After R's funeral, as soon as everyone left, I packed up EVILBOY and we went and picked out a kitten. A kitten was something that R. absolutely refused.  Usually when he put his foot down about something, I was able to sway him.  Painting our living room purple and not naming our son Abdul Jabbar (even though I agreed he could name him if he was a boy) are just a couple of examples of his admirable compromising abilities.

I wouldn't say getting a kitten was a rebellion.  It was more of a distraction to me.  For the first time ever I was alone. I needed something cute and fuzzy to take my mind off of my broken heart.

It worked for a while, until I realized that cat was the devil and he had to go.  Soon after other kittens came and went - all leaving our home for some reason or another.  Too mean/dirty, too bitey and in one case he just liked our neighbours a lot better and he moved in with them.  It's not something I'm proud of. If my mind had been in a better place, I could probably have worked harder to make them fit into our family, but in the end they all found better homes.

After our last kitten hated us and ran away to live with our neighbours, I realized that I probably am not the greatest at pet ownership. I was totally okay with it by then because my brother moved in with us and I felt not so alone anymore. Eventually he ran away too (like the cat) and that awful lonely feeling crept back in.

I browsed the shelter one day and fell in love with a five month old kitten.  Of course I fell in love with a kitten, who doesn't fall in love with kittens?  Even though I was afraid to give cat ownership another try, there was something about this little guy with his huge green eyes, that pulled me in.  He needed a home, I needed a distraction.  It was a perfect match.

But I left him there. I doubted myself and I left him there for someone else to adopt.

I couldn't stop thinking about him.  This poor little kitten - just five months old - not knowing what it is like to be a part of a family. I had no idea of how he got there, but at only five months old and living in a cage, something had to have went wrong for him.

The next day I went back and signed on to have Bingo join our family.  The shelter had named him Bingo and for some strange reason I never even thought to change his name.  Looking back, now I wish I had given him a cooler name like Darryl or Edward Scissorclaws or something - but for the most part, Bingo just worked.


We brought him home from the shelter a couple days later.  I thought there was something seriously wrong with him.  He just kept following us around and meowing constantly.  I thought maybe he was hungry or thirsty but he had food and water, his litter was clean...he just wouldn't shut up. It went on for days and to be honest, I was just about ready to give up.  I thought he hated us and he wanted to go back to his cage.  As it turns out, he just had a lot to say because eventually he calmed down and became a much less annoying member of the family.

He became a constant companion. If you laid your head down, Bingo was right there to chew on your hair or purr loudly in your ear.  He was also the most cleanest cat I have ever encountered.  If food was spilled out of his dish, he would sweep it with his paw into a little pile. He was a bit OCD. We got along very well.



He fit in so well with our little family. I can't remember a single time that he ever caused me any grief.  He always used the litter box, never scratched on furniture and was generally a pretty nice little guy.  

 Although there had been times when he would try to steal food or jump in your seat as soon as you got up. Other than that, he was the perfect kitty.

 

  



He had the greatest life full of chewing on our hair, sleeping on our pillows and licking the wall.


Until one day he got sick.  I had to use the money for my cable bill to pay for a vet - who told me absolutely nothing other than if I spent $150 more I could get a blood test so we would know what was going on with him.  I decided not to get the blood test, simply because I was broke.  If I had the blood test and something did come back abnormal, that extra $150 would already be dipping into our grocery money and then some.  It was hopeless.  I opted instead to get some antibiotics.


I spent the next 14 days squirting salmon-flavoured goo down his throat with a syringe.  He hated me so much when I came near him with the medical syringe. He would spit it back out at me. It took a while but I finally perfected cat medicine administration...on the 13th day.

Then something incredible happened -  he threw up thread.  A whole bunch of thread. Thread that I had to pull out of his throat while he was throwing up on my hand.  He had to have known I loved him by the fact that I let him throw up on my hand while pulling a ball of string out of his throat. 

