that she is stuck eating "bad" grocery store produce rather than healthy weeds that she grazes for herself (due to the weather). Fagalo woke up a couple days ago, and I fed him a couple nightcrawlers and soaked him, and weighed him (gained four grams in brumation!) and sent him back to sleep in his hibernaculum...

The coolest thing is how Zee takes the mice and bites them in the center- envenomating them, and finally when he is sure they are dead (they already were!!!) he swallows them head first. He's so cool.

[salsabike]

Ah, tortoise junk food junkie. It's the winter hibernating thing. We're all gaining pounds in brumation! I gained back 10 pounds in the last two months, and still had plenty to lose before I did that. I figure, I'm doing the damn best I can given the circumstances, and I'll just get up and try again. Trudge trudge. So Zee is acting like a snake in the wild, the way he's eating his mice. I wonder why he's doing that. It's like seeing kittens who were trained to hunt by a mother cat versus those who weren't. Our two cats are in the latter category and they have the instinct to hunt and catch mice but then can never quite figure out what to do with them. Think I mentioned once before that they once got themselves shut into a very small bathroom with a mouse they'd caught, who then hid in between the magazines in the bathroom magazine rack and drove them crazy because they couldn't figure out how to catch it. But when they do catch 'em, they just sort of play with them. We once found Nina the Abby cat sitting side by side with a mouse she's caught. Just sitting and hanging out.

[Nanci]

Kind of like when Maizey was letting the rat pup ride around on her back...

I had a cat who skinned a rabbit once. How do you even deal with that???

Nanci

[salsabike]

Exactly like the Maizey thing.

Eeewww. You feel bad and try to remember the cat's doing her job. And then try to distract yourself, or return to your original theory that if all creatures ate warm chocolate pudding, we WOULD achieve world peace. Failing to achieve that, you have a glass of wine and watch Grey's Anatomy, or, as we are now doing in the basement dungeon, The Bourne Identity, for the millionth time. Now THERE'S a real mystery. I have really odd random movie tastes. All time favorite movies, much to my own surprise: Tombstone. The Abyss. All That Jazz. The Bourne movies. No coherent tastes there at all.

[snapdragen]

Well, the emotional basket case that is me seems to have calmed down. I have no idea why I was/am so on edge these days. Maybe holiday stress? Although I don't really feel stressed.....yet!

X - thanks for the update on Jen, so good to know she's home.

Nanci - the Maizey story with the rat pup is still my favorite.

Chloe went into a mad rampage through the house last night. She went outside in the rain, so I had a wet dog flying up and down the hallway. Finally caught her and got her somewhat dried off, and she grabs her loofah dog. I swear she was dancing! Flipping the toy all over, prancing and bouncing. I wish I'd had a video of it.

I bought Yusef Islam's (Cat Stevens) new cd. I like it, very similar to his old work. I've always loved his voice.

Got to get moving, it's cookie baking weekend for me.