Yikes

Todays grass mowing ended very poorly for one young rabbit. Thank goodness we have at least one family member who is willing to put an end to the suffering of small furry animals.

Christmas this Year

I’m feeling almost entirely unmotivated this year. I lost the yearly battle to host Christmas at my house (I don’t honestly care too much yet…) We went all out with the decorating last year and then while Hubbin and I were cleaning up I distinctly remember having the conversation of “Why did we DO this to ourselves? Do you really care if the house is decorated? No… do you? No” and we decided that we wouldn’t again decorate all over until we have kids. (or are hosting Christmas) So this right here is the extent of my decorating this year: 

I do keep meaning to drag the tree upstairs, but no one seems interested in helping me (Hubbin or Stu) so why should it be all my responsibility?

The wreath was my 10 minute craft project the other day, I got a prelit wreath from JoAnn fabrics that has battery powered LED lights and I decorated it. I love the battery powered lights! I wish I could have found just a box of the white ones not attached to anything (they only seemed to have the colored in stock) because my mother-in-law gave us this sled (decoration) with greens and ice skates on it, but it has to be plugged in outside…. and they’re not outdoor lights so they make me a little nervous, being as our house is 130 years old and constructed entirely of wood (and the new styrofoam insulation).

I’m just not really into Christmas this year, and I guess it’s a personal issue. I went through the Anti-Santa phase where Christmas was all about religion for me and then I’ve kind of slowly drifted away from the religious aspects (of everything) and there’s part of me that feels like I’ve ruined Christmas a little bit by doing that… because what’s left?Christmas minus Commercialism and minus Religious significance leaves very little Christmas. Hubbin is pretty Anti-Religion so he prefers the whole secular-gift-exchange concept, but I just generally feel like all the emotion has been sucked right out of the holiday for me.

Sorry I’m only able to provide a picture of a picture at this time but we took Princess Tegu to Petco over the weekend to sit on Santa’s lap. We were at Petco a few weeks ago buying groceries and they handed us a flyer that offered photos of your pet on Santa’s lap. I immediately got this gleam in my eye because now we’ve got quite a track record of Tegu Christmas photos (Year 1: Tegu in a Santa Hat, Year 2 Tegu in a sweatervest with scarf by the fireplace) Hubbin wanted to take pictures of her in a sleigh and then photoshop multiple pictures of our geckos in as pulling the sleigh. I strongly feel as though photoshop in the Christmas Card arena is totally cheating. We weren’t sure if it was “legal” to take a lizard to get her photo with Santa but it didn’t specify cats and dogs only. I think the staff actually had a good time with it (and she was WAY more behaved than the golden retriever before her that seriously needed some ativan) They all took turns petting her and asked lots of questions and she didn’t even squirm too much for Santa. What a good girl!

Argentinean Scratching Torture

Similar to and equally effective as Chinese Water Torture. 

People often ask if the Tegu recognizes us (or can see us), and how we know. Here I was sitting at my desk MINDING MY OWN BUSINESS. When my tegu that’s SUPPOSED to be hibernating starts scratching at her tank and bumping her lid asking to be let out. She’s already in her winter home (a giant plastic tupperware bin from target with fogged sides) so how she can even SEE through the sides it’s hard to say but she sure seemed to know that “if I keep irritating the human she will let me out, and it will be even more effective if I scratch at the same corner the human is sitting at” scratch scratch scratch bump scratch bump scratch.

“Hi Human! Don’t pretend you don’t notice me 🙂 I see you right there. Hiiii!”

“Oh, was that bothersome? How about you just let me crawl around and we’ll be square? Who me? Noooo, I wouldn’t dream of peeing on the floor”

“Boy this is tasty water, this porcelain is AWFULLY cold in the winter, are you sure I can’t crawl around on the carpet instead? I swear I won’t pee!”

The other question we often get is “Do you just let her crawl around the house” and the answer is usually “she’s not really house broken” and we’re sort of convinced she waits to go to the bathroom til she’s out of her tank so we specifically wait til we know she’s “empty” before letting her go for a walk. Today she’s not empty so I’m letting her cool-off literally and figuratively in the bathtub before I put her back in her tank… because I’m a sucker for the Argentinean Scratching Torture and I CANT TAKE IT FOR ANOTHER MINUTE!

–hehe although I’m trading one for the other cause now she’s pushing the bowl around in the bathtub and clanging in there 😉 —

Missing x 2 days

Then found passed out behind the computer hutch. I swear to you she wasn’t there when I looked in the first 48 hours (Stu was a little concerned)… Clearly out partying from the looks of it:

For Sale

I guess I had been thinking about it for a while, in the back of my head, but on our honeymoon while I was walking with Hubbin’ I suddenly decided to bring up that I would not be opposed to getting rid of our blue tegu. My little princess-cuddle-tegu. Aria, that’s her name, I’ll confess. She really is a beautiful tegu but she just never calmed down like our bigger black and white tegu did. When you open the lid of her tank she nearly always flips out. Sure when she’s cool and tired she loves to snuggle up in my hoodie, but you can just never really be sure what’s going on in her head. She’s still a good bit “wild animal” whereas our B&W is a whole lot more “house cat”. I guess I’ve just started to see her as a liability, especially one day when we have kids. Our B&W we frequently pull out with house guests, let people hold and pet her. I would never pick our Blue up and put her in a little kids lap. Most of the time we don’t even take her lid off when we have people over.

