Ack...it's been a while since I've updated Yofi and Anna's thread. So I'll start with a bit of an update, and then some pics (and a belated THANKS! to you, kherrmann, on what you wrote!).
Well, let's see...last weekend I decided to take The Dog for a walk in New Edinburgh (which is a sort of ritzier neighbourhood not too far from my place...if memory serves me correctly, Margaret Trudeau used to call that 'hood home). There's a nice area near the river to walk about, and one of the fields is designated as a dog park, so I took Kaya there for a quick romp. What I hadn't known before setting out, though, is that the entire New Edinburgh area was holding a ginormous garage sale that same day...blocks upon blocks upon blocks of people selling 'stuff'; lots of interesting things to see, lots of vintage items, etc. Unfortunately I hadn't taken my wallet with me when I left the house; however, I did have a bit of cash on me, and so what did I wind up toting home? A big, stuffed bunny, of course...one that reminded me very much of the Yofster. (Pics will follow.) The funny thing is, the stuffed bunny was so real-looking that I thought I'd have a bit of fun with the bunnies when I got back home, just to see what their reaction would be to this newest rabbitine(ish) member of the pack.
After arriving back at the house, I went to the bunnies' bedroom and opened the door. Anna, true to her nature, was the first to come barrelling toward me. What she didn't realize until the last moment, however, was that I'd placed the stuffed bunny on the floor in front of the door. As soon as she spotted it she stopped dead in her tracks and froze. What the h-e-doublehockeysticks was THAT?!? The look on her face was hilarious. And then suddenly she let out the biggest WHUMP!!! on the floor I'd ever heard, and beelined it to the back of the room, where she sat and sulked in a corner. Yofi, in the meantime, wasn't even aware I was home. He was busy doing who-knows-what in one of the litter boxes at the back of the cage...but when he finally looked up and saw me, I got his typical 'Oh, hai...didn't see you there' and he casually sauntered over. Then he too spotted the stuffed bunnay, the INTRUDER...and Yofi paused. He looked at me, looked at the toy, and then continued on. He approached the rabbit a bit tentatively at first, sniffed it's furry faux nose, and then - again, typical Yofi - thrust his head right underneath it, and sat, waiting to be groomed. Well, when the stuffed bunny didn't respond to Master Yofi's demands, the Yofster pulled away, gave it one more look, then grunted, boxed it on the nose with his front paws, and ran away...heading toward his Anna, who IS well-trained in administering Yofi-nuzzlings. *sigh* Those two...they are so predictable.
One more thing about the Yofi imposter...that danged stuffed rabbit had not only the rabbits thrown for a loop, but it also got my cat, and me too. I decided to keep it on my bed (lest Yofi get jealous and de-stuff it at some point), but I must admit, the first two or three times I walked into my bedroom after that, I would do a double-take, thinking for a split second that it was Yofi sitting high and mighty on my bed. And The Cat....that evening while I was getting ready to retire, Fritz went to take up his usual position on my bed. He walked into the room, sat on his hind legs and was set to leap up onto the bed, when he spotted the rabbit...he froze in mid-leap, then turned tail and left the room. So while I did aquire a cute stuffed rabbit at the unexpected garage sale, it took all of us a bit of time to adapt to its new position in the household.
Here's Yofi, posing (not very willingly) with stuffie-bun:
Now on to other Yofi matters. It seems The Boy has gotten it into his head that the most funnest thing to do when I'm not home is to attempt a great escape from The Rabbit Room. Not content to be caged during the day (I long gave up on trying to keep him confined in anything smaller than an actual room), his first attempt at The Great Escape came when he had begun scratching at the floor and wall directly behind the Big Portal (a.k.a., the bedroom door). It took a while, but once he'd figured out that endless digging and scratching would not magically open the portal for him, he gave up trying to run free, and settled in with Anna. Or so I thought.
About a week or so ago Yofi began a rather annoying, cacophonous new habit...in one small area of the Rabbit Room, wedged between a dresser and a filing cabinet, I had been storing extra wire squares...the white squares that some people use to build their own rabbit cages. I'd stacked them in the space some time ago, and there they'd sat contentedly, out of the way, and out of trouble. Then along came Yofi. "Oh", he must have thought, "I'b nebber noticed THESE befoar". And to his utter delight, he discovered that when one takes these wire squares - one at a time, of course - and yanks and tugs and pulls hard enough, they actually come out of the little space. Better yet, when they come out, they make the most wonderfully loud clattering sound as they hit the floor. "Well, this is FUN", my oddball e-lopian most assuredly must have thought to himself, and with that, he began to methodically tug, wrench, pull, and then toss, every one of those wire squares out of their storage spot, and scattered them over the floor.
