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My Profile
Because I can't bear to eulogize Doug - 2008-08-19
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11:35 a.m. - 2003-06-23
Potter. It's sunny for the first time since 1978 and here I am with my eyeballs hanging out on stalks because I stayed up until I-don't-know-when trying like hell to finish the new Harry Potter. Almost made it. I finished the last 100 pages this morning. I will offer no spoilers and will refrain from any sort of review. I will only say this: Umbridge = Ashcroft. I didn't pre-order my copy. Saturday was spent in a misery of regret and avoidance. I didn't want to hear ANYTHING about the new book. Yesterday we had to go up to Mudgeville and get a water bottle for the skunk. (I'll explain in a bit.) Pets-R-Us is across the street from Sam's and hoping against hope we went to Sam's to score some Potter. Direct hit! Not only wasn't Sam's sold out, they were selling #5 for $15.87. We bought 2 copies. After doing a triumphant Happy Dance in the parking lot, I clambered into the truck and marveled at the ease of my acquisition. I thought on it some. It made sense that the Waldenbooks was sold out, people go to bookstores specifically to buy books, whereas the average Sam's Club shopper was there to buy toilet paper or motor oil. Sure enough we weren't the ONLY people clutching blue tomes, but proportionally the number of customers who went to Waldenbooks in search of Potter versus the customers who went to Sam's for their copy was staggeringly lopsided. Lucky, lucky us. Now about the skunk. Saturday Mike and I were out at the new house doing new house things. The rain was a pain and we decided to pack it up early. Not very far down the road Mike saw a white wisp moving through the grass on the road edge. A noted critter rescuer, he pulled over and walked back to investigate. Thinking it was yet another turtle (Mike rescues them all the time) I went with him and was astonished to see the “turtle” was really an itty-bitty baby skunk. Skunk babies stay with their mothers until they are almost fully grown. This little guy was obviously orphaned, no skunk kit would be out on its own at such a tender age otherwise. I grabbed the ratty towel that lives in the Bronco and Mike used it to scoop up the baby, neatly trapping its tail beneath its bottom. Even brand new skunk kits can squirt. We might be nutty enough to rescue a skunk, but we’re not dumb. The poor thing was sizzling with fleas and mites. Gave me the twitches, my scalp was all crawly with imaginary fleas. But a baby in need is a baby in need. I held the kit all the way home and was utterly charmed when it snuggled against my hand and went to sleep. It needed a name. Flower was the obvious choice. I mean who could name such an innocent baby after Pepe Le Pew, the notorious date rapist? But even Flower felt wrong. I laughed and said it wasn’t big enough to be a whole flower, it was just a little flower bud. And so Bud it is. Bud has been living in the bird cage since Saturday. We feed it baby formula and soft cat food. It’s doing okay, but it’s still very weak. The vet said she’d take a look at it tomorrow if it was still alive. Some orphans do okay with clumsy human foster parents and some do not. We accept that. Bud would surely have died anyhow if we hadn’t intervened and at least this way it has a chance. We gave Bud a flea bath and you have no idea how tricky it is to bathe a skunk. Okay, how tricky it is to bathe a skunk and not come out smelling worse than before the bath. Bud’s future hinges on what the vet says. If Bud is healthy and can get its shots and if it’s possible to get it neutered and de-scented when it’s older, we’ll likely keep it. We’d planned on a dog, but will be just fine with a skunk instead. We’re goofy that way. If we can’t turn it into a live-with-able pet, we’ll feed it up some and let it go when we think it’s big enough to survive on it’s own. We’ve done this lots of times before. It’s a tradition in Mike’s family. When Mike was Wolf’s age the family lived on Okinawa. Part of the beach was torn up to make a boat ramp and many, many sea turtle eggs were unearthed. The US Army Corps of Engineers didn’t have to make environmental impact statements in those days and couldn’t have cared less about some turtles. The family took the eggs home, reburied them, and when the eggs hatched they put the hatchlings in the bathtub. They held onto the babies for a couple weeks, changing the sea water in the tub twice a day, and then let them go. When you come from a family who doesn’t think it odd they must bathe in the kitchen sink because the bathtub’s full of sea turtles, a baby skunk in a bird cage isn’t weird at all. So welcome Bud. It’s for certain you won’t be the ONLY stinker in LA’s menagerie, certain members of the man-zoo have done a fine job of stinking up the joint already. (But are working hard at redemption.) And that was my weekend. How was yours? ~LA LA's Pick of the Day: "That Smell" by Lynard Skynyrd
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