Five Days in February

The call came through last Thursday evening, through the rabbit rescue.  Someone called up and said they found a "baby rabbit" in their back yard.  I asked some questions to try to determine if it was domestic or one of the native cottontails.  They said it had small ears and a long tail.  I was like, really?  Bunnies don't really have long tails.  The person said her neighbor told her it was a baby rabbit, and she had no idea what to do with it.  I told her to bring the little one to me and I will have a look.  This is what they brought:

Turns out they found a baby pack rat.  The little one was so tiny, I was taken aback.  He really needs to be with his momma.  I've had baby cottontails brought to me about that same size, and it's always been a terrible ordeal keeping them alive.  They just don't do well, because nothing can really take the place of their mother's care and milk.  But I knew I really had no choice.  Turning this little creature away would doom it to a certain death.  But I had no experience with anything other than a cottontail.  One thing was certain to me:  I must try.

So I researched the care and feeding of baby pack rats, and found a surprising amount of information.  Rats, as a general species, have nutritional requirements that are similar to humans, so their babies do best on soy-based infant formula.  Baby rabbits do better on kitten milk replacement formula or goat's milk.  So I set up a glass tank on the kitchen table, on a heating pad to keep the baby warm.  I put pieces of flannel on the bottom, along with some rabbit fur I had saved from trimming an angora rabbit a while ago, and constructed a warm and soft nest for the little guy.  I fed him with an eyedropper, a process he didn't care for but he put up with anyway, and left him alone for the night.

The next morning he was still with me, and he quickly became familiar with my fingers rubbing him and picking him up.  I took photos and sent them to my friend Julia, and she immediately named him Ratatouille, or Bebbeh R for short.  I had to wrap him in Kleenex when I fed him because it seemed more formula would come out of the sides of his mouth than he would swallow.  When he decided he had had enough formula, he would push the eyedropper away with his tiny hands, and firmly close his mouth to make it hard for me to insert the end of the dropper.  I did get some formula down him, but it was very difficult to make sure he did not breathe some of the formula into his nose.  That was my biggest fear, that he would aspirate the formula into his lungs.  He would do some very sweet, adorable things like grab onto my thumb with his arms and legs and cling to me.  This is what I would see every day:

I would feed the little one three times a day.  He seemed to be doing okay, and every morning I would apprehensively come into the kitchen to check his tank, and every morning he would be curled up in the warm, soft fur and would immediately jump up and move around when I touched him.  He seemed to have a good day, followed by a not-so-good day when he would not eat as much as he did the day before.  But he did seem to be putting on a little bit of weight, so I began to be cautiously optimistic that he was doing well.  He would stand up on his long, thin, wobbly legs and move around as best he could.  It was such a joy to watch him.

I had to give him a little bit of a bath after every feeding, because of the formula getting all over him, but that was okay.  I actually became really excited about the third day because he was passing a little bit of solid waste.  This was actually a really good sign, because it meant he was taking in nutrition and processing it.  Of course the Holy Grail for me would be if I could get him to stay alive long enough for his eyes to open up.  Once his eyes were open, then he would be able to forage around for his own food and eat more on his own.  So it became a race to get him to the finish line, which is his eyes opening.

I would check up on Bebbeh R dozens of times a day.  I thought about him constantly.  It's hard to understand, unless you've been through something like this, how this incredibly tiny, frail droplet of life can take over your existence, and so much of your time and energy.  He had captured my heart the very first night that I had him, and each passing day made me a little more optimistic for him survival.  I actually allowed myself to think about what he would be like when he grew up and became much more aware of me and where he was.  Would his wild instincts kick in and turn him into something difficult to handle?  Most likely, but I was fully prepared to release him back into the wild when appropriate, or keep him with me if he wanted to.  After a couple of his not-so-good days, I would always be apprehensive when I checked him in the morning, but he always seem to hold on and make it through another night.

Time would run out on Bebbeh R on Tuesday night, five days after I first got him, when I noticed he did not look well and I could hear little clicking noises when he breathed.  My worst fear had come to realization, as it was a sign that he had developed pneumonia.  He was not interested in eating, and there was precious little I could do other than hold him in my hand, stroke his tiny head, and let him know I was here.  I said goodbye to him and went to bed.

The next morning, Wednesday morning, I woke up and found him dead under a blanket of soft rabbit fur.  I was not particularly surprised, but I was extremely disappointed and hurt.  I put my entire heart and soul into keeping this little one alive.  Realistically the odds were stacked against him from the very start, being just a couple of days old and extremely tiny.  But I did allow myself hope that he, through some miracle, would make it and survive.  That was not to be, and once again I learned that the bitterest pill to swallow is dashed hopes, and seeing your very best efforts come to naught.

I miss you, Bebbeh R, and I am sorry you had such a very short life on this earth.  I would do anything to have you back for one more try.  You really did take a bit of my heart with you when you left.  You were unforgettable, and so delicate and sweet that I just can't find words to adequately describe it.  I am absolutely certain that you knew I was there, even though you never saw me, and I take a lot of comfort in the knowledge that, for these five days in February, you knew you were valued, loved and cared for.

2013: The Year In Review (Part 3)

Here we are in the strange, surreal, no-man's-land between Christmas and the start of the New Year, and 2013 is on death row.  There will be no last-minute reprieve from our 400-year-old, hatchet-faced governor, nor a last-minute phone call from Amnesty International.  2013 sits in its dank little prison cell, marinating in melancholy, and dejectedly gnawing on its bitter last meal of broken dreams and unfulfilled promises.  So, when the prison chaplain shows up at the door with his Big Black Book of Contradictory Nonsense to make one last-ditch effort to redeem the soul of this year before it gets marched off to the electric chair and be plugged into eternity, 2013 will spit in his face with cheerful defiance and blurt out, "Stuff it, Padre!  I apologize for NOTHING!"  There were some good things in this year, some bright spots of greenery in a desert of bland mediocrity, and we're going to remember some of them:

The WELL, BUTTER MY BISCUITS AND CALL ME SCREWED Award goes to the redoutable Paula Deen.  Paula was the nation's Buddha of Bad Eating, the Princess of Pork Belly, the First Lady of Fricasseed Funk, and a Southern-Fried Cracker Queen whose toothy, perfect smile graced dozens of magazines every time I stood in a grocery store checkout line.  She was like a lowbrow Martha Stewart, but without all the murderous psychopathic qualities and barely-concealed hatred for the people who buy into her house-of-mirrors media empire.  In Paula Deen's world, there was no problem that could not be fixed with a couple of pounds of butter and a big ole mess of possum skracklings, or a hundred other things I would never consider putting in my mouth.  Well, maybe except for the problems that will arise from injudiciously dropping the N-word at a court deposition, seemingly tolerating an atmosphere of sexual harrassment at the restaurant she co-owns with her brother Earl "Bubba" Hiers, or letting plans slip out about a "plantation-style" wedding with black waiters in white jackets.  Fancy white jackets are apparently one of the many wonderful perks slaves enjoyed during their working vacation, I mean, servitude to white people, if that old Duck Dynasty scumbag is to be believed.  For the national media, it was Thanksgiving Day and Paula was the biggest, fattest turkey they had ever layed eyes on, and they went after her with a vengeance usually reserved for mass murderers or child molesters.  Paula immediately went on an I-so-sorry tour of morning talk shows and seemed genuinely repenitent for her gaffes.  But Our Lady of Perfect Gravy is nothing but resilient, and as recently as this month was spotted cheerfully visiting a bunch of backyard chickens in Savannah.  Hang in there, Paula!  Redemption is yours for the asking, just don't say the N-word out loud anymore. And yes, I don't mind if I have another one of your delicious crescent dinner rolls.

The CRAP HIT THE FAN, THEN HIT IT AGAIN 90 MINUTES LATER award goes to the movie "Gravity."  According to BoxOfficeMojo.com - the Careless Whispers preferred resource for movie statistics - the highest grossing film of 2013 was "Iron Man 3," which earned over $400 million in its US release.  Pretty impressive, when you consider that the third installment of a film franchise featuring a second-tier Marvel Comics character can pull down nearly a half-billion dollars worth of scratch.  I'm not sure why that is, but I'm thinking it has something to do with the appeal of its star, Robert Downey Jr., who seems to be very talented and a good person, and not as grubby and unkempt as Johnny Depp.  But this item truly moves into WTF? territory when you consider that "Iron Man 3" made TWICE as much in foreign release, bringing its total worldwide gross to nearly $1.25 BILLION!  Well played, Buena Vista Pictures, for a $200 million investment.  It's been a very nice Christmas for you, indeed.  I haven't seen 95% of the major movies of 2013, but one I did see and enjoyed very much was "Gravity."  This movie had EVERYTHING!  Sandra Bullock in her underwear!  Authentic looking space hardware!  Mind-twisting special effects!  George Clooney's GHOST!  A cloud of hypersonic satellite debris ripping the crap out of a space station, and then doing it AGAIN ninety minutes later as it circled the earth!  Oh, my inner science nerd was having a field day with this movie!  A number of other people agreed, because "Gravity" made $254,592,000 domestically and $653,292,000 worldwide, on a production budget of $100 million.  Not as much as Robert Downey Jr. in an aluminum jump suit, but still nothing to sneeze at.  Contrast, if you will, the number 54 movie of the year, "Ender's Game," based on the novel by homophobic garden gnome Orson Scott Card.  That resounding flop of a movie had a worldwide gross of $88 million on a production budget of $110 million, costing Lionsgate Pictures over $20 million, more if you factor in the advertising and promotion money the studio had to spend publicizing that stinker.

The IT'S COMING!  IT'S COMING!  IT'S... NOT COMING! award for 2013 goes to Comet ISON. We astronomers are a prickly lot.  Some might even consider us dour; spending endless nights when normal people are sleeping, freezing to death while peering morosely into tiny glass eyepieces attached to big metal tubes, hoping to spot a dim smear of gray light from an object impossibly far away.  People just don't grasp the awe and excitement we feel when we do see that tiny bit of fuzzy light, knowing that it took 50 million years or more to travel to our earthbound retinas and register in our tiny mammalian brains, and that it, in fact, represents an entire galaxy composed of hundreds of billions - if not trillions - of stars, with many billions of planets circling them, and many millions of intelligent civilizations with sentient beings very different from humans, who may be looking right back at us with the exact same sense of astonishment.  We get really excited about stuff that happens up in the sky, and a whole lot of stuff does happen.  But, ironically, we are bound by our gravitational attachment to Earth, and being able to see many astronomical events depends on exactly where we are on Earth and what time zone we're in.

For instance, by all accounts the most amazing, mind-blowing astro-event you can witness is a total eclipse of the sun, but the path of totality - which is the only place to be, really - is a tiny little strip of land often 50 miles in width or less, and almost always in the most remote, desolate, god-forsaken location possible, such as the Antarctica, sub-Saharan Africa or the middle of the Pacific Ocean.  Even if, through the greatest of luck or the most expensive of efforts, you find yourself in the VIP seating section for a solar eclipse, you are still at the mercy of a passing weather front, which can most surely obscure your much-sought-after vantage point and basically ruin your life.  I lucked out majorly in May 2012 when I was able to see a very rare annular eclipse of the sun, and I only had to drive 5 hours to northern Arizona, which was totally worth it.

Other celestial events are more widely observable, such as the aurora borealis (or the southern hemisphere counterpart, the aurora australis), but they are best viewed in high latitudes, above 50-60 degrees.  Here in Phoenix, at 32 degrees north latitude, we never see the northern lights, and if we did, it would probably mean big trouble, since the earth would have to be blasted with an epic, historic radiation storm to see them down here.  Other astronomical sights are very widely viewable, such as meteor storms, or total lunar eclipses, which are visible over entire hemispheres with clear skies.  Another such event is a comet.  The appearance by Comet Hale-Bopp, a number of years ago, was a world-wide event which sparked huge excitement and interest in these dirty snowballs which cross our path every so often.