~~As a little brown baby, nothing more than a handful of round belly on her first night home~~

Back sometime in January this guy started stalking her on my flickr site. I got an email from him there, and then maybe even one from my blog asking if we would ever consider selling her, and how much we would want. I never even wrote him back. So we talked about it a little on the trip and decided we were going to try selling her, or try and trade her for something at the exotic pet store near our house. So first, I wrote this guy back and said “hey, I’m sure this is a day late and a dollar short, but we’ve decided we’re going to sell her, if you’re still interested let me know.” 7 months later I thought there was no shot, but he wrote back and Hubbin’s spoken on the phone with him a few times now and it sounds like our little Princess Aria is going to move to New Jersey.

I hope she’s what he’s interested in, it sounds like he wants a blue tegu with a lot of white in the pattern to breed with his male tegu. She looks much nicer both in shape and pattern than the two blue tegu females at the exotic pet store near our house, so I think she’ll be good for breeding. She is a little small, mostly because she’s so hard to handle when she’s warm it make you reluctant to go in and pay attention to her. She’s definitely full length right now at 36″, but she’s got some bulking up to do for sure. She started hibernating this past winter and she’ll turn three this summer so she’s about the right age too.

She won’t miss us I’m sure. Our B&W, when you open the tank, or pick her up, you get the distinct impression she knows who we are and recognizes us. Aria… you don’t really get that impression with her at all. She’s always looking for the best way to get away from you.

Lost and Found… much to her dismay

Sorry to leave you hanging, this mentorship thing is keeping me quite busy! I’m really going kind of crazy, I’ve had more migraines in the past two weeks (including today) than in the last 5 months combined. That promises to only be topped by my 8 day death march ahead. I’m done in just TWO WEEKS so now it’s merely a matter of holding my breath till it’s all over.

So Hubbin found her with very little difficulty, after I thought I had searched the whole room we found her mere feet from the launch point wedged behind and underneath the bookshelf her bin sits on.

Something tells me she wasn’t terribly glad we found her.

She did stir after just a few motivating words, but I think she would have been A-OK with a few days of freedom in the house.

But she did give Hubbin a good cuddle when he pulled her out. I do swear to you that there’s just something about the way she acts when he’s holding her that makes it seem like she genuinely likes him, in her own reptilian way.

In other news we had a spotting of my little punk of blue tegu on top of her heat mat. She fell asleep a few months after the princess but she still by all indicators seems to be interested in hibernation. We haven’t seen her by her own volition in the past 4 months, but we’ve dug her out a few times and woken her up to make sure she’s fine. She hasn’t lost any weight, and arouses easily, but is just so not interested in hanging out with us or eating.

G-L-A-M-O-R-O-U-S

“We flying first class
Up in the sky
Poppin.. champagne
Livin.. the life”

The princess sharing my heat source during my shower. (Same spot, different night. I wasn’t able to capture on camera any of her gigantic yawns or big sighs as she relaxed into the carpet.)

Up for the spring

I hereby solemnly swear

I hereby solemnly swear that next year I will take our Christmas photo over Thanksgiving break. I’ve posted some of the outtakes on flickr for you to see. This year isn’t going nearly as well. Princess is able to walk right out of her sweater, and does so… because dude, why would a reptile want to wear a sweater? So I had to settle for just the green scarf 😦 and packages. We eventually broke down and stuck a ribbon on her back. I’m hoping for the best but of course half way through the photo shoot Hubbin decided he didn’t like my digital camera and wanted to use his… without a camera card. So now I have to wait for him to load the picture to his computer at work… use photoshop etc etc etc… I had really intended to get them printed and sent today. But I guess it will need to be Thursday now because that’s my next day off. So much for the Christmas cards making it in time for Christmas 😦

My final is tonight, and I’m at home cramming right now, or rather supposed to be cramming. I’m just not in the mood though. I’ve been done with this semester for WEEKS now. I have an extremely middle of the road B. I have an 88% and if I get 100% on the final it will only bring me up to a 91% which is still a B… and if for some surprising reason I don’t do acceptably well on the final and get a 74% (the lowest I scored on a test this semester) I will have a B…. so I guess that’s not really much of a motivator.

I actually do have blogging material, but like I said I’m SUPPOSED to be studying for my final right so I should probably be doing that….

A Photo Post

 

 

 

For Christmas Hubbin is repainting my study room from Paint-to-Sell Beige to a Cranberry Red. I talked my mom into buying me that potterybarn desk I’ve been lusting over for a full year now and we’re going to go with the white furniture and dark paint.

In other news this is a photo of the Christmas outfit I’ve concocted for the tegu Christmas card this year! A sneak preview just for my online friends!