I received a card from my vet a few days ago. It is almost time for Mouse to have her second distemper shot. Time surely flies by the older I get. How did a whole year escape us ? This morning, I held her up to my face to talk to her. She was a dreadful and painful biter. Not a marking on her to identify who bred her. The manager and employee of the store looked aghast as I held her up and asked to bring her home one year ago. I felt rather bemused by their fearful stance and stares. The manager had to called out to discuss the issue. I wondered if I was on Candid Camera, or some such show. The horror in their eyes that I was holding this little thing felt theatrical.. Apparently, she had been sold some time before that....before the store realized the problem with the whole batch of babies that they had received from the same breeder. While someone somewhere was probably having a horrifying experience with their "helpless baby ferret" the other ferrets in her group were recognized for what they were, and had been picked up by a ferret shelter. They are still there, as I understand it. So here, then, is our one year union to celebrate...Mouse and me. I can hold her to my face and coo at her. I can kiss her face. And she will kiss me back. Though I now bear a scar on my lip from her.. But I would still not trust her with other than hidden or curled fingers and fast reflexes. I still bear bloody marks on hand and wrist that several ladies commented on just yesterday. I do not always move as fast as I should. Thus it is with genuine affection that I began this morning with an earnest toast to our exemplary companionship, as she looked keenly into my eyes : "There is no sense cooking you, Mouse. You would only make half a meat ball" [Posted in FML 6630]