When Comet ISON was discovered, immediately the hype started.  Portrayed as the incipient "Comet of the Century," lots of people painted vivid word pictures about the "Christmas Comet," which would grace the skies in December, make a close encounter with our sun, and (remember these words ==>) if it survived, would continue on a path which would take it even closer to our planet.  It would then put on a spectacular show in January, with some people saying (be still, my heart) that it could be as bright as the full moon.  Many astronomers (myself included) dreamed many, many dreams of a brilliant comet hanging suspended in a clear winter twilight sky, gossamer tail extending almost to the horizon, and being there for weeks if not months on end.

Astronomers tracked ISON with pain-staking precision, and the expectations grew faster than the comet did in telescopic photographs.  Things started to unravel a bit in September when some Debbie-Downer-type astronomers said ISON wasn't brightening quite fast enough as it plunged through the outer solar system toward the sun.  But we didn't care because comets are notorious non-conformists and will do whatever they please, light-curve predictions be damned.  We watched in breathless anticipation as satellite-based solar observatories saw ISON cruise in past Mercury, getting bigger and brighter as it approached our central star, finally disappearing in the harsh glare of the sun, an Icarus with white wings soaring into the light and heat.

Now, those three words I asked you earlier to remember: "if it survived"?  This is where they come in.  ISON swung around our Sun, barely a million miles above its searing surface and then.... broke into a bunch of pieces.  Scientists the world over expected to see a big, brilliant cometary body with a long, bright tail sweeping in front of it, but instead saw a small, indistrict bright patch with a tiny tail, which eventually got smaller and smaller until there was nothing but small pieces left.  It was officially declared dead a couple of weeks later.  Thus, Comet ISON, the "Comet of the Century" became Comet ISON - the DUD of the century, leaving us astronomers severely disappointed and demoralized.  But we went right back to scanning the skies in hopes of being the first person to spot the next incoming Great Comet Hope, which would again be granted the mantle of Comet of the Century, and this time maybe will actually fulfill that promise, instead of breaking all our astronomical hearts.


The ALL THINGS MUST END... SOMETIMES BADLY award goes to the series finale of Dexter.  The Showtime series finished up its eight-season run earlier this year, not in a blaze of glory, but a resounding THUD, reminiscent of the sound your head makes when it hits the side of the toilet as you rush to puke into it.  When it was firing on all cylinders, Dexter was a stylish, intelligent, and well-written tour de force through the labyrinthine mind of a serial killer.  His "dark passenger," as he called his murderous alter-ego, alternately surfaced and retreated in the ever-changing facade that Dexter presented to his family, friends and the outside world.  But things really derailed for the last season, and in the climatic episode, Dex was shown carrying the dead body of his sister Deborah Morgan out of the hospital in the midst of massive hurricane evacuation through crowds of police and public-safety officers onto his boat, and NO ONE STOPPED HIM.  After dumping Deb into the ocean, the last we saw of Dexter was him driving his power boat directly into the swirling maelstrom of the approaching storm.  Well, "the last" until he surfaced inexplicably somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, where he labored as the Unhappiest Lumberjack Ever (or stunt double for a post-apocalyptic Bounty paper towel commercial), living in numbing isolation in a dreary, decrepit boarding house, with only his memories of his previous life in Miami.  I can't remember another series finale that was so thoroughly and universally condemned and reviled by fans and critics alike, with levels of hateful derision and virulent contempt normally reserved for Republican presidential debates.  Sorry things ended so badly for you, Dex, but it could have been worse.  You could have been one of your fans. 

QUICK TAKES:

TV Shows I Like:  Boardwalk Empire, Homeland, True Blood, Breaking Bad, Live From Daryl's House, Later with Jools Holland, Real Time with Bill Maher, Sons of Anarchy, The Rachel Maddow Show, Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, Nurse Jackie, House of Cards (on Netflix).

Things I Love:  Rabbits, animals in general, my dear friends (both local and Facebook), Brambley Hedge Rabbit Rescue, hiking, secret crushes, sunsets and sunrises, astronomy, sushi, my friend Meme's homemade Chinese Seafood soup, chocolate, writing, photography, artwork, dinners with friends.

Here's hoping 2014 is a turning point for our country, and we can get back to being the great nation we truly are.  Sometimes it's very hard to see that potential.  I wish there were no unwanted and unloved children and animals, everyone had a decent standard of living and health care, and a decent place to live.  I wish people in power weren't so evil and hypocritical and dishonest and deliberately ignorant.  I wish people would mind their own damn business and stay out of the lives of others with whom they have no reason to meddle.  I hope people continue to turn away from religion and other stifling, suffocating poisons of the human spirit.  Most of all, I wish for peace, love and continued health for my friends.  I hope I never lose the sense of child-like wonder I feel when I look up into the night sky, or into the eyes of a beloved rabbit.  I also hope I never lose my belief in angels and miracles.  If I die tomorrow, it will be with the knowledge and satisfaction that I have lived my life exactly as I wanted to live it, and I have no regrets.

Peaches at the Bridge

Last Monday I had to say goodbye to my beautiful Flemish Giant girl Peaches.  She didn't want to go, and I didn't want her to leave me, but her body said it was time.  Reluctantly, she crossed over to the Rainbow Bridge.  I was holding her in my arms and am confident she knew I was there, helping her make the transition to the next world.

Peaches came into my life in 2005, after a hoarding situation in the Show Low area of Arizona sent a number of Flemish Giant rabbits to our shelter.  She got her name from the bright orange-tan color of her fur.  Flemish Giants, or "Flemmies" as they are affectionately called, are one of the largest breeds of rabbits.  The purebred males can sometimes get to be 20 or 22 pounds in size, and can measure nearly three feet in length when stretched out.  Peaches wasn't a purebred, but in her prime she tipped the scales at 15 pounds, a very respectable weight for a bunny.  By the way, the internet stories you sometimes come across where someone claims to have a 50-lb. rabbit are most likely bogus.  A rabbit's skeleton and physiology could not support that kind of weight, and the rabbit would be unable to move around.

