It's been too long . . .

There are some things, like dental appointments, that you don't necessarily enjoy, you might even put off actually going, but when I saw I hadn't written a thing in over a month I was shocked. "This is unexceptable," said the little voice in my head, always writing that perfect short story. Like the dental appointment, my stories weren't actually making it to the page. This morning as I tried desperately for sleep I wrote in my head about Oscar the rat we had when the younger kids were still in elementary school.

Now that I'm writing this story down I can see I need to ask my daughter Megan, illustrator of other books, to illustrate this. She draws the cutest rats. Anyway, a Thursday story to either entertain or terrorize you, depending on your view of fancy rats (not the roof rats in our attic we called Terminex for.)


Oscar was a lucky rat and he knew it. The lady came into the store many times to say hello to him as he desperately tried to get comfy on top of his small igloo house in his small cage. One day the lady came into the store wearing a bright pink sweater. She brought with her the lady jingling her keys, the lady who one always slipped him a few extra carrots, because she knew the spunky, younger rats always got picked first, leaving him, all alone in his cage.

The lady in the pink sweater put him on her shoulder and they shopped for stuff. His heart beat a little bit faster as he smelled her vanilla smell. Was it her hair? He sniffed it and even nibbled a few strands. Luckily she did not notice. She put a new big water bottle with a little spigot on the end in the shopping cart . . . oh boy, for him? Oscar ran to her other shoulder and noticed her dangling ear ring. He playfully nibbled on her ear and she giggled. She tossed some chewie toys and a bag of gourmet rat food into the cart . . . oh boy, for him? He ran to her other shoulder and watched as she added a new food dish, not as exciting, but for sure for him. Finally she threw a bag of the softest litter into the cart, making everything all wobbly for a moment. He hung on with his cute little toes and thought . . . oh boy, all that was HIS?

Other rats went home in boxes with holes in the lid and sides, but not Oscar. Oscar the rat was a lucky rat, as he rode home on the lady's shoulder. He ran from side to side, looking out the window as the other cars zipped by. Some people laughed when they saw Oscar perched there. Some people were horrified.

When they got home he sat in the bathroom floor and waited for her. He nibbled on the door, but it seemed like a lot of work, so he curled up in the corner and took a little nap, head tucked under his belly, all toasty.

When the lady came to get him from the bathroom he saw just what kind of a lucky rat he REALLY was. His cage had THREE spacious levels. One, two, three. The lady had put his food dish on one level, an extra big igloo on the bottom . . . oh boy it was all for him, sleep on top of the green igloo, or sleep in the igloo, his nest was complete.

As he explored past his igloo, he found the little toys the lady had purchased. A chewy wooden carrot, a crinkly round ball, and yummiest of all, little pink strawberry yogurt drops.

He explored his new cage mansion, sniffing all the corners, he ate all the strawberry yogurt drops, and most of his food. He hunched over his bowl and looked around past his cage. He heard other stirrings and knew there were other critters to meet on his next adventure OUT of his cage. He liked IN his cage but his little ratty brain was curious about what the rest of the world held.

The night after eating, nibbling on toys, and running up and down the ladders, he stretched out, with his tail next to him and slept soundly, dreaming of other friends, more ladders to climb and stuff to chew on. Oscar's adventures in his new forever home was just beginning.

All creatures great and small . . .

It started with a cat. My very first pet I remember was an orange cat named Pouffy. Yes, I was only about 5 when we adopted or obtained or maybe she found us, and I was allowed to name her anything I wanted to. I loved her so much.

I loved her enough that I put her in a doll clothes suitcase and followed my dad around as he hollered, "Pouffy . . . here kitty, kitty, kitty." It took him a minute to realize that the angry meowing and hissing was coming from my pink suitcase I was carrying around as I followed him, which would explain why the sound was always so close. But I digress.

We brought Sherman Tank into our family when I was about 6 or so (I'm guessing at ages, I have no idea). He was a 180 pound black Great Dane who loved my sister and I so much he let us ride him and when he was tired of us pulling on his ears or messing with him, he would put a large front leg over the top of us and lay his head down on us. What a great dog.

When we moved to California in the late 70's we had a little Yorkshire Terrier named Mr. Bojangles. He was adorable. We carted him around. We took him for long walks and the grey cat, Sammy, used to bat him across the floor as she stalked him like a lion. He was so good natured, with his tongue all curled up, he panted away and waited for someone to give him some love, even if it was a large grey cat.

I had a series of hamsters, one in particular stands out. His name was Big Al after the bear in the Country Bear Jamboree. I adored him. I even gave him haircuts (he had long white fur and some black on his face). He wasn't the smartest hamster ever. He would put all of his treasures, food, toys, everything in the attachable closed-in running wheel. Then he'd get in and run away . . . food, toys, and what-nots flying through the air and raining down on him as he worked out. Silly rodent.

