Sorry I haven't been around.  Margaret's sister, Janet, is moving in with us and becoming one of the cast and has brought her new computer with her.  I have typed more than two sentences and it hasn't locked up on me, i can hear sounds and the picture is clear!  What a concept.  I will be finishing the story about the wedding, the Flying W, etc, soon.  I always owe Daveman one for tagging me with one of those goofy "meme" things.  I'll probably do that next week, too.  *smoke fills room as Herb's brain cranks up, plotting revenge on Daveman...*

This entry is going to have to be done in installments because over the last couple of days I have had a lot of things going on, including out-of-town guests and a reunion with a great friend and super teacher, so, stay tooned, kiddos.

>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<

Well, the big day has come and gone and I am officially a father-in-law again.  Yes, we welcome Troy, Lizzy's husband to the fold.  No pics, yet, but there may be some later this week.  Got to meet some of her friends and Troy's family.

It was a strange weather day Saturday.  The wedding was supposed to be at a pavilion in the Garden of the Gods at 2:30, but around quarter to it started a torrential downpour.  Pastor called and suggested we use the old church instead.  If you have ever been here in a heavy rain, you will understand.  Streets flood, cars become boats, lightning flies everywhere.  It is great.  To watch from indoors.  If you have already reached your destination.

Well, we were able to get hold of almost everyone, went to the church and waited for the groom to show up.  I got to meet some of her friends I had never met before.  They were pretty nice, but you could tell that some of them had never been in a church too much and didn't really know what was acceptable behavior.  It's sad to think of college "kids," full-grown adults as the story goes, who don't have enough book-larnin' to show a proper modicum of respect and have never been taught that, even if you don't believe in something, you still have respect.  Oh well.  They were full of...er...personality and actually I quite liked them; I just would like to have seen a little upbringing in some of them.

Now it is 2:45 and no groom!  We had changed the voice mail, leaving instructions on getting to the church.  Visions of shotguns and other pleasantries drift in and out of my head when someone's cell phone bleats through the church.  The groom is stuck at Constitution and Academy behind several stalled vehicles.  The water here runs so high when it rains like this that this is easy to understand.

Finally, a little after three, the groom has arrived.  Neither the bride nor the groom had anyone standing up with them because they have longtime friends that might get hurt feelings and this is not really a traditional wedding, anyway.  It was not really a "church wedding" but rather a "wedding at the church."  The theme, which is western and outdoorsy, is blue jeans and t-shirts.  The bride and groom wore red t-shirts and all of the guests, rather, most of the guests, wore western shirts and jeans.  This was not a difficult thing for me.

It was a nice wedding, with the vows spoken with thick emotion.  The little stammers and stutters along the way as they repeat the words indicate they are serious and nervous.  Such an event gives hope and peace.

*sighs*

Well, we have reservations at the "Flyin' W" for 12 people and the gates open at 4:30.  We have been there so many times that we know that the best seats, no matter what your reservation number, go to the people who are there first.  We hit one small snag, there are no personal checks accepted.  Fortunately my face is familiar to the man in the booth and I have a couple of names I can drop if the going gets rough, because I have done business with Vern and know Scotty because of his wife Cindy and count them all as good, dear friends.  Vern is an honest businessman with a good reputation in the community as well as a great performer.

I really love the "Flyin' W" but can't get to go too often because it gets a little spendy for a big group like ours.  Even just our family.  More on the "W" in the next installment.

   Remember, the Good Book says, "The man who finds a wife finds a treasure and receives favor from the LORD."

I think everyone should read Staircase365's blog entry today.  Without exception.  You too.  Made me really stop and think.

http://staircase365.blogdrive.com/archive/3.html

There are days when I really hate computers, but then I realize that it's just mine that I hate.  I guess I like them all right as a group, it's just this one certain individual that I don't like.  Well, I guess it's more of a love/hate relationship, really.  The computer does keep me connected with all of you and there are getting to be more and more of you everyday, too.  Just, sometimes, I really feel like taking the computer out and smashing it to bits with a sledgehammer, not to be confused, of course, with Sledge Hammer although that .44 of his might be useful.  I could take a gun and shoot the computer full of holes, THEN smash it with a sledgehammer, then pour gasoline all over the bits and pieces and light it on fire and then, after it had cooled, drive over anything left with an old army deuce-and-a-half (two and a half ton truck) and flush any remaining bits down the toilet.  Then I will sit on the curb and blather my finger against my lips until the nice young men in their clean white coats come.

