Phillip, the House Bunny

A few months ago, my husband and I finally ended our quest for the perfect pet when we found an ad on Craigslist for a purebred baby lop bunny. Immediately, I begged my husband for his permission, and seeing the sparkling desperation and excitement in my eyes, he smiled and told me that he thought a bunny would be perfect for us. The picture shown on the ad won my heart; our future bunny, was cradled in a hand, being small enough to fit perfectly within the palm, its floppy ears dangling around his precious face like some silly cartoon character. We left the house to go and see the bunny for ourselves.

After our first few months of being newlyweds and living together, I developed this irrevocable yearning for a pet; since I was a little kid, I have always been surrounded by animals and it was somewhat difficult for me to live without one once I got married. My husband was determined to find us (me) a pet; he researched chinchillas, kittens, puppies, even monkeys! But each of those ideas never seemed to stick. Chinchillas are extremely cute and all, but when we went to look at them, we didn't feel as if they were right for us. As for cats: I grew up with cats, practically being my brothers and sisters, and I felt that my husband and I are too busy to give one all they need and want. Dogs---also, too much hassle. Monkeys? Too expensive and way more work than any of the others! For a while, we gave up on a pet and tried to forget about getting one, because it seemed like we had no options for our lifestyle.

We had just moved into a new house that had a spacious, green-grassed back yard that would be perfect for a pet! This is why we thought the bunny would be so perfect for us: he could run around freely and have his hutch beneath the shelter of our veranda. We of course did not already have the hutch for the bunny when we went to get him, so we figured that we could keep him in an enclosed space in our house for a few days until we had his hutch ready.

We arrived to get our bunny, and the picture of him did his preciousness no justice. He had big, googly eyes, and soft luxurious fur; a white-and-brown broken-coat with a half-mustache on his lips. In his cage, he kept standing on his hind legs for us to pick him up. He was so tiny in our hands; so tame and calm. My husband held him like a newborn baby and was already in love with his cuteness. We had no box or anything to keep him in, so I held his soft little body in my hands the whole car ride home. He snuggled up against my stomach and fell asleep.

While we drove home, my husband and I took turns trying to come up with a name for him. Finally, we came up with Phillip; such a princely, handsome, foresty name.

It was so exciting making him a place to stay. We laid down some newspaper and towels, set down a woven basket for him to sleep in and filled it with bedding, donated him some old cusions for comfort, fastened his water bottle to the wall, and gave him a food dish---all within the barricaded walls of upturned boards and frames, secure and sturdy enough to hold up even if he tried jumping out.

It was so fun letting him run around our house: on our hardwood floor, he would slip around on his furry feet and his long ears would bounce with his every hop. Although he was a baby and we expected him to have accidents on our floor, he was very good at holding his 'waste' and waiting until we put him back in his area. And if he did ever let a pebble of excrement-or-two slip, it would always be in a particular corner of our house. One thing I am especially thankful for, is how wonderfully simple bunny-poop is. It resembles a cocoa-puff; round, solid, and extremely easy to clean up (and basically odorless). You only need to sweep! It is glorious in comparison to other animals (like cats), who destruct the world when they have accidents. However, bunny urine is another story (but thankfully, Phillip has never had any accidents with that).

Days became weeks, and he was still in his enclosed area of our house (though we kept improving it over time as he grew in size and maturity). Within his space, he designated a corner for his bathroom-needs...which meant that without any training, I basically had a potty-trained bunny! I began researching it, and discovered that, like cats, bunnies can also be trained to use litter boxes!

The litter-box for a bunny was surprisingly easy to find, and despite the fact that the litter itself for a bunny must be special and non-toxic, it was easy to find as well! The litter I use for Phillip is Carefresh FreshSorb Natural. This litter is okay for a bunny to ingest, which, if you know bunnies at all, you will know that bunnies will nibble anything set before them. NEVER USE CAT LITTER!!! It is poisonous!

Potty training Phillip in this litter box took about a week and was super-easy and pretty fun, too. After a while of placing him in his box and petting him, he would begin to hop in there on his own (at first, he only did this for rewards, but eventually began to do it even when I wasn't around to reward him). He now knows when he does something I like, because he'll hear "GOOD BOY!!!" and receive some massaging of the ears or a treat from the fridge. He also knows the word "NO!!!", but sometimes pretends he doesn't.

