pets

I've updated my Blatherings from Saturday and Sunday. Today's entry is based on photos from my visit with Mark Osier.

The photo at the top of the page is of Gulliver, one of Mark's and Kathy's five pets. I remember Gulliver from a previous visit to their house. Very cute for a turtle. He gets pretty excited when he sees people. Mark says it's because he's hoping to get worms. On Saturday morning I went downstairs to say hi to him, and as soon as I got anywhere near his aquarium, he started frantically pawing the glass:





I never did see Henrietta, their land turtle. She spent the whole time hiding. I did see Mark put food in her cage, though, which kind of grossed me out. Crickets!! Eugh:



This is Moriarty, their guinea pig, who is 9 years old:



I've mentioned Mandy in a previous Blathering:



Kathy took their cockatiel, Poindexter, with her to Phoenix, apparently because Poindexter hates Mark and Mark hates Poindexter. :-D

I've had all kinds of pets, but I think my favourite are dogs. (Debbie ducks as the cat people out there start throwing things) Cats are interesting, but I find a lot of them way too independent to be satisfying pets, plus I'm allergic to them. I do admire their feline chutzpah, but I do find the somewhat mindless adoration of dogs kind of cute. Though Mandy's adoration was a tad overwhelming at times. :-D

Guinea pigs are cute and fluffy, but too passive. They just sit there looking like a nice snack for some predator. Birds can be fascinating to watch, but they make way too much mess. Fish are incredibly boring, plus cleaning aquariums is gross.

As you can tell, I'm just not cut out to be a pet owner.

I'll be posting some more highlights and photos from my visit over time. Many thanks to Mark for letting me invade his home! I hope to get out there again sometime next year, perhaps with Allison and Jodi, and hopefully Kathy will be around (missed you, Kathy!).

NaNoWriMo update: 41,327 words written, 8,673 to go. I have until Saturday! Between NaNo, two other writing deadlines this week, and coming home to find a big pile of e-mail that needs to be answered, it's going to be a busy week. If you've e-mailed and I haven't replied yet, I'd appreciate your patience, thanks.

I received an e-mail from Chatelaine apologizing for the delay in letting me know what's happening with my article, by the way. Apparently the editor who was supposed to be handling my piece has left the magazine :-(, and the new one hasn't had a chance to catch up on stuff yet. Please keep your fingers crossed for me, thanks.

And now a final photo from Syracuse: here's a close-up of the t-shirt that Mark was wearing yesterday:





This is so Mark. :-)

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