I knew then that this was the problem. He ate thread.  I phoned the vet back who told me he could beat this on his own but if not he would have to have a $1200 surgery.  I felt absolutely awful.  I tried to think of ways to come up with $1200 just in case it came down to surgery, but I quickly ran out of hope.



 Then he got better.  He was eating and drinking and greeting us at the door again. He was playing and fighting with his "sister".  He was back to chewing hair and licking walls.  Life was good again. The rest of the string came out naturally (that's all I'm going to say about that).

He had lost so much weight though. His fur was not as shiny anymore and his eyes were not as bright as they used to be.  Even though he was better, I still had a feeling he wasn't out of the woods quite yet. I started to feel lumps under his skin in his neck and the back of his head.  His weight was not bouncing back (he was always a little hefty so this worried me the most).

About a month later, just as I thought this whole nightmare was over, he stopped eating again.  Even the smell of hard cat food made him gag.  I found out the only way to get him to eat was to offer him wet cat food...doused in warm water to heat it up and mushed up with a fork.  Then when he was done he frantically swept around the dish until I picked it up off the ground and put it away. I figured he was just being picky.

The last picture ever taken of Bingo.  This was a few days before he died.

I decided to put him down on September 20.  It was not an easy decision at all.  I knew this was beyond anything I could handle financially.  There are agencies that can help - however they all are focused on helping people who are on social assistance. The lumps were growing, his liver function was down (he had jaundice) and I could tell he was in pain. My biggest fear was coming home with EVILBOY and finding that he had died all alone. I knew it was going to happen - it was inevitable at this point.  

He died on a Friday. In a room with me and people he had never seen before. I'm still not sure it was the right thing to do. I feel like a complete failure. He shouldn't have gotten sick. He ate thread that I had on my desk, I should have put it away. I'm not even sure if that was what made him sick.  It's still too hard to think of all the good memories because all I keep thinking about is everything I should have tried. Things I could have sold to come up with money for vet bills.  In the end I just feel like we ran out of time. I got too comfortable with the idea of him getting better that when he became sick again I was in disbelief.

I told EVILBOY when I picked him up from school.  I did it in the worst way possible - while bawling my face off.  I'm never really sure how to approach death with him -  I mean, it's a hard subject for any child, but to one who lost his father and still doesn't completely understand death it makes things a little more complicated. I had to tell him his best friend died and listen to him wail in the back seat of my car.

I've been told it was the right thing to do. I've been told I shouldn't have had a pet in the first place since we are a low income family.  All I really know is that Bingo was loved as a part of our family. I couldn't afford the expensive gluten-free organic cat food, his litter was only about 80% dust-free, but he was loved.

Looking back, I think my biggest mistake was not getting pet insurance. If he had been insured, he could have had the blood test they suggested and any follow-up treatment. We have another cat who we rescued from a trash can who is currently being signed up for pet insurance because I have decided we are never going through this again.  I'm not a strong enough person to say goodbye to a family member like that.

I can't re-read this post, so if it doesn't make any sort of sense than I appreciate your attempts to comprehend my post-midnight sorrow (I will schedule this to post in the morning though in case I change my mind).  It's so easy to say "he was just a cat" but he was so much more than that. He taught me that it's okay to be alone and proper floor sweeping techniques.  He taught me to use that Head and Shoulders shampoo more often because he loved the smell of it when he chewed on my hair. He also taught me that you should never rescue cats from dumpsters because generally they turn out to be assholes. The good cats come from pet shelters. I should have listened to him on that one - would have saved me from getting peed on in my sleep - twice.

We will remember Bingo forever - as being the best cat in the whole wide world.

We've got squirrels!
Cute little baby squirrels!
I feed them spinach to give them Popeye powers and Cheerios to keep their cholesterol low.

I can only imagine it's a matter of time before they turn into common pests that tear apart my garbage bags and eat my Jack-O-Lanterns, but for now they are just so cuuuuute!