Peaches in 2005

I didn't adopt Peaches right away.  For a while she was up for adoption, along with the other Flemmies she came with.  Flemish Giants are very popular rabbits, due to their large size and sweet, loving, gentle personalities.  We don't get them very often at the shelter and when we do, they usually get adopted quickly.  I was fostering Peaches for a while and took notice of her sweet disposition and excellent litterbox habits, a winning combination in the eyes of any prospective bunny adopter.

It wasn't long before a woman came forward to adopt Peaches, and Peaches went to live in her new home.  Not long thereafter, the woman contacted me and reported that Peaches is acting very strangely - urinating all over the place except her litter box, hiding behind a stairwell whenever she was let out of her pen for playtime, and generally behaving badly.  The woman had a male roommate and Peaches loved him, but she would have nothing to do with the woman who adopted her.  I tried to give her advice on how to counteract Peaches' recalcitrant behavior, and even went over to the woman's house to work with them, but Peaches just dug in her bunny heels and would not change her antisocial behavior for anything.  Eventually the woman could not deal with the constant urination and reluctantly returned Peaches to the rescue.  I went to her home, picked up Peaches and brought her back to foster care in my house.  The minute Peaches got to my house, the bad behavior vanished, her perfect litter box habits returned, and I realized that Peaches was finally back to where she really wanted to be.  I officially adopted her soon after, and she had not left my care since.

Peaches snuggling with mini-Rex Marty in 2011

Peaches loved to go out in the back yard for playtime when the weather permitted.  I have memories of her joyfully bounding across the back yard, kicking up her heels and leaping into the air in what bunny people call the Rabbit Dance of Joy, otherwise known as a "binky."  She would launch her 15-pound bulk straight up and catch some really good air, kicking up a cloud of dust as she did.  Once she was outside, she never wanted to go back inside the house, and not even the darkening skies of evening would change her mind.  She quickly learned that if she hid under some shrubbery in the yard, it was hard for me to force her back inside.  In particular, a large bougainvillea bush next to the cement block wall was her favorite hangout, because she could observe the whole yard without being seen, and the hundreds of sharp thorns would make it a difficult and painful proposition for me to drag her out of her very comfortable spot to go back indoors.

In the 8 years I had her, Peaches was never anything other than extremely sweet, docile and affectionate.  Her health was really good throughout her life, although once she had a case of urine sludge that was very severe.  Her urine got really thick with excess calcium and minerals in her diet, and came out of her body with the consistency of toothpaste.  She was very sick and at times her body was completely limp, but luckily I pulled her through that and made changes to her diet, and she was fine from then on.  About 6 months ago she had trouble walking around, and was losing the use of her back legs.  Eventually her back legs did go out on her and I had to move her from the exercise pen where she had lived her whole life to a cage lined with soft, fleece padding.

I could tell she got really depressed when this happened, because she had always been so active and vital.  She was sad that she couldn't move on her own, and I helped as much as I could by keeping her clean, holding her over her water dish so she could drink and changing her position several times a day.  She still loved to eat her vegetables and treats, and she would yank a treat out of your hand with as much gusto as she always did (ask my friend Julia).  Last weekend things started to get really bad for her, and she began losing her appetite, a sure sign of her decline.  By Monday morning, she was virtually paralyzed, her food left untouched.  I knew the end was near for my dear girl.

I was able to spend a lot of time with her on Monday - holding her, brushing her beautiful fur, and letting her know I was nearby.  Monday evening she started crying and moaning, and I knew the end was imminent.  She did not want to go, and fought very hard to stay with me, even though I told her over and over it was okay if she needed to move on.  Tears started to form in her eyes, and in mine, too.  Eventually she realized it was time and when she surrendered her spirit, a palpable wave of relief crossed over her face.  She relaxed a final time, and she was gone.

I am still dealing with the loss of my dear girl, and I don't think it's fully hit me yet.  I keep walking by the bunny room expecting to see her there, her big, dark eyes sparkling under her long, long eyelashes and her huge ears pointed directly at me in anticipation of a treat I might have for her.  I will think of her every time I'm sitting on the back patio, gazing out into the back yard at her favorite bougainvillea bush on the side, expecting to see her stretched out underneath it like Cleopatra on her barge.

When an animal touches your life and your heart as much as she had, she never really leaves you.  One of the amazing things about having animals in your life is that they change you.  They bring such goodness of spirit into your life, that you can't help but be a different (read: better) person from the experience.  I've always maintained that animals make us better human beings, and show us by example how to live our lives.  Animals can teach us so much, if we only open our hearts and minds to them, and I know my life was made immeasurably richer by the presence of a big, beautiful tan-colored Flemmie named Peaches.

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The day after Peaches passed, I got a call from the local humane society.  They had received a young, injured bunny and needed to know if our shelter could take it from them.  Of course I immediately went down there to pick the bunny up.

I was not quite prepared to find a tiny, incredibly soft ball of the purest, whitest fur imaginable, barely weighing a pound and probably no more than 5 weeks of age, with an eye injury.  The doctors there said the eye itself was intact, just the conjunctive tissues surrounding it were damaged.  Her thin, fragile body was covered with numerous scabs, indicating that her life had been a difficult one so far.  That was bad enough, but unfortunately I came to realize that the poor little soul had suffered some critical internal trauma, because she was passing blood out her anus.  I gave her as much supportive care as I could, but knew that only time would tell if she was going to survive her injuries.  I keep telling myself that having hope in situations like this is important for both me and the bunny being treated.

The next morning she was even more listless and lethargic, refusing food and water, and I became increasingly pessimistic about her chances.  Sadly her injuries overwhelmed her and she passed away quietly in the afternoon, less than 24 hours after I brought her to my home.

She was not going to die alone and unnamed, an anonymous victim of the ignorance and cruelty for which the human race is so infamous.  Droplet was a tiny, sweet angel who deserved so much better than the extremely short, brutal, pain-filled life she had to endure.  I like to think that for the last day of her life, Droplet knew she was safe and maybe for the first time, experienced the caring touch of a human who held her close and whispered into her ear that she was loved, she was valued, and her life indeed meant something.

