George is our pet turtle that was found in the wilds of Pennsylvania.  A friend of my "rescued" him from the dangers lurking in a nearby creek and gave him to me to protect.  At the time he was only a little larger than a quarter.  I hid him in my dorm room and eventually moved him to my parent’s house and then to an apartment.  His original name was Baby Einstein; one because he was a baby turtle and two because I had an infatuation with Einstein at the time.  My parents became his keeper for the last part of college and when Devon and I moved to Phoenix he went with us.  My dad called him Buddy and taught him to do a few random turtle tricks that only turtle lovers can appreciate.  My brother then adopted him, named him Killer, and would use him to gain the attention of young women.  When Danny moved to Phoenix, he brought the turtle with him, and, once again, was living with me.  Devon and his brother, Jaime, call him George.

Having a random conversation with a friend one day, it was determined that cooter was another word for turtle.  Therefore, the turtle is now officially named Baby Einstein Buddy Killer George Cooter I.

When I was pregnant, Devon took over all poop-related ferret duties. The ferrets were housed in a multi-story cage in our bedroom and were let out occasionally to play and wreck havoc. When they were younger, we would play with them all the time, chase them around the room, rub their bellies, give kisses, and play ferret toss. The relationship with our ferrets changed as we were becoming parents and, over the past year since Claire was born, become almost non-existent. We, of course, provided food, water and shelter, but well, not much else. They came out to play, unsupervised, for a while then, lately, not often at all.

Over the winter holidays, the ferrets were kenneled at our vet’s office (as usual). When we returned we were notified of an "incident" with one of the ferrets. Apparently he was pleasuring himself and got caught up in a loose string from his blanket. In attempting to release himself, he fell off the platform and was hanging by his … thing. At the time we thought this was hysterical. The poor nurse was slowly trying to describe the situation and how the doctor was checking out the ferret’s "thing" daily to insure it wasn’t injured. I didn’t have the heart to tell the nurse that we’d caught him doing that before and we weren’t surprised that it got him in trouble.

However, the story wasn’t so funny once we returned home. After busily unpacking and getting our lives back in order at home, the ferrets weren’t let out much. A few days later, when they were playing, I noticed that the ferret in question was not using his back legs. After more investigation, Devon and I took him to the vet. After examining our pet, the doctor felt that there was nothing wrong, but we could pay for extra tests totaling hundreds of dollars if we wanted to be sure. We asked for another suggestion. They said, well, if those tests came back positive, we would put him on steriods. So, without testing, it was determined that steriods would be the best course of action.

It didn’t help. The poor guy lost control of his faculties. He tries to use his legs. He doesn’t seem to be in any pain. But he can’t pull himself up a ramp. And poop is everywhere. At first it was just him accidentally pooping or peeing in the wrong place. Then the others caught on… Four ferrets in a marking contest in a confined area. Not a pretty picture. Devon did a great job trying to keep on top of the mess, but with all of our other activities, it was not an easy quest.

Trying to make this work out for everyone involved, Devon and I asked people we knew if they would like to adopt the little guys. No takers. We tried moving them to other rooms and even the hallway. We changed the cage around to deter poopage. No luck. We knew that we were not being fair to them or ourselves. They needed a better home.

After months of seriously debating their future with us, we sent out a call for help to wvwuzzles@yahoogroups.com, a Yahoo! newsgroup started by the West Valley Wuzzles – http://www.wuzzles.com - that we have belonged to since the group was conceived. We received three replies from people hoping to adopt our business. One clearly outshined the others. After we decided "this was it", we replied, then waited. About 10 minutes. Then the phone rang and began talking to the very excited woman on the other line.

I, a skeptic at heart, kept providing more information and asking more questions because, clearly, this woman didn’t realize what she was getting in to. Boy was I wrong. She answered every question to my content. She still wanted them after getting the details about the ferret mentioned above. She and her family have five female ferrets in a very large cage and they wanted some male companionship. The woman mentioned that the ferrets play in a closed-in porch and that she makes bedding and hammocks for ferrets.