Scott W was telling me that his computer only comes on every fourth time he tries to turn it on, so Scott, if you have made it here to my blog, first of all, I am highly honored that you would take your precious computer time to spend it here, and secondly, I hope the above instructions for computer repair are helpful.

Umm, as I told you guys before, my computer is on the way out.

Okay.  When I was a boy I used to watch my dad butter a pack of saltines and make little sandwiches of them and eat them.  The crackers came in a package that had four crackers together with perforations so you could break them down to the size that is common in grocery stores nowadays.  BTW, does anyone still package crackers that way?

Anyway, my new poll question is about this snack.  I love it.  I will take a whole sleeve of saltines and butter them up (real butter is best, especially for buttering up) and put them on a plate and eat them.  Sometimes I will take a couple of slices of American cheese and quarter them onto some of the crackers.  My wife had never seen anyone eat this snack and my kids are not exactly taken with the idea of them, but I love 'em.

So, anyway, please answer today's poll question and leave a comment.  And Carter and Daveman, if you see a polecat, don't play with it!  Don't touch.  I mean it...

Remember, the good book says, if Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?

Well, I have finished making my morning rounds of everyone's blogs.  I use that as an excuse to not write in my own.  "Oops," says Herb, "Ran out of time this morning, guys, reading all of your entries and didn't have time to write mine."  Not a bad excuse, except that Herb says that I should write my entry first, and then go gallivanting around to everyone else's place.  Herb is such an awful taskmaster.  Good thing he doesn't follow up on any of his threats or I would be in trouble.

Family news...Savannah weighs in at fourteen pounds, nine ounces.  For folks new to this blog, Savannah Melody is my son's daughter who was born between 25 - 27 weeks gestation at one pound, twelve ounces.

Savannah Melody is also the name of a type of unkillable daylily that my black thumb has managed to extinguish.  I will buy another from http://daylily.net/scarbroughsgarden/garden.htm who, for you newbies, sent me a free one to honor the new miracle baby.  So I will try again, maybe read the instructions a little better.  Wonder if I can kill, er, grow it in a pot in the house?  I have to try again, since those folks were so nice to me.

More news, Aunt Janet, is going to be added to the cast of characters soon.  She will be coming from WI, but, unfortunately for all of us, doesn't play the banjo or carry one on her knee.  So what good is she?  Well, we will have to see.  And, introducing a new (soon-to-be) son-in-law, Troy.

Running out of time if I want to take care of pesky ablutions to disenstinkify myself so, food.  (I know, I know, it's ciao, not chow)

The Good Book says, An unemployed court jester is nobody's fool.

Here are a couple of things I've been wondering about lately.

Is there an appropriate number of responses to an e-mail?  When you e-mail someone and begin a discussion, he or she will write back, you answer with a question, they respond, you ask something else, in what you suppose to be a conversational fashion, only they never reply to it.  You have either to start a new conversation or give up on the correspondence completely.  Is there some rule that says you only have to answer twice?  I suppose the marathon conversations I have with Carter, spanning months and hundreds of replies to the sane same threads have broken that rule.

What about the "contact me" buttons on people's blogs?  What is the purpose of them if no one ever reads the e-mail?  Well, if they do, they don't respond, so what's the point?  On the rare occasion someone has e-mailed me about my blog, I was so excited to find out there was someone out there somewhere who actually reads this drivel that I responded asap.  Perhaps if I ever get to be one of the popular blogs I will get so much fan mail that I cannot respond.  I always try to do my e-mail the way I learned to do letter writing, you leave some things open-ended so the recipient will have something to write back about and you begin what's called a correspondence.  This can go on for years.

I still write an occasional letter, but e-mail is so much more convenient.  I really don't write anyone the way I should, however.  The only one lately is one of my best friends, who is in Iraq, otherwise I don't write much, even though I know I should, but if you received a letter in the mail, would you only answer twice and then quit?  No, I have not even for a moment thought about the possibility that I was boring.  What?  Nope, never thunk it.

In other thoughts, I am really aggravated about not being able to ride in my car with my hat.  I don't know what to do.  I feel naked without it, plus I actually have to comb my hair more than once a day.  Whatever happened to the era of hats, anyway?  Not ball caps, which are worn in uncouth and inappropriate manners with inappropriate manners.  I mean, I remember my dad getting dressed up and putting on a nice felt fedora.  Men use to wear suits and ties to church with a nice hat on top of their head that they took off when entering.