My husband and I eventually found that Phillip does not need to have a hutch outside, and that it is much more fun keeping him indoors where we can see him all the time and play with him. Just like any indoor pet, Phillip obeys the rules of the house (usually) and has become extremely comfortable with our lifestyle and, also, surpsisingly social and loving. We, of course, have improved his living arrangement and have upgraded him to his own room! (Such a spoiled baby, but since we have the room to give, and since he is such a good boy, he deserves it).

He has his own favorite furniture he has learned to jump on and relax. Now, my husband and I are able to trust him and leave him with the house to himself, but only for a little while. He uses the litter box responsibly and protects the house when we are gone (when we come home, he is always near the front door, awating our return).

My husband and I give him his outside-time, but for some reason, he is not too fond of it. He only grazes lazily, as if he is bored. He gets plenty of exercise indoors; almost daily, he sprints as fast as he can and does fanciful leaps and airborne tricks. Recently, he has learned some games: chasing us, hopping in circles around us when he is hungry/needy, hide and seek, following us EVERYWHERE, and taking turns running and performing tricks with us (this includes us running and jumping in our house...very amusing and a great workout, haha). I have heard numerous people tell me that they have trained their bunny to play fetch, and I am excited to teach him that someday.

Phillip is our ideal pet. He does not demand too much work, but he is a part of our family. He now comes running when we call his name, jumps up on our bed as if he is allowed (pssh!), and gets jealous when my husband and I are cooking in the kitchen, on the couch watching movies, or doing anything that he can't do with us…we even had our family portraits taken with him. I think more people should consider having a house bunny for a pet, because it is low-maintenance, low-cost, and so much fun! Not to mention, bunnies are probably the cutest animals that you can have as pets! However, the one thing that bunnies are notorious for, is chewing. Supplying your bunny with ample chew toys, and even carrots, with help alleviate their teething sensation.

Like every animal, and even children, training a house bunny requires a lot of patience, sacrifice, and love. If you can offer both of those to your bunny, they will surely turn out as sweet and talented as Phillip.

Dryad

Through the twilit mist of the woods
the dryad creeps alone, as always
                   so gentle, so soundless¾
not even a twig
          would crackle.

Her sister trees whisper down to her
about that human boy
that 
            different                human boy
who had passed through, yet again;
who she had watched
and hid from,
           yet again.

The trees whispered
an urge¾
           a dare
to reveal herself to the human
when she might see him next,
           for maybe,
he might love her, too.

　

　

　

My Tanning Secrets!

If you are anything like me, you probably have blinding white skin that makes leaving the house wearing shorts an uncomfortable, strategically deliberated experience. I do not tan, though; to me, the idea of exposing myself to the extreme dangers that the sun radiates is well worth looking like the Pillsbury Dough Boy. Self-tanning is my only alternative.
Self tanners have a bit of a bad reputation; many people are under the impression that ALL self tanners leave you orange and streaky, but that is not the case. I have found one that has been very forgiving; one that gives you instant gratification and gives you a smooth, natural-looking tan.

Lorac’s Self Tantalizer has been a great asset for me this summer; I have avoided the sun but also looked like I have been soaking it up every day! My one greatest suggestion for the use of this product is to first exfoliate the skin before applying, or else the tan will not be as even, nor will it look as good.
I have also come across this little tanning secret, but I am not sure as to which of these two products I love more. This one is not a self tanner, rather it is an instant ‘glow’ that makes one look like a heavenly being.

Lorac’s Tantalizer is perfect to keep in your purse and use on-the-go! Whenever I’m out and I realize I look a bit pasty, I squeeze out some of this goodness and apply it to my legs, knees, stomach, chest, arms, etc. This product uses its divine shimmer to make you look more bronzed and flawless. If you have scarring, bruises, or even acne on your body, putting this over it makes it less noticeable.
The Tantalizer is so concentrated, however, that I have found mixing it with another lotion to be even more gratifying. You get more area covered with less product, and you look more hydrated, too!

The Hassle of Convenience

Deep down, I am secretly wishing for some technological apocalypse to eradicate every satellite and electronic device in the world, until us humans are left vulnerable to nature as we had been throughout the course of our species’ existence. We would no longer depend on false equipment to live by, and instead, we would get off of the cushioned seats that our butts have formed to and hunt like the animals we are for our next meal¾ rather than conveniently sitting in a contraption that effortlessly moves us around from one foundation to the next, and up to the window of a drive-thru of a McDonald’s that is reliably stationed at the corner of every crossroad, to get sloppy, unnatural burgers and heart attack fries.