Winter Solstice 2012

It's the longest night of the year, the night of the winter solstice.  Today was a pretty nice day, with the high temps in the upper 60s and lots of sunshine.  In honor of the solstice I hiked up Squaw Peak this afternoon in my shorts and a tee-shirt, and I was keenly aware that I live in a a singularly fortunate part of the country.  Most of the rest of the country was grappling with a strong winter storm wreaking havoc at airports in the midwest, and moving eastward just in time to screw up the most heavily-traveled weekend of the year.  Me, I was hanging laundry in my backyard and enjoying the view from on top of a mountain.

This evening I'm sitting on my couch at home, all snuggly and warm, a houseful of happy, healthy bunnies, watching my fabulous new television.  I have it very good, and my life is very comfortable and full of riches and blessings.  The winter solstice lends it self to such self-reflection and contemplation.  I think about how many people, in various cultures around the world, over the millenia since mankind first started noticing things like solstices and equinoxes, have taken note of this particular day of the year.

The winter solstice occurs in the dead of winter, when the world seemed the most lifeless, although you would never know it where I live.  In European cultures everything was usually covered with a thick blanket of snow and locked in the icy vise-grip of winter.  The fields were barren and desolate, and the trees devoid of any leaves, looking as if they were dead.  But people also understood that this is the day when light and life would begin to return to the world, for buried deep in the dead of winter are the seeds of spring, and soon enough the world will be blooming and fertile again.

Yes, the days will start to get a little bit longer from now until next June, and six months from now I will be griping and moaning about the horrible, ghastly heat which threatens to kill us all.  But right now, I am very happy to contemplate the cycle of the seasons, and enjoy the chilly weather outside.  As I get older I become more sensitive to the passage of time, and the cold realization that I will not alive on this planet forever.  We only get a limited time to live here, and I realize more and more each day that all of us have a responsibility to live a good a life as possible.  I want to live my life kindly and intelligently, to leave the world in a better shape than when I entered it - a life marked by kindness, empathy, defending the rights of animals in a world where they are so often abused and devalued, and wisely using the resouces this planet provides to us.

That is what I'm thinking about on this night, the longest night of the year.  When my time is over, I want to feel like I have accomplished something, and I have made a little bit of difference in the lives of the people and animals who have graced my life with their presence.

Things Not To Do

It seems the more you work in animal welfare and rescue, the more love and admiration you have for animals and the more loathing and disgust you develop for human beings.

Humans are constantly trying to outdo themselves when it comes to idiotic, mindless and cruel behavior, and are continually resetting the bar for stupidity in the world.  Just when you think you've seen the absolute worst when it comes to ignorance and thoughtless behavior, someone does something which takes your breath away in its stunning depravity.

It is astonishing to me how many profoundly stupid people there are in the world - stupidity matched only by cowardice and the propensity for constant lying.  I can't understand how these brain-dead dimwits even make it through the world for a single day.  You'd think social darwinism would take over and the really stupid people in this world would gradually become extinct, but somehow, they keep reproducing and spreading their caustic, damaged genes far and wide.  Thus will the earth end - not in a blinding nuclear detonation or a disease pandemic or collision with an asteroid, but by the ignorant and stupid taking over the world and turning it into a gigantic cesspit.  For a preview of this, one needs only to examine the U.S. House of Representatives and the Republican party, where the truly bigoted, ignorant, racist and uneducated have taken over.

Sadly, so many of these mentally deficient tools decide it's their right to have children and pets.  Having children when you're not intellectually equipped to care for a goldfish is certainly one great failing of evolution.  Maybe it's a throwback to medieval times when you needed lots of people being generated to fight wars and work as slaves and replace those lost to disease.  Maybe you needed people as cannon fodder back in the 1400s with the Black Plague and all, but they are no longer needed in a world of dwindling resources and exploding population.

Having pets when you're an idiot is even more sad, since the animals have no way to stand up for themselves and are always the victims of the evilness and mendacity of their owners. Without exception, it's the animals who suffer for the ignorance of their worthless, irresponsible owners, who create horrific messes for other people to clean up and then just walk away like nothing happened.

Here are a couple of things not to do, because when I take over the world - and trust me, that will happen someday - actions such as these will be dealt with in the harshest possible manner.  The world is forewarned.

1)  If you go to a pet store and the dimwitted, pimply-faced, minimum-wage clerk sells you two rabbits and swears they are the same gender, you should not be surprised when one day you wake up and find a litter of baby rabbits.  This is definitely the fault of the idiot store clerk, but when you call us up and say you have two or three litters of babies you need us to take, then you get to have the word STUPID branded into your forehead.  After the first litter, anyone with more than two working brain cells would have separated the rabbits and gotten the male neutered, to prevent any future litters.  If you don't, then you're the cause of the problem, not the solution.

2)  I realize it's asking way too much, but at least try to have a tiny amount of courage and integrity and say you don't want to keep your rabbits any more, rather than make stupid-shit excuses that your wife and son have developed allergies to the rabbits AFTER FOUR YEARS.  "Allergies" is the most ridiculously over-used excuse by dickheads who find it inconvenient to care for their pets any more.  People think they can just play the "allergy" card and everything is okay.  Little do they know that claiming "allergy" after having an animal for four years is just like wearing a big sign around their fat neck saying, "I AM AN IDIOTIC LYING COWARD!"

3) Don't send me an email that says your son has a rabbit but he doesn't want it anymore and a teacher at his school said she would take it and give it a good home, but your stupid retarded kid "forgot" to give the rabbit to the teacher and now school is out for the summer and you need someone to take the rabbit.  If the rabbit potentially had a good home lined up but lost it because your godforsaken dope of a kid was too busy failing at every single thing he does in life, then keep the rabbit and get rid of your pinheaded little bastard.  It will work out much better in the long run.

