Hi, all-
 
I met a very long-lived ferret coming across the Bridge the other day.
Her name was Grandmother Clara, and her Brother in Fur Otis was waiting
with me while she crossed.  They were so very, very happy to be reunited
at last!  The tussled and rolled and spun and dooked, they wrestled and
nuzzled and sniffed and popped, just like weasels!
 
Otis was able to bring Clara up to speed pretty quickly, I didn't really
do much, except to provide strap on wings and a hammie.
 
The two decided to hang their hammies together, and I went with them to
see Otis's home.  Well, he has a beautiful spot beneath an antique wooden
spinning wheel.  Where did it come from?  Nobody knows.  Otis says he
just found it standing alone in a grassy field full of orange california
poppies and white clover.  Otis hung his hammie from a part of the frame
that never spins.  The wheel does still spin in a high wind, it will make
a few slow turns, then.  There is still a white puff of wool attached
to the bobbin!  It's actually kind of neat that nobody knows what its
story is!
 
Clara and Otis hung her hammie up next to his.  They are really looking
forward to spending some serious time getting caught up, and swapping
stories about their Mommy, Lisa.  They hope that someday, a long time
from today, they will be able to spend some time with Lisa, too.  They
want to thank her for all the love she gave them.  Enough for the world
all three of them shared, and enough left over for this forever one, too!
 
I met a little guy named Theo coming across the Bridge.  I had an
important question to ask him.  Did he want sight, or not?  He had been
born without it.  The Big Boss didn't want to give it to him without any
warning, and scare the dickens out of him!
 
Well, Theo sniffed the ground and walked slowly around in three big
circles while he thought about my question.  He finally stopped and said
"Maybe someday, if the offer will still be open, but I want to get my
bearings here in the way I'm used to being.  I don't need vision, just
some friends to show me around!"
 
No problem!  Theo didn't know anyone here, but *I* know everybody!  I was
asked to check up on some guys, so Theo followed me around (just a little
slowly, being blind doesn't stop a ferret from doing the things he has to
do!)
 
Well, we stopped and said hi to pretty much everyone we passed.  Everyone
was happy to meet the new guy.  He got invited to play, to go to dinner,
to travel to interesting and far away places, even to help some
black-footed ferrets to dig a new burrow!  He really liked that idea.  I
left him happily digging with a group of about ten domesticated and ten
black-footed ferrets, all busily digging down through the grass to start
a new burrow.
 
I checked up on Rickie and his Sister in Fur, Ms. LS.  They were just
waking up from a nap they were taking together in a black wool Russian
hat, the kind with fold-down ear flaps.  Very cozy!  Ms. LS was using
Rickies belly for a pillow.  She said that she had been dreaming a nice
dream about being home with her Mommy, Tara, while Tara was sweeping with
a broom.  In the dream, Ms. LS was playing Kill-The-Broom.  That's an
awesome game, everyone loves that!
 
Rickie said that they were having a good time.  They were making a game
out of trying to sleep in a different hat every night.  They never knew
where they were going to wind up from one day to the next!  The only
disappointment was a World War One German army helmet, the kind with a
point on top.  It looked pretty cool, but it was very uncomfortable!
 
I checked in on Rascal, who has been with us for a few days.  Like Theo,
he was a singleton.  Well, he has pretty much been 'adopted' by the
Business of Vinnie, Vinnie Da Rat, and Snickers.  How these four hooked
up I'm not sure, but somehow they just 'fit'.  These four spend part of
every day at the Monster Tube Cube.
 
The Monster Tube Cube is, well, a huge cube, fifty feet on a side,
completely made from silvery dryer vent hoses.  They like to start by
climbing one side to the top, and finding a hole that drops down into
the cube.  The tunnel might be ten feet long, it might be a hundred feet
long, with all sorts of twists and turns.  Someone (who is 'someone',
anyway?) calculated that the hose tunnels in the Monster Tube Cube run
for more than a mile, all together.  I don't know if that's true, but the
hose tunnels change position overnight, every night, so you can't really
learn them.  It's a new puzzle every day!
 
I was hoping to talk to Rascal, but he was buried deep in the cube!
Vinnie Da Rat said that today they were pretending that it was a Star
Trek Borg cube, whatever that is!  It looked like fun, anyway.
 
Well, back to work for me!
Sandee
[Posted in FML issue 4401]