Who ever said that you don't have to remove headgear anymore when you enter a building anyway?  Miss Manners (my heroine, even though I would be petrified to meet her, I love her writing.) says that all hats, including cowboy hats, should be removed when entering a building.  The only exception she makes is for an actual working cowboy, who never removes his hat for any reason.  I have modified this rule myself, as it is easier to leave my hat on in the grocery store and places like that.  Women never remove their hats.

Remember, the good book says, "Tip your hat to this lady, son..."

Sorry I haven't updated in a few days, but Tabitha had to have her appendix out.  Normally this is a day in and a day out, but she had some extra pains that they wanted to watch, but now that everything is normal, I have rushed right to the keyboard to tell you all about it.  Her kitties all missed her and the one really aloof male, Fraidy Cat, who is not a known snuggler, but secretly snuggles with Tabitha when he is certain no one can see, missed her so bad that he came up and snuggled with Margaret.  Not much news beside that.  Hospital food.  Wonderful staff there at Memorial.  She said that all but one of them were very nice to her.

Not much to report otherwise.  I am loving the new (to me, it's a '00, which is the newest I have ever had) Dodge Intrepid.  It handles like a dream and takes off like a shot.  The one thing that is really hateful about it, the only drawback that I can find, so far, I mean, it has a really roomy trunk, comfortable seats, the only drawback is, I can't wear my hat in it!  This has consternated me to no end.  If I put the hat in the back seat, the car is just roomy enough that I can't quite reach it.  Margaret has her paperwork on her lap and doesn't want my hat, I just don't know what to do.  I went into the King Soopers we have gone to for years and the gal exclaimed, "Where's your hat?!?"  Same at 7-11.  It's a shock to everyone if I don't have it.  People think I may have been abducted by aliens (Carter just got "Soap" on DVD.  Boy they'll sell anything nowadays, won't they?) since it is so out of character.

I guess that I shall have to go to carrying it around in the backseat and getting it out.

Oh!  To clarify my position, not meaning to offend anyone, but if I do, oh well, if you're going to have pets, then keep them AS pets, not zoo animals or worse, not keep them at all, but let them run about the neighborhood helter-skelter (Yes, Daveman and Carter, they could get blisters on their fingers, or worse).  Pets, as a vague generality and by the dictionary definition of a pet as being an "animal kept at home: an animal kept for companionship, interest, or amusement," belong in the house.  Or on a leash or otherwise cared for and supervised by their owners.  They don't belong on my property uninvited and you are exposing your pet to unnecessary danger by letting it roam, be it cat, dog, or gerbil.  Keep your pet at home or give it to someone who will care about it.  People have been known to shoot, poison, trap, and otherwise harm unwanted animals on their property and the judge in this article http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyherald/news/local/12253949.htm which I read about first on Ssprite's blog http://ssprite.blogdrive.com/archive/24.html, is wrong in spirit, if not the letter of the law, and should have fined the two cat owners.  I don't know about California, but most places have leash laws and laws governing the general running amok of animals.

I put a new poll up about it, please feel free to comment.

Remember, the Good Book says, "A righteous man cares for the needs of his animal, but the kindest acts of the wicked are cruel."

Saturday was Tabitha's 16th birthday.  To celebrate, we went with family (Ben, Isabel, Savannah, Elizabeth, Abigail, Grandma, Me, Margaret, and, oh yeah, Tabitha) and friends (Ashley and her sister, Racquel) to the Country Dinner Playhouse  up in Denver to see "Oklahoma."  I had never been to this venue, and was skeptical as to what the quality of the performance would be.  A small stage "in the round" just did not seem conducive to support such a major production and I worried that the price would not be a good value.

I was wrong.  I was very surprised at how professionally done it was.  It was a very excellent performance by professional singer/actors.  The performance of Lorie's dream sequence was really great.  Margaret didn't think the performance of "Poor Jud" was all that spectacular, but I liked it.  "Poor Jud is daid, Poor Jud Fry is daid..."

I cannot make a real intelligent comment about the food because I had to keep going out to get things people forgot and then talking to everybody I just didn't dig right in.  The apple pie was definitely not worth the price, however.  The Sundaes looked good, though.

I would absolutely go again and plan to go see their production of "Man of La Mancha" as soon as it's out.  I would consider the price as that of going to a good play, which it was, that has food, too.