Fact: These are not my glasses.

Without my glasses I cannot even see my hand in front of my face.
My vision is getting progressively worse as I age.
I remember when I was younger, I lost my glasses and didn't wear them for a whole week...
which actually surprises me because I really can't see - at all!

I have never wanted to get laser eye surgery.
I'm not really sure why. My mom had a very successful eye surgery in the back of a truck trailer back when I was a kid.
Just the thought of flapping up an eyeball and using a laser sounds pretty much like something I don't want to do.

I have recently adopted this bad habit of putting my glasses on my bed.
You know, so they are within reach when I wake up (lazy).
I do not recommend this as there have been many mornings when I have woken up with glasses imprinted in my ass.

This morning I woke up and could not find my glasses.
I panicked and threw my covers around everywhere.
I thought I heard my glasses fall onto the ground so I reached around and patted the floor blindly.
When that was unsuccessful,I patted around under the bed.

My hand hit something - definitely not glasses material but I was curious.
In hindsight, being curious while not being able to see probably wasn't a very good idea.
I picked up the object and examined it - about .5 of an inch away from my nose.
Hmm..brown, hairy, a little spongy --

I was examining a mummified hairball that my cat had coughed up (probably a century ago).
Right under my nose.
Rolling between my fingers.

A. Ball. Of. Coughed. Up. Hair.

This is why you should never be curious while being temporarily visually impaired.

Also do not own cats.  They suck.

This weekend we doggy-sat two little chihuahuas.  This weekend I also learned how to spell chihuahua without having to Google it first as I had to type in "chihuahua with penis injury" a bajillion times into Google. In other words, don't let me watch your dog or they will injure their junk (seriously...this shit doesn't happen to anyone else I know).  In case you are wondering, the penis is fine...don't ask.



I also learned that owning (or borrowing) these little dogs would be a really good idea if you wanted to be a serial killer. Owning helpless little dogs is like walking around with a baby Jesus, wrapped in fluffy kittens tied with a bacon bow. 

Dog sitting is the next best thing to owning a dog yourself and it is pretty entertaining making sure your cat doesn't scratch off an eyeball, a penis (the cat totally didn't injure the dog's junk - he did it to himself!) or eat these creatures that are 1/3 his size.  Also entertaining is chasing around animals who pee and poop every four minutes with bunched up toilet paper and hopes that the yarn they ate doesn't make their poop dangle from their bum.

These minuscule creatures could probably rope in some sweet friends who would only hope you would go away for a weekend so they could dog sit. When you open your apartment door and they flash out your front door like I am Buffalo Bill and they just escaped from the hole (without putting on the lotion), the neighbours will flock and you will find yourself outside your apartment in nothing but a tank top, unshaven armpits, messy hair and sweatpants - with no undergarments.  As an added bonus you will get to share a lengthy conversation with  your arms stuck to your side and your legs crossed with the person who can probably hear you sing through the wall - just as I can hear her laugh, quite clearly, to syndicated Mad About You.

I did enjoy having these guys around though. They look at me lovingly with their bulgy eyes, silently thanking me for not turning them into this poster:

   

My inner country girl really came out this weekend.   It started off on Friday when I called a friend of mine to set up a lunch date.  Turns out, a rat had decided to hijack her living room and make her have panic attacks all night long.

I watch a lot of Billy the Exterminator and I am not afraid of rats, so I did what any nice friend would do.  I went over there and kicked that rat's ass outta her house..  as it turns out quite literally.  It went a lot like this:

From then on, I proclaimed myself as the hero of the day.

* No rats asses were harmed by the kicking of a foot.  Just sayin.

Then that night I went to see The Beach Boys with my family.  If you have never been to a Beach Boys concert (minus John Stamos) then you seriously aren't even cool.  I thought I was going to see a bunch of old Skeletors up on stage frocking (fake rocking) on but these guys were way cool....and I knew pretty much every song...you know, because I'm 30 now and stuff. 

