I'm pootering to you late at night because Mommy and Uncle Greg bought a
wondrous large new house for me and my lady friends, so now we can be based
in the first floor family room instead of the basement....it took them QUITE
a while to put this new house together and then to figure out how well WE'D
like it.
 
WE LIKE IT!  Now, the basement was OK, nice and cool and quiet (except for
the washer-and-dryer and water conditioner and all that tromping around over
our heads in the morning), and our old three-story condo was OK, too--- tho'
a bit on the small side for all four of us--- but Mommy got to fretting that
there wasn't enough interaction between us and her and Uncle Greg when we
(the ferrets) had to spend so much of our lives down there.  Other people on
the FML seemed to have their ferts around all hours all over the place, but
Mommy always worried about the Big Trouble we might get into upstairs if we
were out all the time.  But when we WEREN'T upstairs, she felt lonely and
guilty and stuff, and she thought a big big big new house for us in the
first floor family room would be nice.  So she squooshed chairs and coffee
table and other stuff together, and Uncle Greg put our new house together so
it's between the fireplace and a loveseat.  We also got, all brand new,
three hammocks, two sleep sacks, and a large crinkle sack.  For the first
couple hours we had a fine time arranging and rearranging our decor.  We
were so busy and noisy that Uncle Greg wondered how well this was going to
work out when he wanted to actually HEAR the TV, but then we settled down
for a long while.  By "settled down", I mean that we ALL piled into the RED
sleep sack.  Later, feeling the urge for some masculine-type privacy, I
climbed down to the fleece-carpeted floor, but just after I fell peacefully
to sleep, Blanche Du Bois, our Lovely White Neurotic, woke up, made her way
down the ramp, and nuzzled, scruffed and shoved me until I gave up and
trudged back up the ramp into the red sleep sack with her.  Blanche then
nudged Griselda and Hopper OUT so they had to go and cuddle back up in a
GREEN sleep sack one story below us.
 
Mommy and Uncle Greg had seen little of our private and elaborate bedtime
behavior before, because mostly they'd just let us run upstairs 'til we
crashed, and then carried us down to the basement condo.  By the time they
reappeared to bring us upstairs again, we'd heard their footsteps and were
awake.  So it was a revelation for them to observe all the stuff we really
go through at bedtime, especially MY gentlemanly manners in dealing with Ms.
DuBois.  (They also finally discovered that it's MS.  RED HEDDA HOPPER who,
being of anarchist rather than romantic tendencies, consistently poops just
outside the official commode so we all have to step it it on the way in.  As
a gentleman, I'd never have revealed this fact if asked, but can't help but
be grateful that my humans now realize it was NOT Yours Truly.)
 
Mommy and Uncle Greg also think it's great that they can now watch us sleep
and even take good pictures of us cuddled and slumped and drooped and
drooling all over the place.  Wonder how THEY'd feel.....
 
Whatever, it's nice to be on the FIRST FLOOR at last!!!!!
 
Mommy had been worried that being up in the family room, so close to the TV,
would interfere with our brain waves or hurt our ears or something, but
Mommy's FML friend Chris (owned by Fidget), opined that we ferrets would
soon choose our own schedule for sleeping and wouldn't let noise disturb
us unduly.  That advice was what really gave Mommy the final boost to free
us from "the Dungeon"....the basement wasn't really THAT bad, but we like
the family room a lot better.  Also, like Mommy says, if something awful
happens, like a fire or a tornado or a 2000-glitch, we're right there handy
for them to grab and run with or throw themselves over.
 
Love to You All from Bumble B.  Bobbitt, Patient Griselda, Red Hedda Hopper
and Blanche Du Bois.
[Posted in FML issue 2392]