Anyway, that was good and it was something fun for Tab since we couldn't work out the rafting thing.  She had too much fun this week anyway.  Ashley had out of town guests (Mandy and Serena [Don't know if she has a blog], that I got to meet) for the Heritage conference and Tabitha stayed with them all week.  If you know Ashley then you know that they stayed up and talked and talked and talked some more.  So, Tabitha is going to work this morning so she can get some rest, haha.

The conference was great, but it would be too much to try to describe here.  Tapes and CDs are available.

On the Tuesday evening before the conference starts they have a get together at the Flying W Ranch.  I love the Flying W and we go out there as often as possible.  They change the show enough to make it worthwhile going again and again but leave enough stuff the same so it is all familiar.  The shops are located in authentic historic buildings.  The schoolhouse was purchased from someone on the plains and each log was numbered as it was dismantled and the rebuilt exactly as it was in the 1800's.

Remember, The Good Book says; enjoy life while you can, because you never know what's gonna happen.

Every Year our church hosts a large youth conference called "Heritage."  One of its purposes is to help the young people learn about and recall the roots of Pentecostalism in the USA and understand the things that we believe and teach.  Actually, many churches believed and taught the same or similar things up until about the 1960's.  If people of dissimilar sects had different ideas, they could take you to the good old King James Version of the Bible and have a spirited discussion.  Every "churchy" person actually read the Book.  At this conference there are both spiritual and practical day-to-day living taught.

Of course they are all so spiritually minded that they won't even notice that there are members of the opposite sex there to meet and talk to.  Lol.  This year, from Wednesday to Saturday, well, Friday night, our church will host 1200+ out of town visitors.

If you have never been to a Pentecostal church, you should treat yourself.  You will probably have to go a minimum of 3 - 5 times.  The first couple of times will be to just watch everything that's going on and try to figure it out.  Meet some of the people and ask them what's going on.

Seems like everybody nowadays likes to use the label, "Pentecostal" but the real Pentecostals, the ones who started out on "the wrong side of the tracks," the "Holy Rollers" are still around.  There are still people who try to practice what the Ancient Apostles taught in the first century.  Called by some, "Primitive Pentecostalism" these folks still preach that in order to come to God you must follow the plan laid out in the scripture by Jesus and the first preachers.

These preachers taught that the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ were the way to be saved and go to an eternal home in Heaven to with him.  They taught that if you did not do this, and your life did not change, you went to an eternal Hell that burns with fire and sulfur and never goes out.  I will outline their doctrines only briefly because this format is not necessarily conducive to a good, intelligent discussion but you have to understand some of these things in order to make sense out of the story I want to tell you, which is probably shorter than this introduction.

They taught that you must repent of your sins, which means that you are not only sorry for them but will also do everything you can humanly do not to do them anymore because you don't want to do them.  You want to be over with the old ways you had.  You nail your sins to the cross he died on, thus fulfilling his death.

We are buried with him in baptism in his name.  The only way anyone in the Bible was ever baptized was by total immersion in water and having the name of Jesus invoked over them.  The triune baptism so common nowadays is taken from a misunderstanding of what is referred to as "The Great Commission."  This was done for the remission of sins.  Sins were forgiven and lives were changed by a true repentance experience, but baptism washes sins away forever, burying them under the blood of Jesus.

One of the teachings they had that is often misunderstood concerns the baptism of the Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit.  I use the King James and it is called the Holy Ghost there.  Either term is accurate.  When you receive the Spirit, the initial evidence is speaking with other tongues "...As the Spirit [gives] utterance."  You would do well to read the book of the Acts of the Apostles for yourself to reinforce this point by the examples there.  This is what happened to me 30 years ago when I was a worthless, suicidally depressed, young punk of 15.  This is what Jesus told his disciples to go into the world and teach and preach to every nation, this "Born Again" experience.

As a Sunday school teacher, it is my mission in life to teach this to children and help them experience it.  If you have ever been in a Pentecostal church on a Sunday night then you know that the term "quiet as a church" is not applicable.  Many times, especially in the past, when being a Pentecostal meant being a "Holy Roller" from "the wrong side of the tracks" the accusation was made that it was all emotional hype and even "gibberish."

Many of my Sunday school kids come from a large variety of cultures and every possible combination you can think of.  My one buddy is a mix of Japanese, Hispanic, Black and White.  One of my little friends is from a home where the mom is white and the dad is Mexican.  The boy and his mother speak both Spanish and English.  I, on the other hand, have never learned any other language.