Is this our fate as human beings? Living through a plastic wall and not being able to communicate, eat, breathe, or even move without some fancy gizmo or gadget used in the process to make doing these things easier for us? The image of convenience that we so desperately try to embed in our society is not as good of an idea as it seems because it is bringing us human beings to a new frontier of recklessness.

Once upon a time, the most convenient thing to a man was his horse, oxen, and a wagon. Everything else was battle and a struggle, and every battle won was something to appreciate. Back before there was an easy-button to press for your latest, most current want to appear before your eyes immediately or within 7-10 business days, there was no need to overindulge beyond your needs; to do so would be foolish. Nowadays, that easy-button does exist everywhere you go, and we do overindulge in almost every aspect of our daily lives far beyond our needs, to the point of forgetting that we have needs in the first place, and this causes us to take so many great things for granted.

Until my desired apocalypse comes, I will be shaking my head at the cars, the frozen food section in the grocery store, and the famed internet¾ even though that makes me a hypocrite because I am equally dependent on them as the next person is (here I am on the internet, right now!). I, too, rely on my cell phone, the internet, driving a car, and even those superstores that sell anything a person could ever need¾ but I can acknowledge that relying on these things are harmful and distract from what is really important.

When I use my cell phone or social networking over the internet to interact with friends and loved ones, I am conditioning myself and encouraging the conditioning of others to abandon personal and intimate relationships and find less personal communication to be the best kind of communication. It is all around us! The kids today don’t even talk to their friends face-to-face anymore, unless you consider Skype or a webcam to be just that. Relationships between people are less intimate, too, because they are exercised more through keyboards and touch screens rather than the tones and pitches of their voices.

There is a lot to sacrifice for the convenience that our society celebrates. The electronics and other contraptions used to make life easier for us also cost more money too. It is so much more expensive to buy a car, pay insurance, pay registration, pay for gas, and pay for maintenance, rather than just investing in a bike and riding it a to-and-fro, not to mention that riding a bike is so much healthier as well. We also sacrifice healthier food when we go to fast food chains, restaurants, and even most grocery stores these days because it is easier for these places to provide food with preservatives and lost nutrition through processing. And since food is so vastly available to us, most of us have no idea how we would even begin to fend for ourselves and get our own food if it ever came down to it, so a lost sense of self-defense is another tragic sacrifice to convenience.

Convenience does have its perks, of course. Convenience saves us time and solves most of our problems in a flash or with a click of a mouse. It also allows us to do multiple things at once and it ensures that we will never run out of choices or options. Things like the internet and computers provide us with an abundance of knowledge and information that makes us more intelligent human beings. It also provides much more opportunity for jobs, with so many more positions in all of the different fields that exist, however, it also does the opposite, too¾ the intelligence of technology provides computer programmed robots to fulfill the jobs that humans once did.

Altogether, the demand for convenience is an inevitable disaster that has always impended in man’s fate. We have always been destined to leave the horses and wagons behind and grow so powerful and dependent on our power, that we are even able to have virtual accounts of ourselves on video game consoles to act out the activities we are “doing”. I feel that this is going to take our future into a chaotic catastrophe, that someday we will face a world without the things that we take for granted and not know how to survive. But for now, we must at least make the choice every day to recognize how easy our lives are and what we can do to be more independent and rely less on the things that could be gone within the blink of an eye.

My Spider Story

I found a spider in the tub today. He wasn’t very big, nor was he very small, either; he was the perfect size to let me contemplate whether he should live or not. I stared at him and he stared right back, refusing to move and challenging my authority.

I thought of grabbing a wad of toilet paper and surprising him with a pinch-and-squish attack, or even grabbing the Windex and letting him slowly suffer an intoxicated death…but neither idea seemed to satisfy me; instead, I reached for the faucet of the bath and released some of its water. I splashed the water onto him, and instantly he curled into a dark ball of death and floated with the current toward the drain. I turned off the faucet and ceased the flow of water in time for the spider corpse not to be sucked down the drain, and to instead, dry out on the porcelain floor of the tub. Finally satisfied, I left the bathroom.