4)  When you surrender your rabbit because you are "too busy" or "allergic" or you don't want to pay veterinary bills or you're too damned lazy to provide even basic care or blah blah blah, don't come to me with tears in your eyes and tell me you love the bunny so much and it hurts you so to have to give him up.  NEWS FLASH: No one has a gun to your head, and giving up your animal is YOUR CHOICE.  If you weren't such a miserable, lousy excuse for a human being you'd understand that having any kind of animal requires work and care and a pet is a lifetime commitment.  If you're too lazy to do the work or too stupid to understand the commitment, DON'T GET THE ANIMAL in the first place!  How fucking hard is that to understand?  Don't tell me you love your rabbit because the two-inch-long toenails and the fact that it's obese tells me otherwise.  And above all don't come to me looking for sympathy or a shoulder to cry on because I'm not the least bit interested in making you feel any better about yourself or your heartless, selfish decisions.  Just keep in mind that it's taking every bit of self-control I have to not kick all of your teeth out of your head.

5)  Don't get testy and irate with me when you call up and say you found an injured rabbit on your front step and won't I just drop everything I'm doing and drive all the way out to West Bumfuck, Arizona and do something with it?  I gave you a reasonable option to get the rabbit the care and medical attention it needs at no cost to you, but you didn't find it acceptable because it requires a little bit of "effort" on your part. You're a disgusting pig if you expect someone to drive all the way out to your filthy toilet of a home in some remote desert landfill and take the problem off your hands while you sit on your fat bloated ass watching "The Price Is Right."

You're probably thinking, "Whoa, Steve-o, bitter much?"  Ya think?  Do I sound like I'm way over being fed up with the unending parade of assholes and dirtbags that come my way and the horrific, ignorant and selfish things they do to perfectly wonderful, innocent animals?  Do I sound like I'm completely done with having meth-addicted scumbags lie to my face in a vain attempt deflect any responsibility for their heinous actions?  Do I sound like it's getting significantly harder each and every day to even pretend to put up with the tsunami of trailer-trash, low-class human detritus that infects this planet like a virulent cancer?  The only thing that keeps me going is that all the bad stuff is counterbalanced to some extent by the truly good, unselfish and caring people you meet, fighting the good fight along with you, mourning the innocents who have lived short, brutal lives filled with agony and fear, and cherishing every triumph like it was a precious jewel.

The more you work in animal welfare and rescue, the more you hate and detest human beings, and the more you believe in angels.

The One in Three

I have been doing cottontail rehab for a couple of years now, and I can't think of anything else I have ever done in my life that can be so rewarding and so emotionally devastating at the same time.

My survival rate with the little bunnies is not good at all, probably one in three babies I get survive to be released into the wild.  But in this business a 50% survival rate is considered pretty good, so I'm not that far behind.  Still, losing any little babies that come into my care can be very painful.

One in three is just not good enough.

Two young cottontails came to me recently.  Nine days ago, when I was working at the thrift store, a woman and her daughter came in carrying a glass aquarium with a little bunny inside.  They said it was in danger of being a snack for a bull snake when it was saved, and they wondered if we could take it in, since they had no clue what to do.  I said sure, and brought home the little ball of fluff with the huge ears.  This is a picture of the bunny:

This little bun is probably close to a month in age, older than most cottontails I get.  He or she is doing very well, eating with great enthusiasm, and exhibited genuine outrage and indignance when I tried to clean his enclosure the other day, standing his ground and boxing my hand with the greatest of attitude.  And you can't help but love that.

Three days ago I got a much younger and tinier cottontail, brought to me by my friend Kathy in Payson.  Looking a lot like a furry golf ball with ears, his eyes had just opened up that day, which would put him between 10 and 14 days old.

He looked so very small and fragile, and Kathy asked me to take him because she had never cared for a bunny so tiny.  I agreed, since we have a nursing domestic mother rabbit, Tilly, and usually the mother rabbit will accept another tiny mouth to feed with no problem.  Tilly's four babies, born nearly three weeks ago, were about 4 times as big as the little cottontail, but I would try to place the baby with Tilly.

Unfortunately that did not work out, and the baby for some reason could not get enough milk from Tilly, even though she was loaded with it.  I took the baby back and started to feed him with goat's milk through an eyedropper, standard procedure with cottontail babies that size.

The goat's milk seemed to upset the babies stomach, and appeared to be doing more harm than good.  With my options dwindling, I started the baby on kitten replacement formula, and that seemed to work much better.  The baby sometimes got an "Ewww" face when I fed it, but it seemed to be doing well being fed three times a day.

The little one spent a lot of time sleeping, as do all bunnies that age, but could be very active and spry.  He (or she) got to recognize my voice and ran out of his little cardboard box when I came up to his enclosure.  I would put my hand inside his tank and he would scramble up into my palm.  He loved to be rubbed and gently stroked, and would lick my hands and fingers quite vigorously, until he fell asleep five minutes later.  This is a picture of the little one:

I spent a lot of time holding the little baby, since it seemed to crave physical contact and enjoy it so much.  I loved holding that tiny, incredibly fragile, little droplet of life.  How could that little ball of fuzz with the tiny ears, barely weighing an ounce (less than 1/3000th of my body weight), steal my heart in less than 24 hours?  I swear that if someone came in and stuck a gun to my head and told me to crush the life out of that little speck in my hand, I would say go ahead and shoot.  A bullet to the brain would be fast and quick, as opposed to a lifetime of remembering the alternative.

The little bunny ate fairly well, but never enough, and it didn't seem to grow much at all over the past couple of days.  It always seemed skinny and thin, and it was not putting on weight as it should.  It would consume a bit of kitten formula, but soon started to bat the eyedropper away from its mouth.  In spite of that I was cautiously optimistic, but I knew the little one was by no means out of the woods yet.

Today everything seemed normal, and this afternoon I held him in my hand for a while.  As usual, he licked my fingers and then snuggled in for a little snooze.  I put him back in his enclosure and went to the gym.

I returned to find him lying on his side, breathing in shallow gasps.  He had crashed on me, as is all too typical for these delicate little creatures.  He was dying, and his internal organs were slowly shutting down.

I picked him up and held him in the palm of my hand, cradling his failing body and trying to let him know I was there.  He looked at me with his tiny dark eyes as if to say, "Why?"  I could not answer.  I didn't know why his little life was being ended after such an incredibly short time.  I still can't come up with an answer.