I took this pretty awesome pic at The Beach Boys concert.  You can't really tell it's at a Beach Boys concert but trust me it is.

On Saturday EVILBOY annoyed the local car enthusiasts at the Fleetwood Country Cruize In .


This little stunt actually earned him a free ride in an amphibicar.  Which is when he decided to squirt the rest of us:



On the way home we stumbled upon a baby "guinea pig".

I was walking behind EVILBOY in an empty field when he started yelling that he found a baby guinea pig.  As I got closer, but still too far away, he bent down to pick this little "guinea pig" up.  It was then that I realized that it was not a guinea pig - it was a baby groundhog!  I screeched for him to put it down before it bit him (tired of going to the ER for animal puncture wounds).  This crazy little creature would not leave him alone though.  He wanted to be picked up.  Eventually EVILBOY annoyed him too because he ran away into a hole under an RV out in the field.
I kind of wanted to keep him.  If he didn't have flies on his face and look like he was a pervert then I might have had a pet groundhog right now.Which would have been pretty cool because then we could have had a cake for him on Groundhog Day and he could jump out of it and predict a shorter winter every year.  I'm sure there is money to be made in that somehow.

I don't want one.

 I can't do it.
 Just think of picking up poop....
 and going for walks...even when it rains.
Just say no.

Our female cat ("dumpster kitty" or "babycat") is now all grown up and recently went into heat. She meowed around the apartment for a few days, slowly driving us insane. My intention is to get her fixed, but the funds just aren't there right now.

EVILBOY was worried about his furry (horny) friend, so to help him understand (and protect his grade one class from the definition of horny) I told him that Babycat wanted to have babies and that is why she was meowing so much.

EVILBOY came out of his bedroom last night. I could hear his angry stomp coming down the hall (as I'm sure the downstairs neighbours heard as well) and I knew the first bedtime
excuse of the night was soon to arrive.

It took all the strength I had not to burst out laughing when he said:

"can you tell Babycat to stop saying 'I want to have babies' over and over again in my room"

I am reminded of the Griswold's Christmas Vacation
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I've had a lot of time to think lately, which is dangerous.
Usually when I start to think, I focus on my flaws and things that really bother me about myself.
I came to the conclusion the other day that I push people away when I know they are going to die.
Yes, I know everyone dies, but there are some people who you just know are going to die within the next few years...and it scares me.

This isn't something new, this is something I've been battling for a while.   The first person I ever knew that died was my great grandmother on my dad's side.  I didn't see her all that often, but she was always so nice to us and she loved us and we loved her.  I remember going to her funeral and doing the loud ugly cry and I never wanted to experience that again.

Then there are pets.  I've lost many pets to natural causes, car tires, frozen swimming pools, running aways, school bus tires.  Each one hurt a lot when they died.  I hate that feeling.

I hate the feeling of losing someone I love, so I push them away until I realize they are dying and all chances for a reconciliation come too late and it becomes a tragedy.

It happened with my grandma, the grandma who raised me until I was eight and I didn't have the time to be bothered to visit her, until she was in the ICU and dying.

It happened with R. when we fought every single day, until the day before he died when I crawled into his hospital bed with him and we just laid there talking like we used to do for a time that was not near long enough. I remember feeling excited to have my best friend back. The next day he was gone.

It even happened with my dog Elvis.  I was home alone, in my room doing homework when I heard the sickening zap.  There he was convulsing on the ground with my computer cord hanging out of his mouth.  My first reaction was to scream his name over and over, but nobody was home to help.  Then I tried to grab the cord from out of his mouth and burnt all my fingers.  The cord was still in his mouth, and he was convulsing on the ground.  For some reason unplugging the cord didn't occur to me and when I had given up I simply went out of the room, shut the door and thought "oh well, my dog is going to die".  After a minute or so I decided I had to do something and I ended up pulling him off the cord somehow and he was fine - except he turned into a complete asshole after that and started doing weird things like peeing on my friends.