And so the fight began. I would mutter non-speakable words under my breath as I picked up square after square and placed them back between the dresser and the cabinet, whilst Yofi watched silently...then I would chastise him, telling him what a naughty boy he'd been, and then I'd head back to the living room to try once again to watch Jeopardy in peace. Usually though, before I even got a chance to sit, the clanging and crashing would begin again as Yofi, miffed that I'd ruined his impromptu artwork, would start all over, square after square getting removed and thrown - with even more gusto, I might add - back to where HE wanted it.
This went on every evening for about a week. And then suddenly, just like that, it stopped. Finally, it seemed, Yofi had lost interest in this newest obsession and returned to a more acceptable pasttime...usually that of summoning Anna to be his royal resting cushion. The squares, for the time being, were forgotten, and Yofi was once again being 'good'.
Then two nights ago, I returned home from work. As usual, I let The Dog outside and then opened the door to the Rabbit Room to check on the dynamic duo. Both were sound asleep in the cage, and all was peaceful in the land of lagomorphs. So I walked over to the side of the cage to turn on the light to the room. 'That's odd', I thought as I walked toward the lamp, 'What's that white stuff on the floor?' Well, as soon as the light was turned on, I realized what it was. My wall. Or to be more exact, the wall to the Rabbit Room...the part of the wall that used to be between the rabbit cage and the filing cabinet. Wire squares were again no longer in their storage space, where they belonged...scattered all over the other end of the room, they had been tossed unceremoniously...but in that small space, where once upon a time wire had been neatly stacked, there was now flecks of drywall. Everywhere.
"YOFI!!!!!" I yelled, more than a bit upset over his apparent decision to redecorate the room by adding another portal, "LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE!!" And by this time The Boy was not only awake, but he was intent on showing me just that...exactly what he HAD done. "Oh, look Mom," he pointed out excitedly, "Doan't you just luv it? Ai'm not dun yet, but jest waits till ai am!"
:X
"See? Dis is whare teh new portal will goes...Yep, in heer...follows me"
"Ai'b alredy removed teh annoaying stuff that wuz heer"
"An' ai thinks that dis will be teh perfict size foar me an' Anna"
Construction on "The Portal" begins:
:X :X :X
And a quick story about The Dog:
Since Kaya is now 14, I decided to ask the vet to run some routine bloodwork on her, to serve as a 'baseline' guide, just in case health issues begin to crop up with her down the road. Given her age, it's a good idea, I think, to have something to compare to if ever she starts having problems. (And one problem that has cropped up recently: Kaya has a shoulder issue that sometimes causes her pain; it flared up again recently (after my pantleg accidentally brushed against her while she was sleeping...thinking it was Yofi, Kaya leapt up so quickly that she wrenched her shoulder, and has been limping ever since)). Anyway, a few nights ago I took her to the vet's for her annual vaccines, and to have blood drawn for testing. I sat in a corner and watched as vet and vet technician parlayed themselves into positions to prepare Kaya for the impending innocs/bloodletting. The vet, crouched over Kaya's back end, prepared needles, whilst the technician got ready at her front end, a generous fistful of liver treats in one hand, ready to administer them as a distraction - one at a time - while the vet did her work. Witnessing this, I smiled silently to myself, knowing what was about to happen...and my dog did not disappoint. As the vet uncapped the first of the hypodermics and prepared to inject her, the technician, coiling her arm tightly around Kaya's body to prevent her from reacting, set the liver treats down for a moment - a nanosecond, really - in order to affirm her grip. Suddenly I heard a panicked voice whisper to the vet,
"Dr. Melhorn? Wait. The liver treats; they're...gone".
"What?" the vet replied, needle poised above Kaya's not-so-flattering side. "What do you mean?"
"I mean...they're
gone. I just put them down for a second. Just to get a better hold on the dog. It's like...she must have literally
inhaled them!"
The vet sat there for a moment, wondering no doubt, if her technician had gone wonky on her. "Well, she couldn't have eaten the entire pile of them...not THAT fast".
"But", the technician argued, stunned apathy tainting her voice, "they're...
gone...All of them!"
I sat in my chair watching this scene play out, knowing that it would happen, and for a brief moment felt a wave of guilt. After all, I could have warned them that my dog, "The Dog", didn't eat food. She didn't eat anything. She had an intake valve permanently set to 'suction'. In competition with any vacuum on the market today, I'd place my money on The Dog to win. Every time. In fact, the only other living, breathing creature I'd wager to be able to give The Dog any kind of run for her money in the food department would be Yofi. Somehow, on a food scale of measurement, those two are related.
In the end, Kaya received her needles and the drawing of blood without the addition of more administered treats. And she never yelped. Never even noticed. Her focus of attention was directly aimed at the countertop in the corner, where she'd seen them pull the liver treats from a large jar. And when the two of us left the office after it was all over, the vet technician was still shaking her head in disbelief, still not quite accepting what she had just seen. I empathized with her; after all, living with The Dog, it took me almost 14 years to get used to it myself. :biggrin2:
And two last photos...Anna comforting Yofi after I disapproved of his portal, and another of Anna, saying 'hai' to The Dog. Enjoy.
