Hi, all.
 
Things have been very busy here.  My hoomin has been very busy, too.  Her
seventeen year old brother came for a visit, stayed for a week.  Do you
think that either of us was allowed anywhere *near* the computer during
all that time?  Heck, no!  But we learned sooo much more about Japanese
anime cartoons than we ever needed or wanted to.  So let's get to work.
 
Benita asked me to check up on her little Miss Kate, who has been here
for a while.  Well, Miss Kate is thriving!  She lives in a bungalo woven
of the dry, sweet smelling long grass very near the red sandstone canyon
full of millions upon millions of fresh, white rolls of toilet paper to
shred.  Her sisters Sassy and Moxie don't actually live with her, they
live a good distance away in the field full of sofas.  They are currently
sharing a very boxy blue sofa with curved arms that they have torn most
of the stuffing out of.  it's just starting to smell right, they report.
In other words, it smells like them.  The three do get together pretty
often with the whole Benita Gang (at this point not just a Business, but
an entire *pack* of weasels)to tear and frolic in the rolls of toilet
paper.  When the wind is just right, white streamers of torn paper rise
up on thermals, and are lifted hundreds of feet into the air.  Up, up and
away!  They pounce, claw, roll, shred and bite until their mouths are
bone dry from chewing on all of that paper.  Then it's time for...THE
FRUIT BAR!  Nothing, but NOTHING cleans out the Fruit Bar faster than the
Benita Gang.  Pineapple chunks, apple slices, fresh, chewy rasins, plump,
cold, crinkly stewed prunes, wet little watermelon chunks, soft, downy
apricot halves...all devoured in minutes!  I visited Miss Kate in her
grass bungalo today and she reports that she is very happy, and is
especially enjoying the Dryer Vent Hose Mountain.  She zips around in the
hoses for hours every day until she is tired, then she lies down in the
quiet and the darkness of the hoses and takes a nap.  She looks forward
to showing her Mommy, Benita, what dryer vent hoses are really for.
Laundry doesn't begin to enter the picture, poor hoomin!  Miss Kate will
set her straight some day, a long time from now.  Rebecca asked me to
check up on her friends Bandit (who is now wearing a splendid coat of
fur) and Misty, both of whom have been here for a while.  Well, Misty
says that it is a waste, a wearing away of the spirit to blame the vet
for what happened in the World of the Living.  What is happening on this
side of the Bridge is so much more significant!  There are wings!  There
is flight!  Misty and Bandit learned to fly together, and they still do a
lot of traveling, just for the sheer pleasure of seeing the land move
beneath them far, far below.  They like to see their shadows race across
the grass and the wildflowers!  Whatever disappointments occured in the
World of the Living simply cannot compare to this simple pleasure.
Bandit says that he did indeed hear his Mommy Rebecca tell him about the
Bridge, as she held his tired body in her hands.  It was with joy...pure
joy that he first felt the heat of the sun warmed wooden planks of the
Bridge beneath his toe pads.  Then he held his face up to the sun, and
closed his eyes.  Such a simple thing to do, but it felt so good, it felt
so good to be healthy and vital once more!  And to know that he was in
his forever Forever Home!  Then, of course, there was the racous greeting
of the Merry Mayhem Business, his Brothers and Sisters in Fur who stood
with me to welcome him.  The nuzzling, the ear-washing, the dooking,
bouncing, popping, and war-dancing!  Some day, a long time from now, they
will stand with me, and thank Rebecca for all the love she gave them.  A
little earth bound ferret, Britney, wanted me to check up on her sister
in fur, Angel.  Britney was right, there was a pretty wild party among
the Ferret_R_Gang when Angel crossed the Bridge.  The Wild Black Footed
Ferrets crashed the party, rolling in a cool bottle of stout with their
noses.  It foamed a lot when it was opened, but everybody (including
Angel) (O.K. and me, too) drank from the puddle, and the party didn't
end until dawn flung an orange banner of light across the horizon.  It is
true, her hoomins did not truly realize the extent to which Angel was not
always an angel...but let's face it, sometimes hoomins operate on a need
to know basis.  I mean, they don't really *need* to know where we stash
their stuff, now do they, or they wouldn't have left it lying about in
the first place.  Am I right, or am I right?  (wink!)
 
Sandee
[Posted in FML issue 4562]