It's just so much easier to turn my back on people who are dying rather than being there and having to hurt afterward and I just end up hurting more because of it.

I had this post all written out on mustard-coloured paper.  Just waiting to type it in when something happened that kind of debunked this whole post.

EVILBOY had a Halloween party at Beavers that night and we had gone to his grandmother's after to show off his Super Mario costume.  By the time we got home it was pretty late and it has become terribly cold out at nights here.  As we pulled up into our parking lot I saw a cat laying on the side of the lot.  I actually thought it was dead but I figured I would go and make sure before I called someone to clean it up.  As I walked closer I noticed the cat was making a strange clicking noise and was trying to meow at us.  It was a tiny kitten, probably about 8-10 weeks old, laying on the cold pavement with what I thought was a broken jaw.

The parking lot was pretty dark, so I made the decision to take the kitten upstairs with us so I could take a better look at what we were dealing with.  Normally I would have brought the kitten over to the animal control (if you find a cat in this city you have to drop them off yourself which is never a fun task - trust me).

When I got the kitten into the light I saw it had a lot of foam/drool around its mouth and a little piece of plastic in the corner of its mouth.  I lightly pulled on the plastic and a long piece of garbage came out of the kitten's mouth.  It looked like the lid of a puddling cup all chewed up.  As soon as that came out the kitten was fine and ate a whole bowl of food and drank quite a bit.  I thought about returning it outside but with the cold weather and the kitten's young age it really wasn't the right thing to do.

The kitten is very affectionate and purrs as soon as you walk into the same room as it. It had no fleas, it's long fur was not dirty or matted.  This makes me think it was someones pet.  So we asked around the building and EVILBOY put up a flyer:


So far nobody knows where this kitten came from and I'm beginning to think this little guy came from aliens to teach me a lesson.  Sometimes you simply can't turn your back on someone who needs you.

Overheard while getting ready for work this morning: *cries* "oh so you like scratching and biting? Let's see how you like slapping?" I think one of them needs anger management. Haven't decided which one just yet.
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cute babies!

How cute are they?

This one got a little close

If a raccoon didn't try to bite my face off when I was little, I would probably want to keep one of these little guys as a pet!

but

the raccoons are up to something.

Being cheeky

I've been hearing stories from random people lately about the antics of these cute little creatures.  A family member of mine went camping with his family at Fanshawe a few weeks ago and they were AMBUSHED by a pack of raccoons.

These precious little animals chewed a hole in their tent and came inside, going through all their belongings.  These raccoons were not afraid of the humans, even when an axe was thrown at them (who throws an axe? Really?).  Instead, the raccoon calmly picked up the axe and walked off with it into the forest.
It was so bad that they packed up all their belongings (minus their tent and supplies that were taken over by this gang) and went home at midnight.


So now they are armed - and cute.  I think this is all part of their plan to take over the city so they can eat our garbage and hang out in our trees all day in peace, you know, without us taking over their land and stuff.

Beside our apartment complex there is a pretty dumpy little shack.  There are holes in the roof (from the raccoons) and inside is a bunch of mattresses and leftover furniture from tenants that left the building next door to us.  The thing is, there have been numerous complaints about this shack because it is dangerous, there are wild animals living in there (right beside our garbage can) and it is a complete eyesore.

Unfortunately there is apparently nothing that can be done about it.  Which is amazing to me because if Joe Blow down the street doesn't mow his lawn, you bet he will get some sort of fine, but these people can keep a shack of old chewed up smelly mattresses (which can be seen in plain sight as the door of this shack is being pushed open by all of the junk) stays safe.

So now we have these little friends

Who are living happily in the raccoon version of the Hilton - right in my parking lot.