My anguish over this decision quickly melted into delight because the woman really seemed to understand. That’s it, she just got it. We made arrangements for the adoption and then began to collect all of the ferret’s stuff. Man, for four little creatures weighing about 14 pounds total, we had accumulated an entire 4-Runner full of accessories. Two cages, a two-tier cat scratchy house, food, bedding, medicine, tubes, water bottles, a litter box, a pet carrier, a ferret-sized hamster wheel, and more. Last night we loaded everything up and dropped them off.

We were welcomed at the door by the woman we spoke to on the phone, her husband, four kids, and their five ferrets. We immediately became a part of the family and went to the porch, where everyone could run around and play. It was a great time and it was evident that we had made the right choice. This was going to be a great family for our ferrets.

A half-hour later we were on our way to Baskin Robbins for a treat before bed. During the ride I tried to determine how I felt. Remorseful? No. Relieved? No. Just kind of mellow, like this was how it was meant to be.

I wish I had the kind of job where I can wear jeans daily. Of course the only person I know who has that kind of luxury is my best friend, Dan, who is permitted to wear cargo shorts, t-shirts, and flip-flops every single day if he so chose. His work even has Hawaiian shirt Fridays. Now don’t get me wrong, I can wear jeans on Fridays and sometimes slip a pair in on a Wednesday or the rare “teacher workday”. But usually it’s some other kind of pant.

So I am living vicariously through my daughter and dress her in denim whenever I can. My wife thinks I should dress more “professional” and now she sometimes complains when I put Claire in jeans several days in a row, to the point last week that Claire was required to wear stretchy purple pants and a pink shirt to day care. She must’ve disliked the outfit as much as I did since when I picked her up they said half way through the day she pulled her pants off and ran (read: crawled) around in her diaper and t-shirt.

Liza’s son, Trevor, is a little older than Claire and he’s huge. His dad’s pretty tall and he will be like him. So Liza is teaching him different words, like “caca” and the other day he came hobbling into their living room (more than likely without his pants). And he pointed to the back of the house while something that sounded like a guttural “cccccc” came out of the recesses of his throat. Eventually his dad followed him back to Trevor’s brother’s bedroom where there was a pile of crap in the center of the carpet. Instead of picking it up and carrying it deliberately to the toilet to flush, so Trevor could learn the lesson, he chucked it in the trash.

Now I don’t expect Claire to crap everywhere and sure hope she doesn’t ever do that (of course, the ferrets think this is their single goal in life, but that’d be a whole ‘nother post), but you never know what it’s like with little kids in the dead of a fast approaching summer. Just yesterday the bank sign said 80 and Donna still wraps Claire in warm fleece hats to cover her ears, just in case they get infected for the umpteenth time. But soon enough our driveways will be hot enough to fry eggs, and I will be having my black lab shaved more frequently by the local groomer who pays close attention to his nether regions, much like Claire and Trevor and all of the ferrets.

Did I mention that we have a black Lab named Dante. Now he’s
no Chuck but he sure is smiley and licky. He and Claire are the bestest of
friends, much like Jake and I were when I was little. When we bought him his
name at the shelter was Nicholas. Now who the hell calls his dog Nick? Surely
not us. We’re both "D"s and I think we know every single Dan in the
entire central-Arizona so suddenly Donna says "he looks like a Dante"
and so be it. He becomes Dante, which is kind of ironic because Dante means
"devil" and Nick is a name associated with Satan. Of course he
doesn’t sacrifice rats with wings who crap on the roofs around our house and
make hooting sounds so that my father-in-law swears that there are owl in the
middle of Suburbia, but he sure does lick. Always has. And Claire loves it. I
mean eventually she will date a boy and God forbid they will make out someday,
but she sure is practicing with Dante. So here’s a picture of him for good
measure.