We won't go into the mice. Suffice it to say we bought our mom home 2 mice. Since she collected the collectible kind we thought she'd like to have some real ones. Except they weren't two girls like the pet store said. Nope . . . and Brenda and I decided to raise bunches of mice and sell them to the pet store where they would be sold as pets and not snake food. It got ugly. It got smelly. We gave up, selling the whole mess back to the pet store. Sorry baby micies. <sigh>

Okay, to recap since then since this blog post could go on and on and you would sigh and think this woman is nuts about animals and when will it end . . . I've had dogs, cats, parakeets, cockateils, hamsters, mice, guinea pigs, rabbits, rats, and chinchillas. I also count my outside wild friends as pets and love to feed the birds, the squirrels, even the wild rat who sneaks out during the day to steal some of the blue jays' peanuts.

I have a wish list of animals I want to adopt but the state of California says, no-no. I would dearly love a hedgehog. Sooooooo dang cute, especially the babies. I would really like a ferret, but nope, even the hubby is saying no on that. We saw some in Arizona once and he wrinkled his nose and said they smelled funny. Sheesh.

I also have a list of animals banned by the HOA. Chickens! Oh my goodness, I want a chicken really bad. Actually a herd or no, a flock, a bunch? Anyway, I want several. They come in so many pretty colors and they lay eggs and cluck and are super fun to play with. And a goat . . . goats make me laugh. They make me want to hug them for being so naughty. I love the little pygmy ones the best. I think I would also like a tiny burro and a pony and a llama. They would just be fun to have . . . oh and a pot belly pig would be the best. I think David is secretly happy the HOA is strict about no farm animals. Darn it.

In the meantime, my animal population is down to 5 critters (a dog, a cat, a rabbit, a chinchilla, and a rat) and 3 people living in the house. According to the other occupants of the house there should be a more equal ratio of people to pets. Darn it. I only have one of everything and they want friends. Maybe I'll sneak home another one when no one's looking. An orange kitty? We've always had an orange kitty. I'll name her Pouffy.

"Bang, bang," old dogs!!!!

Lady, definitely not dead here.

They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks . . . and really, our dogs learned their basic commands and then seemed to skip the rest of the learning curve. My friend, Julie, has a dog and he plays dead. I mean really dead. Julie says, “bang, bang” and Raider falls to the ground and theatrically puts all 4 paws in the air and lays there until Julie offers him a treat and he is quickly undead.

                I would love it if our dogs would even learn a fraction of cool tricks that. Lady won’t play dead or fetch a ball and sometimes she decides that staying is too much work, although she does lay down a lot . . . but then again she’s over 10 years old and that’s like, well ancient if she was a human. Lady is a border collie mix and very smart . . . I know she adores me, she really wants to be good, but for the most part I’m just happy she sits and stays (sort of ) at least she listens when I call her.

Gus, the rat! . Ready for the trick and then the treat!

 “Lady, come!” and there she is, ever so hopeful for a snack. Casey, our 12 year old Golden Retriever, however, if you call her, “Casey, come!” Nothing. I have seen cats that behave better than this canine. . . as a matter of fact, we had a rat named Gus, that came when he was called. He’d show up with both dogs to get his treat too. There’s only 2 options if you want Casey to come to you . . . either yell her name really loud and show her the treat or go and clip the leash to her collar. And still she might pee out of doggy angst. Good grief.

We have a friend of the family, Cameron, who really loves dogs, probably because he owns something like 9 cats (his dad’s a vet, need I say more?) and he especially loves to get our dogs to do tricks. Which I find amusing because I’ve tried for years to get Lady to do the bang bang trick or even just catch a treat and not snap at empty air and then get into a wrestling match with Casey, or even Gus, who stole more treats due to Lady’s miscalculation on catching treats! Lucky rat! So watching Cameron work with the dogs, I thought it was good for the dogs to get a work out, but I was hoping Cameron wouldn’t be too sad that Lady was, well, really beyond the learning new tricks thing.

And then an amazing thing happened. We left the dogs at home with Cameron while we went on our trip over Thanksgiving, which the dogs thought was most excellent . . . I heard, although still haven’t witnessed, that Casey did, in fact, come when he called her. However the most amazing thing of all was Lady learned how to do the BANG BANG trick. Oh my goodness. I was so excited when I saw Cameron pick up a treat, and loudly say, “bang, bang” while pointing at her. Flop. Little grinchy fluffy paws straight up in the air. Where she stayed until Cameron said, “good girl” and gave her a dog snack, which really taste like air.I know, I tried one once. I bet the dogs would do tricks for Cameron for ice cubes, those treats are so boring.

So the next morning I wanted to show David how very cool his dog was and that she really was super, uber smart. I took a piece of pancake and said, “bang, bang” while pointing at Lady. Flop. Little fluffy paws straight up in the air. Yeah! I was so excited I tried it again. “Bang, bang!” Nothing. Lady sat and stared at me, very confused. I tried it again. I emptied my imaginary gun into that dog and nothing. She just stared at me, not blinking. She was definitely not dead. And then it occurred to me. Of course you can only do the dead trick once.  Dead’s dead. It takes time to recover from being dead. So we did a few other tricks and I tried again. Yup, dead as a doornail until it was time for her treat.

I wish Gus was still around . . . I bet I could have taught him the bang, bang trick! Yeah, Cameron! Now can you teach the dogs to sweep up their own fur?