Sunday night service at First Pentecostal Church (at the corner of Hancock and Monica here in Colorado Springs) you will find people shouting, dancing, running the aisles and, yes, we even have real Holy Rollers who roll on the floor.  Much prayer and worship is often going up and this service was no exception.  Folks was gettin' with it.  I asked one of my many favorite students, Manny, if he wanted to pray.  He did.  We had preachers coming and praying and his mom there praying with him and me praying with him and everyone encouraging him as he sought God in his life.  When you are 7 you don't have very many sins to repent of (well, to you, you do, of course) and can quickly get on with seeking the baptism of the Spirit, which is God's free gift to all believers.  When Pentecostals pray it is "with the spirit and with the understanding also" and is boisterous and exuberant.  It wasn't too long before my little buddy was speaking with other tongues as the Spirit gave him utterance.

A couple weeks after he was baptized in Jesus' name, I was talking to him and his mom.  They were all smiles and then they asked me if I knew what I was saying when I spoke in tongues, particularly the night I was praying with Manny.  Well, no, usually the "unknown" part of the phrase, "unknown tongue" means you don't know.

"We did," they said as the hair on the back of my neck started to stand up and goose bumps ran all over me, "You were speaking fluent Spanish.  You said, 'God, give this child the Holy Ghost right now' and many other things including prophecies about what Manny was going to do."

I swallowed.  All I could think of to say was, "Wow!  That's a miracle.  Manny, I guess the Holy Ghost wanted to tell you something."  It is one thing to read the second chapter of Acts.  It is a totally different thing to experience it.

The Good Book says, "...They of the circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost.  For they heard them speak with tongues, and magnify God.  Then answered Peter, Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?  And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord..."

NEVER give a pet to a child without getting permission from the kid's parents first.  Both of 'em, if applicable.

Reading Abby Normal's blog entry of 7/14/05, Pet Peeves, I left a comment about the style of cage I like for small animals, which elicited the question about how we came to have a bunny.  Pictures of him are here in the gallery.  He is 5 years old and weighs about 10 - 12 pounds.

My daughter Abby, (not to be confused, of course, with AbbyNormal) had always dreamed of having a big white bunny with floppy ears.  He would be so cute and cuddly and she would always love him and take care of him and the big mean dad guy (that's me) would always say, "No."  The cute little blonde thing (she was 9 at the time) would be disappointed, but she managed, as children are wont to do, to get over it.  Oh, every once in a while we would hear about it, but it kind of came to be an accepted fact of life that a bunny wasn't in anyone's near future.

"Besides," said the big mean dad guy, "we don't have a place for a bunny.  Let daddy read you a book about bunnies." And she was still at the age where I could sometimes distract her by reading "Guess How Much I Love You" to her.

*I think this is where the piano player plays a minor chord to indicate the villain has just entered the scene.*

We had a friend who thought that Abigail was the cutest, most darling, lovable little critter that ever lived.  One day, the likely story goes, this "friend" just happened to be walking through the trailer park where she lived and just happened to see a group of feral cats attacking something.  Well, it just happened that the feral cats were attacking a domestic rabbit and its babies that someone must have released because they could not care for it anymore.  *I realize there should be a WHOLE lot more quotation marks or "Quote-Unquote" but I am trying to save time.*  Well, being the brave heroine that she was, she jumped into the fray and chased the cats away, but, lo and behold, left all alone, shivering and frightened, just happened to be a lone white baby bunny.

What cold, heartless monster could leave a little baby bunny unprotected that way?  What if the cats come back?  There is only one thing to do.  Rescue it.  So, as the story goes, she picked it up and took it in, but what to do with it?  If I take it to the pound, they will euthanize it if it isn't adopted and it's so sweet and cute and cuddly and loveable.  Maybe I should show it to my friends, first, so they can see what heroic deeds I have done this day, then, *sniff" take it to the...the...pound.  *sniff*

Big mean dad guy wasn't around.

I get home and here is little Abby, the happiest little girl you've ever seen, "Oh daddy!  You have to see what Auntie So and So brought me!"  Following the excited little girl downstairs I find a cat carrier with one of the water bottles that you use on rodent cages attached and a food dish.  We had three dogs at the time, so who in their right mind would give us a cat?

The cage was opened and it was not a cat.  It was a palm-sized white bunny.  Whiskers twitching, alert, beady red eyes looking intently all around and fixing on me, snuggled close to the heart of a pretty little blonde girl with big, wet, blue eyes.

