| Vol. 2, No. 3 | 29 May, 2002 |
This will be a somewhat short newsletter this time. There's things going on and Bill's been using his computer a lot lately, trying to catch up on work, and working on the web site. But we did get a chance to use the machine a bit, so here we go.
The big news this time is that Bill's brother Dave died last month. This was long expected, but very sad none the less. We all liked Dave. He wasn't that fond of us, he was a dog and cat sort of person. But he did always say "Hello, ferret face!" when he visited, and would give us tummy rubs if we weren't too squirmy. We liked Dave because, especially after he stopped working (he got too sick) he got to live every ferrets dream. He explored places. He drove around the country seeing things and poking into stuff that was interesting. Dave's favorite saying was "Not all who wander are lost." If that isn't a deep ferret-like undestanding of life, we don't know what is. Bill has been saying that you don't get over this, you just go on. So, he does, and the family does, and so do we.
We've also been reading the news group (alt.pets.ferrets) and have seen a lot of ferrets passing on lately. Vertigo and Oliver just as we were typing up this issue. You'd think from reading the group that we're fragile and prone to all sorts of diseases. To an extend, of course, this is true. But I think the bigger factor is that there are a LOT of us out there, and a lot of ferret people have many of us. There's three of us here, and this isn't a really big house. Some people have ten or even twenty of us. When there's that many of us in a small group (the news group, I mean), it's just kind of inevitable that some of that number will be sick or passing on at any time. Don't let it throw you, if you're thinking of getting a ferret. We three are the second, third and fourth ferrets at this house. Road Kill did die of a disease that took a long time to take him, but he had a fun life up until he got sick, and a few fun moments even after that. The rest of us have never had anything worse than a cold, and I think Quasimodo has never been sick. I don't think a germ would dare mess with him. Read up about ferrets, or probably even better, visit the news group for a while and talk to people about their experiences. There's a few odd folks on the group, but most folks have a lot of useful experience.
Shift continues to visit us when we're out playing, and even pushes us over and does other play stuff with us. Quasimodo got a bit too rough, so Shift sat on him for a while. That didn't work out as well as Shift expected, because we're really flexable, but Quasi did get the message and they continued to play around the couch and on the window sill for a while longer, then he got tired of it and went to sit on top of the fish tank. We can't reach him up there, so that put an end to cat play time. We're not sure how much he likes Razzle and me (Minya) because he spends most of his time chasing, being chased by, or wrestling with Quasi. There will be pictures, I guess, if Bill ever remembers to bring the camera into the living room while we're out playing.
Stuff continues to get better under the couch. We knocked over an ash tray a few days back, and though the humans did collect all the cigarette butts, we did manage to track ashes all under the couch before they swept up. And we also snagged one of the dog chew toys, which makes a wonderful squeeking noise, and drag that under the couch too. The dogs want it back, but so far haven't been able to reach under that far to get it. We played "keep away" with Maggie for a while, which was kind of fun, but she's such a big moose of a dog we were getting nervous she might step on one of us, so we had to stop. Maggie got the ball for a while, but we snuck out and took it back later. The collection of paper plates, soda cans, and socks continues to grow. The socks are the easiest, since the big kid just drops them on the floor when he's watching TV at night.
We also were having a good time with something called a "trash basket" in the playroom, until the humans took it away. It was wonderful. In one single place you've got a pile of collectables, soda cans, paper plates, bits of food, bits of paper and all that. AND when you tip it on it's side, it's a fine place to climb around it. Quasi was a shovelin' stuff out of there faster than a gopher goes to ground! Since they obviously left this play thing out for us, we're not sure we understand the grousing when we were really moving stuff out and leaping around in it. But we DO know that Bill took it away and all the lovely stuff that was in it too. Well, except for the dust kitty Quasi pushed under the wood stove.
We've been observing the human conditon more lately. Bill was pretty busy towards the end of last month, spending a lot of time at the hospital with Dave, but we got quite a lot of hugs and short times out in places we don't usually go. A lot of sharing his dinner late at night or early in the morning at the kitchen table. Most of these times he took just one of us out at a time. It's fun to all play together, but it's also kind of fun to be the only one out. We all got out like that about once a day, and it was pretty interesting. We got to explore the kitchen table and counter and sink, and eat some roast chicken from Bill's sandwich and some cat food from the cat bowl on the counter. Bill calls these our "walk abouts" because we're only out for a short time, we're not confined to the living room, and we get to go places we don't usually go and see things we don't usually see. But he STILL won't let me eat the soap in the kitchen sink.
Humans are interesting when they're sad, especially when they're dealing with death. They spend a lot more time looking at us, at each other, petting the dog and cats and, of course, us. They seem to wonder what it's all about and if there's really any purpose to everything. We wonder that too, but we also know that until you can get the answers to those questions, it's good to have some fun and give in to at least a few of the impulses that run across our brains. People should be more like ferrets and spend time just looking around. There's always something interesting under the next couch or in the next corner. And even if there isn't, the trip is worth the effort.
We'll be talking more about the dogs, cats, humans and other things that happen around here hopefully more often than we have been. Right now, though, it's snack time. Mmmm, Mmmm... Corn Pops!