I returned less than an hour later, startled but not awe-struck to find that the spider’s body had vanished from its resting place. Only a few spider-strides away from the scene did I find this escape artist once more, staring at me again, refusing to move and challenging my authority.

He was laughing at me; mocking me, and so I splashed him and watched his little curled-up body swirl helplessly around in my power once more in the exact same routine, and left the bathroom again.

I returned to the bathroom after completely forgetting about the spider, to find that he had survived yet again and had perched himself in the same spot as before. However this time, I did not feel that he was challenging my authority though he was staring at me and refusing to move. This time, we had somehow come to a mutual agreement of respect. This spider had proven to me his will to live, and consequently, I decided to spare the spider, after all.

I grabbed the transparent, orange cap to my mousse bottle and tried to trap his soggy body within it. His feet slipped and he slid to the bottom of the tub twice, but I finally had him. I delivered him to the front door where I shook him out of the bottle onto the patio, only to find that the wind outside was significantly strong, and within an instant, a leaf came skidding toward and over him, his body disappearing with it. I stood there with an open mouth and blinking eyes. I immediately regretted releasing his soggy body into such treacherous conditions, but I knew that whatever had happened to him and wherever he went, he would survive.

An Icy Reminiscence

He took me by the hand and led me to step over prickly bushes and meander around dead, leafless trees. It was winter but the cold was easy to bear, for the air was still and the sun glowed just beyond the thick blanket of white clouds, occasionally peeking through and bringing the colors of the earth to life once more at its touch

As we made it through the trees and bushes, we were able to see a glistening white lake just below a rocky slope. The lake stretched to the hills in the distance, and the whole area seemed to be completely frozen. Far out in the middle of the great breadth of the lake was a large party of geese, no less than one hundred, looking only like black specks to my eyes. They all huddled together as they prayed for the ice to thaw, and if they were perhaps in the one place of the lake where the ice had been thawed, they must have been praying for it to thaw more.

He and I dared to descend the black, sharp rocks that led us to the white ice just below. It was absolutely awe-inspiring. Each individual crystal of ice sparkled beneath the diffused sunlight, glowing silver beneath the silver clouds above. It stretched for an eternity, it seemed. I was so small in comparison to such an expanse.

There were several rocks islanded in the ice that we hopped onto carefully, for they, too, were sharp. We pressed our shoes slightly upon the ice around us, and found that it was very hard, but of course, we dared not walk on it. He had found one large rock, heavier than two bowling balls and three times the size of his own head, and bashed it into the ice; it had only left a deep gash into the thick ice, revealing inches of solid matter and no sign of the water beneath it. This struck a game between us and we both picked up tinier rocks around us and threw them in the distance of the forever ice with all our might, but they did not break the ice at all; they only slid out like figure skaters with finessed tumbles and turns, and our game of trying to see if the ice would break turned into how far we could get our rocks to slide.

I wanted so badly to glide as our rocks had across the beautiful floor that sparkled like a billion diamonds before me; the invitation was tantalizing and I regretted not answering to its call. I felt clear of all thoughts and feelings when I imagined myself able to travel across the ice and experience the sight of the glowing crystals in every direction around me.

Time did not exist where I stood, facing the lake. The soft, occasional sounds of the world echoed around us, and when we listened closely enough, we could hear the deep roar of the cracking ice in the distance. I felt so free and peaceful when I stood before such immensity; nature is my deepest meditation and it centers my soul to its natural coordinates. Small adventures like these remind me of what I love about life, and all of the beauty that I forget about when I am trapped in the smothering city of plastic and pollution. When I feel small in comparison to greater things of the world, I feel greater than all of the trivialities of my daily life that deceive me into obeying them. I am reminded of the truth.

Left Behind

Standing before the empty sea,


                he waits

to feel the phantom of her

touch,

to hear her

whisper wisp with the

cold, and

hollow

breeze¾                       he waits,

as he does every morning;

timeworn eyes lost in the

horizon of dawn, that is

blushing like his

bashful, young bride,

and crowning the slow sea¾


                                                           he waits,


and finally, the distinct

scent of her sprit

shudders through him, with the next

crash of foaming wave to shore.

                     a sudden flash of every memory,

                     and a ghostly caress

chills his wrinkled, soft flesh

and grants another day worth living

to the widowed man.