FOR SOME BACKGROUND, you know that I’ve always loved pets, which means I’ve owned anything I could get my hands on. Currently I have two parakeets, a dwarf hamster, a talking dog, and two rabbits. Everything lives in my apartment except the rabbits, some punk kids came around and started letting them out of my yard so I had to move them to my parents house.

Ashley recently caught a rabbit and tried to give it to me, and I immediately started listing the things she shouldn’t feed it. What can I say, I am a walking index of pet advice. It’s kind of pathetic really. I aspired to be a vet, and when that wasn’t possible I looked into being a vet tech. I found a local program, but they wanted $41,500 in TUITION (meaning, not including books) for two years of school which would certify me to spend the rest of my life cleaning cages and taking “temperatures” for roughly $12.75 an hour!

Uh, no thanks.

So here I sit, telling her what not to feed Chester the Rabbit (or Sweetie as Aspen calls him) and I…well…read it for yourself. Let’s just say I’m a PET expert, not a food or spelling expert.

Ashley:
i tried to give the rabbit we found to mom, she wouldn’t take him and says shes giving you your rabbits back someday

Aub:
the rabbits i can’t have at grams because kids let them out, and mom/dad shouldn’t have to care for them.
haha yep those are going.
i dont care about the black one, i’ll miss my brown one tho

Ashley:
is this the same aubrey that wanted to be a vet tech and save baby birds along the freeway?

Aub:
bite it

Ashley:
Glade (her cat) LOOOOOVED The rabbit. he was totally rubbing up against him

Aub:
what a fag (Sorry. You’d have to meet Glade to understand that. He’s antisocial, his best friends are a pair of raccoons and he hates the daylight. You can’t help but make fun of him.)
dude don’t feed the rabbit alvacados or tomatoes, it’ll kill.

Ashley:
altho the rabbit was last seen at the neighbors house–the neighbor called me last night and says “do you have a rabbit”? um…we brought one home yesterday
alvacado???
alvacado??
answer me
dont google it.
alvacado

Aub:
avacado?
heck I dunno.

Ashley:
avacado.
much better
you should try ALvacado’s theyre delicous.

Aub:
bite it

Ashley:
well they are

My favorite part? How she has to tell me “don’t Google it”.

She knows me well.

“AUBREY, DON’T BREED THAT RABBIT. I DON’T THINK YOU SHOULD BE RAISING RABBITS IN THE BACKYARD” click.

Grams, the one and only Grams, had went from being the first to say, “catch it and breed it” to something along the lines of  “I’ll take you off the will if you do”. There are ups and downs to living with someone that I believe to be bipolar my friends, ups and downs (did I just crack a joke? I think I did. . .)

I felt heartbroken with my desire for tiny, soft cuddly baby rabbits, also called “kits”, and I began to question my desire to even catch the female in the first place. Let the dang thing eat my tomatoes. I hope it goes back home, so I don’t have to chose between dumping it on mom, or the humane society. Either way, Nameless is my responsibility now.

One and a half tomato plants down, six more to go. I was running out of time and options. So far, Nameless had resisted arrest, defiled AubMo property, and stolen the heart of my main man – in rabbit form that is. She had to be dealt with. I found a fishing net at my parents house and set up my strategy. It might take a day or two, but Nameless was not going to win this one.My lucky break was after work, when I was able to sidle up close, corral her into a pen and drop the net on her. I was so excited that I almost let her get away.

On first glance, Nameless appeared to be a mottled black and gray Netherland Dwarf mix breed. A little on the thin side, but not unhealthy. First thing I did was a thorough inspection. (Random fact: Have you ever flipped a rabbit on it’s back? Did you know they go into a trance? Try it sometime. Just remember to cover their eyes first. Chickens do this same thing.) She was definitely a female, but it was hard to tell her true health from under all that fur. The children that had owned her before (using that term very loosely) had placed a tiny red cat collar around her neck. Pet Owning Mistake Number 1 – you never collar any pet that you let wander outside, especially a rabbit. They are children, so they are forgiven.

After taking that off, I started combing her. It was a slow process, because the brush was only getting little tufts here, a wisp of fur there. Not very effective. After a few good tussles with the comb I realize  – she’s not gray at all. She’s coal black. Black as pitch. Black as the night without the city lights and the stars. The gray was all the dead, clumped fur that she wasn’t able to reach and pull off, so I had to give her a hand. Want to know what “a lot of hair” off of a rabbit looks like?

That’s what a lot of fur looks like – of the fur I could manage to keep from sticking to my pant leg, my shirts and even my face anyway.

Here is the comb for a comparison. Still don’t believe how massive this pile of fur is?

That is my foot – size 8 1/2 and not at all dainty or little. Please don’t mind the absence of nail polish. I had the polish in my hand earlier, cap undone and ready to paint,  and I got lazy and changed my mind. It’s an Aubrey thing.

To recap, the before:

After a mani/pedi, wet hand bath, and serious plucking of the fur:

See? Black. Blackity black black black.

Shiny little blacky. As dark as the bottom of my heart. Okay, I think you get it. Seriously. Don’t listen to me.

And just for your amusement. . .I apparently own deamons. I honestly don’t know what that blob of light is. A ghost? An apparition? Wayward streetlight? Help me here. Apologies for the drab and dreariness of this photo – apparently the rabbit didn’t get the memo that she needed to be caught, cleaned and in her cage by curfew in order for me to get pictures in good lighting.