I think my 5 (six in five days) year old just taught me a life lesson this morning.  Something I probably should have learned years ago, but yet he so simply taught me it, without even knowing it.

Our beloved friend Junior has passed away (I think). He lived a wonderful life in a beautiful hamster home (the most beautiful hamster home I have ever seen).  He got to play in cars and explore Little People play sets.  He got to be held and cuddled and loved more than any hamster ever could.  He was a best friend to a kid who had never had a best friend before (other than his mom, but that doesn't count).

I never realized that hamsters have a pretty short lifespan, with the average being just 3 years.  Junior is (maybe was) three years old.  Which is sad because we've only known him for a year.

But it was a great year!  Junior learned how to play the piano and he got his very own beetle.  He was  (maybe still is) living the hamster life of luxury!

Over time, I noticed that Junior did start to slow down a bit.  He hasn't been as active and mostly just wanted to hang out in his awesome castle house, not that I blame him, but it was a little worrying, but if you think about it, he's like a little old man in hamster age.  I got a senior citizen hamster in a castle, wearing depends and watching Wheel of Fortune at 7pm and complaining that his TV Guide had the wrong time for Dr. Phil.

So when I found him this morning passed out beside his little hut inside his castle house, I was heartbroken, I figured he had died over night sometime and I broke the news to Mason, who cried and called his grandmother.  While he was on the phone, I got some paper towel and picked Junior up out of his cage, and to my surprise he was limp but he started moving around in my hand a bit.  So I got a fluffy towel and wrapped him in it and held his cold little body for a while. When I couldn't take the cold feeling in my hand anymore I put him down in a shoe box, still wrapped in the towel and I saw his arm twitch when I put him down and then it happened again.


I then did what anyone else does when there is a crisis situation on a Sunday morning, I turned to "Dr. Google".  Upon investigation, I was told that a) he was hibernating b) he was dying and that the hard part was figuring out if it was in fact a or b, but to make sure that it was b before burying him.

I kept checking on him and there was no change in his situation.  Finally at one point I declared he had died because he was cold and now completely unresponsive.

and I was sad.  Really sad.  About a hamster.  Which is okay because it was the saddest thing to happen to us so far in 2010.  Ten days into it.  We're on a roll for having a crappy year I guess.

I couldn't bring myself to do anything with the body just yet, first of all the ground is frozen solid and covered by tons of snow, but also because I was still convinced he would pop back up at any minute and escape from the shoe box and hide under a dresser somewhere laughing his squeaky hamster laugh while we looked at him.

The problem with waiting and grieving (yes I know it was just a hamster, I am an emotional person) is that young people don't appreciate the waiting part...or the grieving part.  In fact Mason was pretty upset that I had cancelled our plans to go tobogganing, I think even more so than the fact that his hamster had just died, but you know how kids are, selfish!

When he asked me for the billionth time if we could still go tobogganing, I explained to him that I was too sad to go outside to toboggan today and that he should be too because his hamster just died.

The kid looked me straight in the face and told me we have to go out and have fun and be happy.

My god he was right.

Why couldn't he tell me that when he was 15 months old and I stayed in my bed all day crying like a lunatic, never getting dressed or showered, only leaving the house to get necessities and wishing I was dead.

I'm sure people told me that when I was grieving, but I just never listened.  It took a 5 year old (who will be six in five days) to make me understand that the world shouldn't just stop when someone dies.

So we went.

and at first I was guilty about it.  I thought about Junior at home in that little shoe box all by himself, but at the same time I enjoyed watching the joy on this kid's face as he went down the monster hill (that was conveniently behind the hospital's emergency room).

It took me a really long time to actually let him go down the hill.  I looked around and saw kids plowing through other kids on the hill, kids with bloody lips, kids with lips that had previously been bloody but had healed (who had most likely gone down this monster hill before).  It was just chaos.

