Yes, it's been a while.

The humans have had some troubles around here, so we haven't had much of a chance to get at the computer. Actually, it's a mostly new computer, because one of the things that happened was that the old one up and died. No computer for almost two weeks, put Bill way behind on both that tax stuff he does this time of year and the parts of his regular work he does at home. The tax stuff he finished just this afternoon. We're glad about that because he was getting a bit grumpy about it and he was using the new computer so much, we didn't have a chance to write our newsletter.

But during the bad time, at least he remembers the joys of ferrets. We've gotten out to the play room (they call it the "living room") a little more than usual. He finally took the hint from my eating the raisins out of his Raisin Bran and bought us a box of our own raisins, so we've been getting two kinds of snacks lately. We're not sure which are better, raisins or Corn Pops, but we'll continue to try all he'll give us. Razzle really likes raisins. I'm partial to Corn Pops, and Quasimodo just says "gimme" to whatever is in the snack bowl.

Another thing happening is that Bill's brother is very sick, and that's taken up a lot of his time and attention. And to cap off a bad month, Bill got a cold, and when he's got colds or the flu he's afraid to play with us, so we didn't get out for about a week. But he still remembered the raisins and Corn Pops, so things weren't all bad.

Anyway, the taxes are done and he left the machine running when he went out, so Quasi got us out of the cage with a little help from his cat friend (see below), and we finally got our chance to write this issue.

The cat isn't so bad

We've been spending a lot more time out lately (except for the week Bill was sick, of course), and have discovered that at least one of the cats, Shift (see picture here , second from the last picture) isn't as stuck up as the rest, although he still won't teach us how to levitate. He's been coming into the play room to associate with us, especially Quasi, while we've been out the last couple of times. He doesn't fit into all the really fun places to play, such as behind the wood pile or under the cabinet, but he DOES fit under one of the couches, and even sleeps under there sometimes. Any cat who has an appreciation for ferrets and couches can't be all bad.

Couch progress report

Things are getting REAL good under the couch. One of the humans was out of work, and was spending a lot of time on the couch. And even better, he's something of a slob. He leaves stuff on the floor, including socks, shoes, wrappers and even some food. He leaves stuff on the coffee table, especially almost empty cans of Coke which are just a blast to knock over. Finally, there's the stuff he leaves on the back of the couch, like empty cigarette boxes, which are fun to push off the edge. He also leaves the game controller wires dangling AND the machine running, so we can pull the controller down and watch what happens on the screen when it crashes into the floor. It's been our best couple of months in a long time.

Unfortunately, he got a job last week, and Bill and Laura are talking about "cleaning up this dump." When Bill talks that way, he usually picks up the couches and chair and cleans under them, and when Laura talks that way she usually cleans out the couches too.

Also, that whatever it was we've been hiding under the couch did get a bit aromatic and, as Quasi predicted, the humans came looking for it and disposed of it. But, they were in such a rush, they didn't clean out the other stuff we've got under there. But we fear that won't last much longer.

On the other hand, the lady who lives here, Laura (Bill's wife, I guess), got some toys just for us. They roll and jingle and click and are a lot of fun. We set up races pushing them from under one couch, across the floor and under the other one. One of them is SO much fun the humans grabbed it while they were watching one of their movies. Strange, though, that after they took it they didn't play with it. We think the jingling noise is wonderful.

Of course, we've still got custody of those tennis balls the dogs want so much. We did leave a couple out the last time we played, and one of the dogs was nice enough to say "thank you" to us. Or maybe she was just barking at the cat on top of the cage. Dog talk is so hard to understand.

The human condition

When we started these newsletters, we said we were going to talk about the human condition, like our idol M.D. Jerry . We haven't really gotten the hang of that yet. Probably mostly because humans are just so hard to understand. One thing Jerry did, which we're going have a go at ourselves, is see the humor in everything, except maybe cats. Jerry didn't think much of cats. Well, for the most part maybe we don't either. There's seven cats here, and only one takes any interest in us. Does this mean that 86% of all cats are stupid? Oh, Quasi just reminded me that we got fan mail from two cats last issue. So, three cats out of ten showed a healthy interest in ferrets. That means 70% are too stuck up to learn to enjoy a friendly fuzzy.

But enough of cats, we're going to try to observe the human (and dog and cat) condition around here and report on it as we see it. Just keep in mind that we're ferrets. Dogs have a lot of fun in life, but they're influenced by thousands of years of being "mans best friend." They have a reputation to uphold, so they're a little biased. Cats have that whole "we were gods in Egypt" thing to get over, so it's no surprise they've got ego issues. We mostly enjoy leaping about like maniacs, exploring places we don't belong, and stealing your dirty socks, especially if you're still wearing them. To us, humans are large friends who can reach the raisins, somewhat clumsy playmates, who can get us out of the fish tank when we fall in, and most of all someone to play "ferret bowl" with. As you can tell, we see people a bit differently than the other domestic animals.

What we observe right now is the great relief on Bill's part that the taxes are done and that he's finally fixed the leak in the bathroom. At least, he thinks it's fixed. We think it's unfair that he didn't let us go play in the kitchen while it was raining out there, but he can be such a spoil sport sometimes.

We'll be talking more about the dogs, cats, humans and other things that happen around here hopefully more often than we have been. But right now, it's getting kind of late and we have to get back to our raisins.