Hi folks! After the Swedish announcement about mink sounds botching up sonar did you wonder about ferrets, Ed Lapinski's finks, or hand raised minks as Pentagon adjuncts? Meltdown has been home for over 8 days now after having her enlarged L adrenal and her spleen out, as well as having a cyst on her colon drained, her impacted ears flushed and some tartar scraped. (We did not ignore her ears or teeth; she's just an individual who produces copious amounts of wax, plaque.) She went into it very strong, looking and acting much younger than her six and a half years, and so far the biggest problem seems to be keeping her spirits up. When they flag she falters, stops eating and drinking, mopes. Early on, since she is alpha we accomplished this by carrying her on patrols of the condo. (Tip to young list members: when it comes time to buy a home you will have money for important stuff like savings, ferret and human emergencies, charitable contributions, prepayments, etc. if you go for a bit smaller place than you can actually afford. We have never regretted doing so.) Recently, keeping her happy has taken other ferret-important forms. Since she can't get up quite a full head of musk yet we allowed her to select a perfume from magazine inserts (Flore -- it surprised us). When she doesn't want to eat or drink she and Steve conspire and steal from me or from another ferret (or she and I steal from him or a fuzzy -- Steve's even started to drink water, which he hates, so she will know that she has truly stolen). Now what we have is a furry thief who smells of perfume I could never afford to wear. She's happy -- that's what counts. Bruce, thank you so very much. Oscar has been remembered at Morris A. F. You have helped us so very much, and we know he helped keep you calm during nuisance times with hugs and kisses. Our sympathies to others with losses. They are one reason we do try to give to ferret health research. Maybe someone's loved list ferret has or will be helped by those who do so. To the student who wrote the ferret story: We would love to see it, but if you have to snail-mail it we don't want to cost you postage; could you tell us your address and number of pages and we will send a SASE? We were hungry students once, too. Hug ferrets and arnold-press dumbbells rather than visa-versa, Sukie, Steve, Meltdown, Ruffle, 'Chopper, Spot, Meeteetse, and Warp [Posted in FML issue 1117]