For some reason I pictured this hill, first of all, a lot smaller and secondly to have only our sled going down it.  Was I ever wrong.  I'm pretty sure every little ER candidate from Mason's school and then some were going down this ginormous hill.

I called my friend to make sure she thought he would be okay and after much convincing, I let go of the sled.

and he was fine.

Getting back up the hill was another story and it took him about 20 minutes to get back up each time.

My mind was clear, only focused on keeping my child out of the ER and my frozen toes.

When we got back home, and had some hot chocolate, I walked by that little shoe box to find that Junior had moved from the position I left him in.  I was so sure he had passed on, but now he was flipped over the other way.  I was certain of it.

Which reminded me of the time my dog Phoebe caught a mole.  Have you ever seen a mole before? They kind of remind me of a Pokemon for some reason. They are adorable, and I've never had one as a pet so when Phoebe brought me a mole one day, I was overjoyed!

Only the mole was injured and my mom was convinced he was dead.  I held the little mole in paper towel (geez what is it with me and dying animals and paper towel?) until my mom got mad and told me to put it down in the garden and leave it be.  So I did, but of course I checked on it every few minutes.  Each time I looked at it, the mole had changed positions.  One time its mouth was open, one time it was closed, another time I swear I saw it breathing.  Eventually my mom grew so tired of me checking on this mole that she took my water baloon flinger thingy (that looked like a lacrosse stick) and flung the mole out into the forest.

So the mole problem was solved.  No more guessing if it was dead or alive because that mole flew pretty far, and even though it was quite mean and rather unnecessary, I kind of wish that my mom was here to give me some answers with this hamster because on one hand I'm a little grossed out if he is in fact dead and I have been watching a little dead carcass rot and on the other hand I don't want him to be gone but then if I had another hand I would say I don't want him to suffer if he is really sick.

I will keep you guys updated on the situation, I am treating as if it is hibernation but at this point I am fairly certain we will be saying goodbye to our little friend tonight.

Usually on weekends I like to take pictures.


Then we have Chuck.

I am dying to get my hands on Chuck to put some cute little hair clips in his beautiful fur.

but he's afraid of me.

I think it's because I pick him up and make faces like this:


but I still love the little grump, even if he thinks I'm mean.

You may remember this guy.  This is Batman.

He's still an asshole.

I was the kid who brought home strange animals. 

If it wasn't nailed down somewhere in the forest, it was coming home with me.  Except snakes, I always hated snakes...and scorpions.  People who keep scorpions as a pet scare the crap outta me, even more than the creature itself.  What's the point? Are they cute? Nope! Fuzzy? Nope! Smelly? Maybe Deadly? Yep.  Where is the fun in that.  Scorpions are the worst because they have crushed my dream of ever seeing the pyramids in Egypt.  I did a project on them in high school and when I learned that you can't take your shoes off in Egypt or scorpions will climb in them waiting for your foot to go back in and then sting you and kill you almost instantly.  The pyramids were crossed off my list pretty quickly after that. Now that I've offended every scorpion lover who reads this blog, let's move on shall we?

I used to make my grandfather take me to my aunt's farm quite often to catch me frogs for my kiddy pool.  I kept the frogs there so I could train them to jump through hoops.  The frogs he picked had to be the perfect one, that exact one I pointed at, and my grandfather would happily oblige, often falling face first into the pond all in the hopes of catching the perfect frog for my circus.

I was so smitten when I was given my very first puppy.  He was a Bouvier des Flandres named Brutus. Brutus liked to take me for walks (AKA- drag me down the street so he could go visit his girlfriend two blocks over), pull us on toboggans in the winter (and when we fell off he would keep on running to see his girlfriend two blocks over), bite the mail man's face (two times - luckily he never pressed charges) and visit the Family Circle restaurant quite often (where they often confused him with a bear and evacuated the restaurant and called the police).  Brutus was a great dog (and I mean that completely) he just had his own criminalistic personality, but you had to love him for it.