He did not want to go, and fought his impending death for a good 20 minutes.  He gasped, stretched his arms and legs out several times, and endured a series of twitches and spasms.  Finally, he took one last gasp, and reared his head back.  His body went limp, and his breathing stopped.

I am done cursing out the universe or whatever deity is currently in charge.  I can't believe any deity of any kind - even the hateful, vengeful Christian one - would create an innocent life like that, so small and beautiful, only to take it away a short time later.  Some events seem so utterly, completely pointless and without merit.  Why couldn't that little one live?

It's been a rough year so far, with many beloved rabbits going to the Bridge.  Camilla, Babs, Elinor, Georgia, my own bunny Apricot, quite a few others.  At least this newest, tiniest resident at the Rainbow Bridge will be welcomed and cared for by some absolutely wonderful, beautiful rabbits.

And when I get another cottontail baby - and I know I will - so frail and delicate and hanging onto life by a thread, most likely I might have to go through all this again.  Why do I do this?  Why would I subject myself to having my heart ripped apart and stomped on the floor, again and again?

For the one in three, that's why.

I'm Sorry, Babs

There comes a time in everyone's young life when you begin to realize that the world can be a really harsh, unpleasant and messed-up place.  No matter if you've had a mostly idyllic childhood, as I had; eventually you will see and hear things that will cast a dark shadow on the sheltered, protected life you have lived.  You start to understand that bad things happen.

I clearly remember as a young child, probably 5 or 6 years old, being taken by my parents to a funeral home where there was a viewing of an infant who had died.  I saw a small baby dressed in a fancy white gown laying in something like it was asleep.  I thought that was kind of odd, why was everyone making such a fuss over a baby sleeping.  That was bad enough, but what was really jarring was seeing all the adults in the room all distressed and upset and carrying on in ways I had never seen nor expected.  The worst was when the mother of the deceased baby fainted dead away in the middle of the room and collapsed to the floor.  My parents took me out of there pretty quickly, but I will never forget what I saw that sad day.

By the time you're in your teens, you've seen enough to know that the world can be pretty screwed up.  Some bad stuff happens completely by accident or fate, and are just dumped on you with little or no warning.  Other things happen either because of things you did or didn't do.  One of these is when you get yourself a pet.  I always tell people when you get a companion animal of any kind, you are signing up for a future heartbreak.  In spite of our best efforts, we never seem to have enough time with our beloved companions, and their short lifespans (compared to ours) guarantee that someday we will get our hearts thoroughly and completely broken.  The only thing that makes it worthwhile is the love we give and get while they are here with us.

If you choose to work in animal rescue and welfare, as I and many of my friends do, you've really signed yourself up for a lot of pain.  The things that happen to animals in this cruel, sadistic world are truly awful and hideous, especially since in the vast majority of cases, the animals are innocent victims of the ignorance and evilness of humans.  And that makes it all the more sad and painful.  Such was the fate of Babs.

I was working at the Rabbit Rescue Thrift Store on a Wednesday when a call came in from a woman who said she had gotten a rabbit a day ago and she found she could not keep it because of "allergies" (the lamest and most overused excuse ever). She said it was a Flemish Giant female about 2 years old. Normally calls like that we would refer to another agency since our shelter is perpetually full, but I decided to take the bunny in anyway. Even though my house is filled up with well over 20 rabbits (don't ask) I can't turn my back on a Flemmie. They are usually very sweet, gentle and loving animals, and are a lot like great big puppy dogs. I told the woman to bring the rabbit to the store for me to look at.

I was not prepared for what came in the front door, though. A woman came in carrying a very large gray rabbit, its feet dangling loose, wrapped in a dirty towel. The rabbit's bottom and rear legs were stained and filthy with urine, and the strong, acrid odor was a sure sign of a urinary tract infection. The woman, accompanied by her grubby, dull-eyed toddler, said the rabbit had wet itself on the way over, but you don't get that kind of staining from just a car ride. This rabbit had been in this condition for quite a while.

Now this white-trash, hillbilly moron, whose apparently only useful talent in life is spreading her legs and having children, told me a really convoluted story about her buying the rabbit for $50 from someone moving from a house into an apartment. She said her asthma was acting up and gave out with a couple of wet, loud wheezes to prove her point. I'm sure everything coming out of her mouth was a lie, and when she implied that it would be a good thing if we could reimburse her for the $50 she spent, I sent her back to her miserable, wretched life and concentrated on trying to help this poor rabbit. The woman left a bag of food the rabbit had been eating, a vile, horrible mixture of sunflower seeds, corn kernels and peanuts (shelled and unshelled) - all things a rabbit should never, ever be fed.

The rabbit, who would eventually be named Babs, was the largest bunny I had ever seen. She was enormously, morbidly obese, and was very nearly spherical in shape, weighing I'm sure over 20 lbs. She could barely sit up on her own, and running and hopping was out of the question. I can't imagine the stress and strain on her skeleton and internal organs. Her lungs, kidneys, liver, spleen and especially her heart, were all under dire, extreme pressure and stress.

After I cleaned her up at the store, I took her home and set her up in a pen, and tried to do everything I could to help her. I started her on medicine to help her urinary tract infection, and gave her some fluids because she seemed to be very thirsty. It became clear to me that it was going to be a very difficult task keeping her alive until she could start to lose some of the weight that was crushing her body. She needed to lose at least 5 pounds, and that would take a very long time. I slowly came to the realization that keeping her alive until she could begin to realize benefits from weight loss was going to be a very tough task.

Babs was an extremely sweet, docile and lovable girl. She had wonderful salt-and-pepper chinchilla-type fur, and long, dark eyelashes surrounding open and trustful eyes. Even after all she had endured, she could still trust a stranger and show him affection. I fell in love with her instantly, and vowed to do everything I could to help her. She didn't show much interest in eating anything other than a little bit of vegetables, and any movement was an exhausting, uncomfortable ordeal. Along with her critical obesity, her urinary tract infection was complicating matters immensely. Inside, I was losing hope, but knew I had to do everything I could. All the humans in her life had let her down. I would be goddamned if I was going to be another one.

