The Law of Attraction, or, How King McFluffins Came to Stay

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I hesitate to admit this openly, but I have a psychic power.  If I visualize certain things coming to me, they almost always appear in my life.  Frustratingly, those things are almost always animals.  

Here is a case in point:  My younger son, Jack, has always wanted a pet bunny but until recently I resisted.  Then I realized that since we already take care of five dogs, ten (barn) cats, three cows, and a flock of chickens, taking care of one more critter couldn't add that much work.  So I started checking the Craigslist pet section for a free bunny, as I have noticed that people sometimes give away pet bunnies complete with the cage and the whole setup.

However, I did not undertake the search for a bunny very earnestly, as we have had a busy summer.  In fact, I wasn't searching at all when my husband came home from work two weeks ago and said the strangest thing had happened.  One of his co-workers had emailed him out of the blue and offered him a pet bunny, complete with a hutch.

When my husband found out I had actually been thinking about getting a bunny, he said "Will you please stop using your power on bunnies and concentrate on the lottery?!?!?"  However, he quickly became resigned to the situation, and we trundled off one evening in my truck to pick up the bunny and the hutch.  Or so we thought.

We arrived at his co-worker's house, which was in a very upscale neighborhood, and quickly saw why they wanted out of the bunny business.  The bunny himself was a gentle black rabbit with extremely large back feet and powerful hind legs (more on that later), while the hutch was a hulking piece of makeshift carpentry that even two men together could not lift.  It looked completely out of place in their landscaped back yard; further, his teenage children had lost interest in their pet. 

There was no point in us trying to move the hutch, even if we had really wanted it, which we did not:  This is the kind of thing you'd be better off burning where it stands.   Anyway, we stuffed the bunny, which my younger son quickly renamed "King McFluffins," into a dog kennel and drove home.   

King McFluffins is a good companion for Jack, who likes to hold the bunny on his lap.  I also bought a little dog harness and leash that we can put on King McFluffins, so sometimes Jack takes him for a hop around the yard.

My vet told me that rabbits can easily get heat stressed in our climate, so yesterday we got an indoor cage and set it up in the mud room.  You would think that it would be easy to transition a cute, harmless bunny to life indoors...however, this is life on the farm after all, where entropy often rears its ugly head.

My husband went out to the barn with Jack to get King McFluffins from the stall where we had been keeping him.  The weather has been terrible here lately, rain almost every day for two weeks.  It seems everything is damp and muddy, including King McFluffins' paws.  I had my doubts when my husband suggested putting him in the kitchen sink for a quick wash of his paws and belly, but I didn't have a better solution.

Here is my advice if you are considering putting a full grown rabbit in your kitchen sink and spraying him with the little hose nozzle spray thingy: Don't try it.  It can only result in great unhappiness.  King McFluffins went from passive fluffball to raging terror in a split second.  He kicked so wildly that my husband had to let him go for a moment, and the next thing we knew there was muddy water everywhere and King McFluffins had broken a wine glass that happened to be sitting on the counter several feet away (and no, in case you are wondering, I was not bathing bunnies under the influence, although in retrospect that might not have been a been idea...).

Eventually we got everything settled down and King McFluffins is now enjoying his indoor cage, with jaunts outside to nibble at clover.  Meanwhile, I am trying a new tactic to hone my power: I am visualizing King McFluffins at the Powerball prize ceremony, King McFluffins on a cruise, King McFluffins paying off the farm... hey, it's worth a try.

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Adventures in Road Food

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On Saturday we went for a day trip, I had a film showing and talk to give at the Charlotte Hawkins Brown Museum.  Anyway, we decided to take the boys and make a day of it.  Focusing on being prepared for my talk, I completely overlooked the opportunity for adventures in road food-- fortunately Joe, my husband, did not.

Halfway there, we pulled into a gas station.  After pumping gas, my husband and my older son disappeared into the quickmart and emerged with several novel food choices.  Who knew that you could buy super hot BBQ corn nuts?  However, it was the new potato chip flavor that amazed me the most: I kid you not, it was "chicken and waffles."

Now, when in life do you see chicken combined with waffles? Even more bizarre, as a flavor for potato chips?  I theorized that the major shareholder of the company had died suddenly, and that control of the company had passed to his 20-year-old stoner son.  However, that is just a theory and I cannot prove it...I took my phone out and dialed the 800 number on the back of the bag.  However, in an obvious effort to frustrate consumers who wanted answers on the chicken and waffle combination, that number is only operational during office hours on weekdays during central standard time.  I ask you, is that an obvious dodge, or what?

As for the super hot corn nuts, they also factored into the events of the day.  There was a folk group playing before my time slot, and I was sitting there listening to the music.  Joe had taken the boys outside to see the exhibits, or so I thought... 

The folk group had come down off the stage to get closer to the audience while performing a moving a capella song about a dying grandmother.  Then-- BOOF!-- the door burst open and my older son came into the hall, ran between the group and the audience, and out the other side of the hall to the water fountain.  Apparently, my guys had been out there giving each other dares about how many of the super hot corn nuts they could eat...

What with all the possible road food adventures, sometimes it's hard even to find time for the cultural things!

Middle Aged Fantasies

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When one is young, the sky is the limit on fantasies.  Maybe you dreamed of being a rock star, a fighter pilot, or a bestselling author (I don't have enough musical talent for rock stardom, and my vision isn't good enough to fly, but I'm still working on the writing....)

Anyway, the point is, when we're young our fantasies are grand, sweeping affairs.  We're the best, the most attractive, the most compelling.  We can hardly get through dinner at a restaurant for all the autograph seekers.  Finances are never an issue, for in our minds we will go through life throwing money over our shoulders to take care of "that," whatever that may be, whether it's a new wardrobe or a villa in Italy.

Then reality sets in.  Your entry level job was not designed to lead anywhere.  Romances come and go, and your vision of who your significant other needs to be starts to shift.  You might go from needing "tall, dark and handsome" to "NOT a psycho who watches television all weekend."  Your body gradually starts to betray you, especially after having children; one day you look down and ask "Is that really cellulite????"

Fortunately, you're too busy to dwell on all this for long.  Yet every once in a while you might pause in between doing laundry and making your kid fill out his reading log, and fantasize.  Only this time the fantasies look a little different, more grounded.  They might look something like this:

• Your older kid, the absent-minded one, actually brings his lunch bag and his jacket home on the same day.
• When you open your social security statement it doesn't say "according to our estimates, you're screwed."
• The dirty clothes all magically land in the hamper instead of composting in random locations through the house.
• When you begin a sentence with "My goal for today is..." your family doesn't look at you in confusion and say "Michael?  Who is Michael?"
• Your child actually does his entire school project by himself, no nagging involved (this happened once, and it was GLORIOUS).
• Your husband stops feeling a certain urge... for collecting.  We have collections of Star Wars ships, dead things we found on the farm (finally made my guys move that collection off the kitchen hutch), old bottles, and hundreds of Lego sets and toys.  

Still and all, I have to say we have it pretty good.  These are the only things I would change about our life together, so truly, I am blessed!