Hi gang . . . Well, my zoo crew is busy, busy, busy. I have two Princess stories, today . . . a few days ago I was reading Anne Rice's new novel, Violin (no opinion, as of yet) when Princess climbed into my sweatshirt. I was a tad nervous, as I was just lounging around so far that day, and had nothing on under my sweat shirt. She investigated, sniffed, tickled me with her whiskers and cold nose, spent a few minutes scatching at the inside of the shirt, and finally curled up and went to sleep. I sat there feeling so warm and snug and *special* that my little fuzzie girl wanted to nap so close to me. Unfortunately, I was drinking coffee and too soon could not wait to whiz any longer, so I had to disturb her. Sigh. Now, one little quickie--Princess will not eat raisins, she will not eat craisins, she will not eat anything but ferret food, dog food and Linatone. Well, that is, until she discovered Fortune Cookies. Loves them. Nibbling on a fortune cookie can keep her happy for long MINUTES at a time--and by that I mean even up to 1/2 an hour. And before the nibbling, she will spend upwards of 10 minutes working to get the little fortuen cookie package open. Anyone else's fuzzies have an appetite for these? Finally--YEA WISCONSIN!! My number 1 ferret, Smokey, was seized by animal control two years ago after a very traumatic multiple bite incident. Something happened that caused this darling little albino girl to bite a child 15 times in the space of a few minutes in the middle of the night. We don't know if Smokey was trying to wake up Samantha to play, or if Sam hurt the ferret somehow in her sleep, or what the heck happened--but it was horrible, and tragic and sad. The little girl (my best friend's daughter--whom my ferrets lived with temporarily) had to go to the emergency room, whereas the Dr called animal control, whereas the ferrets were picked up under WI kill and test policy and done in. Don't flame me. I did not fight the policy because I love this child, and the parents were freaked out because the ferret was acting very, very strangely, not at all like herself, and was waaay overdue on vaccinations--and therefore we very seriousely had to put the well-being of the child first. They lived in a housing project with very possible exposure to rats, and none of us knew much about rabies. I loved those fuzzies. It breaks my heart what happened to them, but the ferrets were not in my care and therefore I was unable to know what they might have been exposed to. I could not say with 100% conviction (as I *can* with my current crew) that the possibility of rabies was very low to non-existent. Now I know more, and now I would fight. RIP Smokey and Whiskey, we live and learn and I loved you much. Anyway, Yea WI. On the ball. I feel even more confident about bringing my fuzzies out and about. Not that the past ever stopped me anyway, but even so . . . --Sheri "Until our paths find us together may you forever go in peace." --Mike Rayburn (comic entertainer and acoustic rock artist) [Posted in FML issue 2156]