"What is THAT?"  Asked the big mean dad guy, knowing full well what it was.

"It's a bunny, daddy, and see, he's all white and has red eyes and Auntie So and So brought him over for me to look at and she'll let me keep him."

"SHE'LL let you keep him?"

"Well, mom said I had to ask you, but daddy," At which point the little critter is placed in MY palm, "If we don't keep him, Auntie So and So will have to take him to the pound and put him to sleep and that means they'll kill him and look at how cute he is," at this point he climbs into my pocket, "and see how much he likes you already.  You're not going to let them kill him, are you?"  Tears drip.

"Darlin', what are we gonna do with a bunny?  People eat bunnies, they don't keep them as pets.  Do you know anything about bunnies?"

"People do keep them as pets and you can't eat this one, he's too small anyway, besides," the creature pokes his head out of my pocket like a baby Bugs or something, "He likes you daddy."

"He probably pooped in my pocket.  Here, take him."

Tears.  It ain't fair, I'm tellin' ya.

"Please."

"Where will you put him?"

"He can stay in the cat carrier for a while.  I already have a name for him it's Roo Boom-Boom Thiel."

Boom-Boom is her big pink, stuffed, bunny and Roo, she explains, is the cute little baby kangaroo from Winnie The Pooh.

It did not take long to realize that a cat carrier was no place for a growing bunny.  I am not a fan of so-called "outdoor pets."  I think it is wrong to leave your dog or cat outside all night.  According to Encarta World English dictionary a pet is:

1.animal kept at home: an animal kept for companionship, interest, or amusement

2.favorite person: somebody who is indulged, especially a favorite

3.loved person: somebody who is particularly loved by another, often used as a term of endearment in direct address

And if you leave your pets roaming the neighborhood or neglect them, even by not giving them attention, then you are not ready to have a pet.

I said all that to say I didn't want an outdoor hutch for the rabbit.  Only a couple of weeks had gone by and already we had discovered how intelligent and loyal they are.  You can even litter box train them!  Having three dogs at the time we couldn't really take advantage of that, but after we had cats we learned that it comes natural to rabbits.  When Roo is out hopping he will stop at the cat box, if it's clean, and use it.

So, off Abby and I go to the pet store to see what sort of accommodations are available.  Fortunately for us the young gal that waited on us was the proud and happy owner of a rabbit.  She advised us that we would want a galvanized steel ferret cage that was at least two stories high(two ferret cage stories, the rabbit isn't quite that big, yet.) so he would have room to exercise by running up and down the ramp.  She also told us to put old cardboard boxes, like old Coke 12-packs, in so he would have a place to rest his feet if the mesh of the cage started bothering them.  He was young enough that this was not a problem, but he likes the boxes because they give him a way to make a den for himself.

Abby had $200 from babysitting and between buying the cage and all the other accoutrements I sprung another $200.  We are keeping the bunny.

The one big mistake I made in the whole deal was that I didn't think about the process that would be involved in cleaning the cage.  This is why I suggest getting a cage with a slide-out drawer.  That way all you have to do is have the child slide the drawer out each day, empty it, hose it down and slide it back in, deep-cleaning the cage itself once in a while whenever it really needs it.

The cage we have weighs about fifty pounds and the cage part rests in the pan part.  In other words, every Saturday while Roo is out with Abby on his harness and leash or hopping around the house while the dog is outside, I wind up carrying the cage outside, picking it up and pounding its contents into the trash can, and setting it down in the driveway.

The pan is then emptied and both parts are hosed down.  After drying in the sun, the pan is lined with plastic trash bags and newspapers and the whole thing reassembled.  The steel tray and the corner of the cage that is Roo's bathroom are beginning to rust, which means that it's only a matter of time until we replace it.  We have been looking at ferret cages that are three to four stories high, but this time, we are getting a slide-out tray so Abby can take part in the fun.

I do have to say that she has taken good care of the bunny as much as she can.  She does feed him and pay attention to him and has read all about rabbits.  One thing that we were told was that since he is a male he would become aggressive and also spray, but since he is not kept outdoors, is handled frequently and never been exposed to other rabbits we have not had this trouble.

He is a very intelligent, likable as well as loveable pet.

All that happened 5 years ago and still, every time I clean the bunny cage or see rabbit poop, I think of our friend, Auntie So and So.

Remember, the Good Book says, Magilla Gorilla asked the chinchilla for a sip of his sarsparilla.