We haven't been able to get at the computer for a few days, but we've been making notes. We'll post them all here in sort of a diary form.

December 23. It's pretty boring under the couch these days. A week or so before Christmas the humans moved all the furniture in the playroom (they call it the living room) around. On the one paw this was a good thing, because it made room for the Christmas tree. But on the other paw, it was a real sad day when all those interesting things which were under the couch got put away or thrown away. So under the couch now, there isn't even dust. I'm sure the younger humans will put some good things under there in the next few days, since the very youngest is on Vacation, and the other will be "having a few days off." Heck, even the adult humans aren't leaving every day like the usually do, but they don't put much stuff under the couch.

December 24. Well, now, this is more like it. We've got an empty soda can, two paper plates, and a fork under here now. And the dust bunnies are coming back to roost as well. The humans just brought in a big plate with all kinds of food on it, cups and ice and soda and such. Last year this was followed by a Christmas Eve gathering where they watch "It's a Wonderful Life" or some such and eat and drop things on the floor. We've been wondering just how wonderful a life it could be without ferrets?

December 25. We were right about the food and the movie last night, but we're going to have to wait until later to actually check under the couch. The humans were up awfully early this morning and they all gathered in our play room and ripped the papers off of the boxes and packages they brought in late last night, after the younger ones had gone to bed. We're all hoping they'll leave a few of those boxes and some of that paper around on the floor for us to play with, but if past experience is anything to go on, they'll clean it up before they let us out to play.

December 26 to 28. Right again. They got rid of all the paper and most of the boxes. But there were a few left out for us to have some fun with. And they've got a new gadget called a "Pee Ess Two." Now, anything related to pee has got to be good. Quasimodo is anxious to go see how it works, but they're not letting us near it. I'm not sure it'll be much fun anyway. It only looks a little bit like a litter box, and when we tried to use the old one that way they got really upset. Quasi and Razz weren't here last year. I've tried to tell them that using the Pee Ess Two that way will probably be bad news, but they're hard to convince, especially Quasi. I'll report on his results next time.

There are a few things under the couch, but not enough to be really fun, so we decided to gather a few things from around the playroom and put them under here ourselves. The humans took real exception to us moving a thing called a watch. It doesn't watch anything, so we're not sure what the name means, but they got into something of a panic to find it and really messed up our stuff under the couch before they found it. It was almost as bad as the "keys incident" last year.

December 29. Well, another year almost over. We're not exactly sure what a "year" is, but the humans seem to place a lot of stock in it. What we do know is that pretty soon the lovely tree in our playroom will be gone, and it will be almost another whole "year" before it's replaced. We've never figured out why such an obviously useful thing as a tree in the playroom isn't done all year. The sound of those round things bouncing off the branches and into the floor is so nice, you'd think they'd want to hear it all the time, wouldn't you? And the risks we take to entertain them by leaping from branch to branch never really seems appreciated, though they do yell a lot, which is fun to hear.

In another week or so Bill (our "owner") will begin his annual incantations over the computer to get ready for something called Taxing Time (or something like that). This mostly seems to involve moving bits of paper around on his desk while he taps keys on the computer, stares into the computer screen and says things like "Damn. Two scents off." We could tell him than any two scents are just as good as any two others, but he seems to want them to be the right two scents. And it's a bit confusing anyway. We always thought that humans had a lousy sense of smell, but he apparently can smell things from the computer that we can't.

We, of course, will be on hand to help him with this Taxing Time. It's obvious how much he loves those bits of paper all over the desk. And if papers all over the desk is good, then all over the office must be better, no? So, we'll wait till he's out of the office, then, one of us will get up on the desk and start passing those papers down to the others on the floor. Pretty soon, we've got papers from one end of the office to the other. He's so joyful about this, that he's usually in a real hurry to put us back in our cage so he can enjoy moving them back to the desk by himself. That's OK by us. After a hard morning of moving papers for him, we really need the rest. We're still waiting for a chance to help him with the file cabinet, but he keeps it shut whenever we're in the office. Well, except this once, but that's a story for another time.

We spend a lot of time in the cage, which is probably OK since there are a lot of other animals living in this house too. The cats have sharp teeth and NO sense of humor whatsoever. The dogs are friendly and almost as inquisitive as we are, but they don't seem to be able to figure out how to play "bite the ankle" and get very jumpy when we try to teach them. The humans haven't figure this game out either. At least with humans, sometimes we get to fly when we try to teach them.

We'll be talking more about the dogs, cats, humans and other things that happen around here in future articles. For right now, though, it's time to go play in with the tree again before it's gone.