Rabbits. They never learn, do they?

I KNOW YOU’RE PROBABLY THINKING THIS IS A LOVE POST. You’re right. It is a love post, but not in the sense that you’re expecting. It is about my love and undying affection for animals.

Do you remember this fur face?

She’s the neighbor kids’ pet rabbit. I know where she lives, and that answer is now my house. In sticking to the old wives tale, I haven’t named her yet, because that would mean I’d have to keep it. And if I kept it, then I’d have to breed it, it would have plenty of rabbit babies, and I’d keep them too, winding up as some crazy rabbit lady for the rest of my life.

So this nameless rabbit wanders into our yard everyday. No big deal. She goes and sits faithfully by Houdini’s cage and they have discussions over rabbit subjects such as the proper way to clean a paw, pull fur, and how to scratch that pesky spot behind the ears.

Their lives are so hard.

I didn’t give a hoot that I had another addition to the AubreyMo zoo. I left some food and water out for her, petted her and essentially carried on this way for a month. But the time came when the skies cleared, the sun shined and I got the urge to plant tomatoes and other such stuff (random fact for you: Did you know I don’t eat tomatoes, yet I’ll have them coming out of my ears this summer? I am weird).

It just turns out that Nameless loves eating tomato plants.

Nameless also liked being loose so much, she’s decided to evade capture and slip under the fence right before I can grab her.

Nameless is frustrating.

I’ve changed my mind. When you love something, don’t set it free – snatch it up so fast it doesn’t have time to get away, or eat your plants. Amen.

To be continued. . .

I’VE BEEN KEEPING A SECRET THIS WEEK. Or at least, I haven’t shared the story of something that has happened that is very near and dear to me.

The AubreyMo house now has a new family member. Meet Ollie.

Or Mutley Jaws Hoover as The Boyfriend calls him (Mutley just made a great nickname, Jaws is for his teeth, and Hoover was awarded to him after he found a who knows how old piece of cereal hidden under the couch).

He is a year old chihuahua/daschund mix. . .or Chiweenie for short.  I’ve been wanting a dog for as long as I can remember, and my mom and aunt Maureen finally made it happen. Maureen, thank you for calling Grams and convincing her that your dog would be good for me. I think she loves him just as much as I do.

Highlights of Doginess:

He puked in my hands on the way home (I call this the initiation to dog ownership. Ashley had to pull over so I could chuck the handfuls of chunk out the door. Sorry to whoever might’ve seen me littering baby wipes).

He howls for me when I get home

He is fixed, updated on shots, trained to walk on a leash and has excellent table manners

Might I add…He knows how to beg when you ask.

It only took him one day to perfect the art of Sit.

Words cannot describe the meeting between Ollie and Grams. For as shy as he was with the rest of us, he took right to her and loves her to pieces.  If she gets up, he gets up, if she sits he sits. . .he’s been a dream come true and I couldn’t ask for a better companion for the both of us. A million thanks to my aunt and uncle, I love him completely and I appreciate the sacrifice you made to give me a piece of your heart.

IT’S TWO IN THE MORNING RIGHT NOW. Correction, make that two-thirty. Why, oh why am I still up, playing on my macbook and surfing the web? Well, I’m glad you asked. My new room mate is making it rather hard to sleep. So instead, I’ll recount what I’ve done for the day.

Tasks:
Manage to live through the drive home – check.
Pick up indoor rabbit cage – check
Clean cage – check
Add one adorable, floppy eared goofball of fur to the cage – check
Shovel driveway, do dishes, wash laundry, wrap presents, shop for more presents and wrap them? Um, can I get a rain check? Those are still a work in progress.

Here’s.

The.

Deal.

Rabbits make for noisy, messy room mates. I took pictures of the cleaning/cage setting up process. I should’ve taken one just five minutes after I had it all done pretty and he’d messed it all up.

Take neat picture of cleaning the cage.

Photo of me dreading to finish cleaning the said cage.

Add bedding. Run hands through it for a half hour for its cheap, relaxing quality.

Top it all off with water bottle, food, hay, litter pan with Kitty Litter
(that he neglects to actually USE)

Add Houdini to the cage. Hope he doesn’t escape! No that’s not really how he got his name. That’s a completely different story.

And now to top it all off. . .take the freakiest picture of an eye I’ve ever seen.

Houdini, I know you don’t read, but please understand at least this: I could have left you out in the frigid cold all winter, with me only making trips to feed your insatiable hunger, and break the ice out of your water day in and day out. It would have snowed. And since you tend to use your BED as your litter box, I’m sure it wouldn’t have been very comfortable.

And to be honest right now, having you outside doesn’t sound half bad again, since I’ve been listening to you digging out all your precious litter I carefully arranged. Give it another twenty minutes and you’ll get bored with that, and move to chewing the bars like a madman trying to break out of a top security prison. I’m sure I’ll move your cage around the house at least five times, trying to find a spot where I can’t hear you jumping about.

But noooooo . . .despite the fact that you have a double coat of fur, regardless of the fact that you beat Bigfoot when it comes to how much fur-per-square-inch you have on the bottom of your feet, and ignorant to the history books that tell me your ancestors have lived, do live, and will continue living outside, MY NURTURING INSTINCTS MADE ME HAVE TO BRING YOU IN. Dang rabbit, you better love me, that’s all I gotta say!

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