Getting Along With Your Brother

I was raised an only child, so I don't have many of those "stop touching me" or "stop looking at me" stories from the back seat.

And, since Francine and I only have one child, I don't really have many of those "father yelling from the front seat at the children" stories to share.

So I'll do what I do best - I'll use my imagination to create some.

Saturday morning, our bunny Scotty (Mr. Scotty Nibbles III) found a new friend: Herman. (Herman is a stuffed ape that my Dad bought for me for Valentine's Day just a week before he died; so, though Herman is a bit goofy looking and gigantic -- yes, it was my Dad's idea of a joke, because when I was a child I had always wanted a monkey -- he means a lot to me) 

Scotty, who rarely sits for long, sat for half an hour beside Herman. It was so cute that I had to take a picture. Then, he started to get cozy and nest himself between Herman's legs, pulling down the ape's arms to cover himself.  It was quite adorable until Scotty started to chew on Herman's legs and pull the stuffing out of him to further pad his nest.

"Scotty, stop chewing on your brother!" I scolded.  I didn't take a picture of that mess.

Then, later that day, we went as a family to see Iron Man 3.  I moved Barnaby from the front seat to the back so that Francine could ride shotgun. (Yes, Barnaby, my skeleton, rides with me - not so I can get in the HOV lanes, but simply because there's no good place in the house to store him, and, since Barnaby comes with me to book signings, it's easier to have him in the car already.

Besides, it's fun to make the other motorists do a double-take, and it's a great ice-breaker when I'm at the gas station or getting in to my car in a public parking lot.  (And yes, I have a small front cover image of my book Haunted Hamilton within site -- I figure, if people are looking, they might as well see some self-promotional stuff)

Barnaby's head sometimes shifts around when I'm driving (a great side-effect to help further freak out fellow motorists), but Alexander gets angry whenever the skeleton's head shifts over to look at him.

"Dad, tell Barnaby to stop looking at me!" Alexander was yelling from the back seat. When the skeleton didn't comply (how could he, after all?), Alexander started poking him in the head until the head swiveled away from him.

I imagined Barnaby replying, "Dad, tell Alexander to stop poking me!"

"Alright," I yelled. "Knock it off, both of you. Barnaby, stop staring blankly at Alexander, you know he doesn't like that. And wipe that goofy grin off your face. And Alexander, stop punching your brother in the head."

At that point Francine did what she always does:  she shook her head and wondered why she ever married me.

Introducing Mr. Scotty Nibbles The Third

The other night Francine and I were watching CHCH and there was a bit on a Bunny Hop adopt-a-thon. There had been a woman in Oakville who was charged for some sort of neglect to properly care for a giant warren of rabbits, all this army of bunnies had all been taken by the Oakville Humane Society, cared for, brought back to health and needed good homes.

So we went in Sunday to see if we could be a good home for one.  (After all, it had been half a year since Earl, our previous independent bunny, had decided to pack his bags and seek his fortune in the world without us.  And we missed having a bunny)

The bunnies had all been given names by the staff (easier to refer to them with names than numbers), and we entered a room with about a dozen bunnies in it.

Scotty got our attention right away because he was zooming up and down a green ramp in his cage that led to an upper level. We petted and checked out many bunnies, then spend some time with Scotty and determined that he liked us and we liked him, so we put in an application to adopt him.

I was able to pick him up yesterday.

Alexander kept wanting to come up with various different names for the bunny. (He doesn't yet know his name, so they said we could change his name).  Over the past few days there have been multiple suggestions.  We all kind of liked the name "Scotty" but Alexander kept coming up with all kinds of names (like Mister Bunny, the name of our very first bunny, the one we had for 11 years; or Earl, the name of our second bunny, who we had adopted from a friend who couldn't keep him but ended up being the wandering minstrel who was only with us for a little over a year - we do suspect that he might have sought his fortune as the sidekick of the Easter Bunny, since he disappeared shortly after Easter this past year).

The other day, Alexander was pretty fixed on Mr. Nibbles.

I still liked Scotty. (You know, so I could call him Mr. Scott -- it gives me a cut excuse to be a Star Trek geek)

So we compromised, and decided to give him a full name.

Mr Scotty Nibbles III

I added the III (or "the Third") to indicate that he is the third black dwarf bunny that this family has owned.  You know, because everyone else in our family has long names with lots of letters - I wanted to make sure Scotty properly felt like a part of the family.

The Bunny Hop Adopt-a-Thon has been extended until Dec 31, 2012. Apparently there are still a lot of great bunnies who need a loving home.

My Name Is Earl

Francine, Alexander and I were delighted to get the opportunity to bunny-sit this past weekend.

We were actually quite delighted. It had been about four years since our home was filled with the sounds, noises and delights that a bunny can bring to it.

Our bunny, Mister Bunny, had lived for 11 years -- as I understand it, a bit longer than most dwarf rabbits live. For most of those years, he was a very animated and lively bunny, continually exploratory in nature and full of an endless energy. Even in his final few years, though he was a "senior" he was active and playful, never quite losing that "childish" nature that made him so much fun.

Though Alexander was just under 2 when Mister Bunny passed away, the two of them did have a lot of fun together. (Mister Bunny even consented to appear in various episodes of my HNT Darth Tater series of blog posts that started with the following "trilogy": Darth Tater Unmasked, Carb-Eater Strikes Back and Return of the Spud-Eye. Even after he had died, he appeared in a later episode of the goofy series that wouldn't end, The Final Standoff. Okay, he didn't consent to appear in this series, but he didn't protest it, either)

So, when we agreed to take Earl in for the weekend, we were delighted. And, admittedly, a bit worried about what kind of havoc a 1 year old rabbit might cause in our home.

While Earl is adorable and cute and loves to have his nose petted in the same way that Mister Bunny did, he wasn't quite the little bundle of energy we were expecting.

He stayed in his home pretty much the whole weekend, regardless of the continual efforts we made (both bold and subtle) to encourage him to come out of his cage and explore.

Little Mr Home-body, Earl the bunny

On Thursday evening, when he first arrived, we thought that perhaps he was just a little bit nervous being in a new environment and that it might take a day or so to get used to the new people, smells, sights and sounds.

But that never happened.

When I tried to gently lift him out of his cage and put him on a carpet in front of his cage as a way of encouraging him to explore and run around, he immediately hopped right back inside. And though we left the door on his cage open pretty much the whole time we were around, or had the top of the cage completely off for hours at a stretch, he did nothing more than stick his little head out to sniff around.

Even yesterday when I was cleaning out his cage and litter box and required removing him from his house, he struggled to get back inside, and I had to physically block him from re-entering.

And the second I was finished cleaning his house, and removed barrier to his access, he hopped right back inside.

Sigh.

It was quite a startling change from the animated and restless energy Mister Bunny showed.

Yes, Earl is a beautiful little rabbit. But the main difference between having him stay here and having, say, oh, a goldfish sitting in a bowl in the corner, is that you can't pet a goldfish.