The next day things looked much worse. Babs had not eaten any vegetables I left the night before. She was unable or unwilling to move at all, and pretty soon was laying down on her side. I took her out of the pen and let her lay on the cool tile floor. She flattened out like a huge, furry pancake and just laid there, breathing heavily. I think she knew, as did I, that she was losing her battle to live.

The end came later that afternoon, barely 24 hours after I first saw her. She was still laying flat on the tile floor, when I found her. There was a look of sad disbelief frozen on her face, as if she could not understand how such a terrible fate could befall a good bunny who never did anything wrong in her all-too-brief life, other than be born and want to be loved.

I knew that I had not let Babs down. I did everything I could to help her. Other humans had let her down. Their ignorance and stupidity led them to tend to her so poorly that her body got completely out of control. I am so sad that I could not have gotten her sooner, and maybe could have caught her downward spiral in time to change the outcome. I don't know, and will never know.

But I am also sure of one thing. Babs' physical problems were obviously extremely severe, but what you couldn't see was how depressed and sad she was with all the dislocation and abandonment that she suffered recently. Even though the humans that had her were vile, ignorant, loathsome assholes, they were her family and she missed them dearly. Even though she came from an undoubtedly shitty environment, to her it was home. When she came to me, she had no will to live, no fight left in her. She had given up, and she was tired and wanted to rest. Her body became a prison to her, her life filled with pain and discomfort. She would suffer no longer, and I believe she chose to go when she did. I am very very glad I was able to provide her with a place to transition to the next life. I am sure she knew she was safe, she was valued, and she was loved.

I'm sorry, Babs, that I could not help you more. I'm sorry that the previous humans you had to deal with were some of the worst examples of the wretchedness and inhumanity of people. I'm sorry that you did not get to live a happy, fun-filled life with a family who treasured you and made sure you stayed the healthy, perfect creature you once were. I'm sorry you didn't get more chances to run and play in a yard on a bright spring morning, and I'm sorry you didn't get more opportunities to prairie-dog up on your hindquarters and beg for more tasty treats. I am so sorry that humans let you down.

What happened to you was truly criminal - a heinous, cowardly assault on an innocent and defenseless soul. It was profoundly unjust, outrageously cruel and - worst of all - completely, utterly unnecessary. I'm sorry, Babs, and I hope you can forgive us someday.

You deserved so much better.

The First Day of the Seventh Decade (Part 2)

I had a very good birthday yesterday. It was filled with people calling and wishing me well, and getting lots of birthday greetings from all over the world on Facebook. Facebook is amazing because it allows you to have contact with many people all over the world. My life is so very much enriched by these contacts, even though it is through a website and not in person. So things went pretty well for me yesterday.

Well, almost well. Until another animal welfare agency, from whom we get most of the rabbits that come into our shelter, started sending me emails about six female domestic rabbits that were turned into them in not the best condition - hair loss, probably from fighting and being kept in a large area, and possible ear mite infestation. One of the females gave birth to a litter of five babies last Tuesday, and yesterday I learned that two more had given birth, another litter of five and a litter of six babies. It's a safe bet that the others are most likely pregnant and will be giving birth, even though we are trying our best to prevent that from happening. We dearly love the little baby bunnies, but we definitely do not need any more coming into the world and into the shelter/rescue system, which seems to be at or beyond capacity on a constant basis.

Sixteen little lives, brought into a system that can barely care for the animals already there. What is going to happen to them? What will be their fate? How will we love and care for them and find them homes so they can have a reasonably good quality of life. They didn't ask to be born, and they deserve to live their lives in happiness and health. How is that going to happen?

I find myself getting really enraged at people who are so abysmally stupid and ignorant that they keep animals in such awful conditions and allow these multiple pregnancies. I honestly want to find them and hurt them really, really badly, because they are loathsome, despicable assholes who take the horrible messes they have created, dump them off at an already-overcrowded animal shelter, and just walk away, free of any responsibility, while others work very hard to fix things. Sometimes I think those ignorant pigs need to be held accountable, financially and legally, for such moronic irresponsibility. But then I realize if they would have to answer for their actions, they wouldn't bring the rabbits to the shelter, they would just kill them outright and be done with it without anyone finding out. I have no doubt that would happen because if there is one thing I've learned over and over again in sixty years, it's that the ignorance, cowardice and evilness of most of the people in this world are stunning, boundless and beyond measure.

Equally boundless and beyond measure are the goodness, caring and loving sacrifices of the animal welfare and rescue community, goodhearted people working in the most stressful and distressing of jobs, poorly compensated and constantly overworked, but somehow returning to the battle lines day after day. Working in animal rescue you get to see the very worst of humanity along with the very best. And everywhere there are good, sweet, noble and loving animals who are always the victims of the horrendous selfishness and perversity of humans, the so-called "superior" life forms on this planet.

So much of what is wrong with this world I blame on organized religion, which is the most disastrous plague mankind has ever inflicted on itself. Most people know of my vitriolic hatred of religion and will come to me and ask, what do I have against God? And I always tell them: nothing at all. I have no problem with God, Buddha, Mohammed, or any other "deity." Never have, never will. In my world people are free to believe in whatever they choose. It's when then start to force their particular beliefs on to other people in the world, or begin to ruin and defile the world and its inhabitants because their religion tells them they can, or when they start to pass laws codifying their delusions into laws the rest of us have to follow, well, I have a REALLY huge problem with that.

When I rule the world, and that will happen someday, things will be very, very different. Until then, as I start my seventh decade of this Theatre of the Absurd which is life, I am very grateful for the vast benefits and advantages I have, which include good health (mental health not included), the means to enjoy my life and do what I want, and very good friends whom I love and value greatly. Most importantly, even though it can be very demoralizing and painful at times, I have found my purpose in life, which is rescuing, caring for and loving rabbits.

You can tell you're getting old when you start giving advice to everyone, whether they ask for it or not. But indulge me this once when I just say, for whomever reads this, that the very best gift you can give yourself in life is to find something you are passionate about, and then pursue it. If you love what you do, it will not seem like work. People will see you in your very best light, and you will draw others to you who are likewise good, true and worthwhile. That is the best way to live your life.