A Blogger's Block . . . or, Where's that #@^!~&% Photo?

I'm trying! Really! I am!

The other day when I read a friend's post Farewell to the Ferret! and then read another friend's post Tale of a Ferret about his pets, I was inspired to write about our first pet, Carmello, an Abyssinian guinea pig who looked like he was having a perpetual bad hair day. And, I had just the photo that I wanted to include. I went thru all of those boxes and containers of family photos sitting here in my office. I wanted to find that one picture of Carmello in that multi-colored sweater that Gina's friend had knitted for him. Or the picture of his first birthday party with that party hat on. (I hope the ASPCA doesn't read this blog!) But, alas, I couldn't find either...so my idea was going to go unpublished. But, now due to another friend starting a blog (dare I post the link here?), I was inspired to begin anew.

Gina had always wanted a pet...more specifically, a puppy. Every Christmas she hoped Santa would leave a puppy under the tree for her. Every Easter she would hope to find a puppy in her Easter basket (in addition to the toast, cake and jelly beans...another story...but I digress.) I remember going to a pet store on one of her birthdays, in the middle of snow flurries, browsing the guinea pig and mice and other rodent section and leaving empty handed. *Sigh*

In a moment of weakness one night we broke down and purchased a guinea pig.....Carmella. She was soooo cute! Didn't do much, but that was ok. The cage, food, litter, water bottle, vitamins, igloo home, yadda, yadda, yadda. She didn't do much besides eat and sleep, and eat. Like her master (or is that mistress?) at the time, she would not eat any fresh veggies. And, as happens, her nails grew. Off to the pet store with Carmella.....none of us were brave enough to attempt to cut those nails. And a funny thing happened! We went into the store with Carmella and came out with Carmello. How could we have missed it? Maybe all that hair?

Carmello continued to not do much. Even when he was taken out of his cage, he was content to just sit on your lap. When he wanted one of those yogurt treats, he would chew on the cage.... his signal to us to feed him a goodie! One night we were sitting in the family room watching The Fifth Element. It was that scene on that luxury liner floating in space, when Diva Maiwenn Le Besco was singing....it was melodic and the pitch kept rising. All of a sudden, Carmello was letting out the loudest squeals we ever heard come out of him! At first we thought maybe that diva's voice was too much for his sensitive little ears! But when we went to his cage we saw why he was making such a fuss....in his attempt to get our attention and get a treat, while he was chewing on the cage...his nose got stuck between the wires! Of course we freed the poor thing...but we did have a good laugh!

Carmello eventually got sick...I think he was about 5 years old (?). I remember going to his cage one January morning and he was in his purple igloo...where he had retreated to for the past few days. He was gone. Man, I cried like a baby!!!

But...time marches on. We grow older and soften up.

Watch this space for a future blog post...


to be continued . . .