The New Year

The whole New Year's Eve crew (except Mark who was the photographer) toasting at midnight.


We spent New Year's Eve at my parents' house, and (my aunt) Bobbi and Todd joined us this year. We played a lot of games and watched National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. We traditionally watch this movie at some point during the winter holidays. We all enjoy it. We played Sequence for the first time. My in-laws gave us the game for xmas, knowing we play a lot of games in the evenings. It was really fun. I think we all agreed that it was a game we will definitely be playing again. At the stroke of midnight, we all toasted to the new year with our sparkling cider. The big guy was feeling quite celebratory this year and slammed the bubbly. ;D

My brother called while we were watching the movie with some horrible news. Their puppy, Johnny, was playing in the yard with their oldest boy (Pavielle) and was ruthlessly attacked by a pit bull from across the street. They called from the emergency vet clinic, where Johnny was currently being patched up. At that point, nobody knew if he would make it or not, as they didn't know about internal injuries. He made it, though, which was a great way to start out the new year--what amazing luck! If Pavielle had not been out there with him, if the pit had grabbed him from a different angle, if Pav hadn't reacted so quickly and so well (screaming at the top of his lungs for help), Johnny wouldn't still be with us. I'm so sad, though, that both Johnny and Pav had to have such a brutal and scary experience. The pit's "owners" were breeding her. She had a litter of 8 puppies at home--most or all, future fighters I'm sure. How sad that there are no laws that can protect the victims of this type of thing, and I actually include the pit as a victim. Dogs do not go out of their way to attack and kill other dogs from behind unless they have been brutalized or fight trained. The humans who are behind this mauling will not suffer at all. The most they can be "punished" by law is to be forced to pay for Johnny's medical expenses.


Cute little Johnny, after the attack.




Baxter says, "No, you will not play Luciana's new game". (A xmas gift) He feels it is his personal mission to seek out and lie upon any laptops, gameboards, or books, in the house.

Luciana and Allegrea exchange xmas gifts a little late.

It was great to be able to get together and kind of decompress from our holiday events.

I had to take Lila to the vet today to get a booster shot (distemper), and as always, I try to maximize my vet visits. I asked the vet if there was a way to tell if a female rabbit has been spayed without cutting her open. As I feared, the answer, medically speaking, is no. There are some behavioral type cues to look for, though, and based on those, I think Scraps is spayed. From a procreation standpoint, we're okay, because Thumper is neutered. From a health perspective, though, she needs to be spayed as unspayed rabbits have extremely high rates of uterine cancer. So I ended up in the birdroom trying to examine Scraps' little bunny vulva to see if it appeared purplish and shiny (lubricated). I don't think it did, but then this is the first bunny vulva I have had occasion to actually examine. Since I wasn't totally sure, I moved on to the next 'test', placing my hands on her back, near her hips, to see if she would take the posture of being mounted. She didn't (or hey, maybe she's just not into chicks, who knows). So I left the birdroom feeling that 1) she has probably been spayed, but I still plan to research this more; and 2) like a pervert! So I keep this mental list of weird things I've had to do that I never in a zillion years would think I would do (these are the same items I can whip out and bring any conversation/party to a screeching halt). I'm now adding examine bunny vulva and faux mounting a small rabbit. These items join other such proud moments as picking live maggots from an open sore, re-inserting bird's "lady parts", manually stimulating kitten anus so he could poop, and oh-so-many other high points. I know, I will stop now, as at this point talking about the glamour that is my life is just plain bragging!

I am pleased to say that we got our tree down and put away and have almost restored the house to it's pre-xmas "cleanliness". We even go Luciana's rotating, lighted solar system put together and mounted on her ceiling. That was a gift from her sister, and it's pretty cool. I had a secret little fantasy that when we got it up and working, she would think it was so cool that she would decide to try sleeping in her room. No. Now don't get me wrong, I still fully believe in co-sleeping and have no regrets whatsoever. It's just that, well, she's really big now, and she moves around a lot! Sharing a room with her and many, many cats makes for a rough night's sleep, pretty much always. If only there were a bed larger than king size (oh, and our bedroom was large enough to accomodate it).

We took Luciana to see The Water Horse on Wednesday, and it was a very cute movie. She is totally hooked on the Loch Ness 'monster' now. She came home from the move and started creating a book about water horses. She asked me for an empty three-ring binder (which I always have plenty of), so she could put all of her art, writing, and research in it. It's called, "The Water Horse Book". I will be scanning some of her work in and posting it eventually. It's pretty cute.

I have also started my weekend of mourning, as I have to go back to work on Monday. I have so loved my time off and am desolate that it's coming to an end.