One Year

I still love you, angel, and I miss you every day.

Gotcha Day Memories

In honor of what would've been Tidbit's fourth Gotcha Day, here are some photos of celebrations from other years.





























This was a bun who knew how to enjoy a party!













Thanks again to everyone who has left condolences either through this blog or via private email. It's funny to think that the scrawny Cinderella of the county shelter ended up with so many friends just by being her bunny self.

It doesn't take great noble deeds to make the world a nicer place.

Monday Bunday: Memories

Thanks to everyone for their condolences and Tid tributes. She did indeed live the life of royalty around here.










She was my resident optimist. Always perky, always certain that something really good was right around the corner.










She loved to make new friends...










and considered Pixel her true pal.












She was more adventurous than her feline friend and was quick to explore her new home, confused as to why he wouldn’t join her. She slept right outside his carrier until he decided to make his appearance, lending her support and encouragement to what she must’ve thought was a big scaredy-cat.












Tidbit was always a sport about my travels...










and a supporter of my accomplishments.












She shared my interests...











and sometimes followed me around like a little dog.










She even went to the office with me, where she worked hard...










and made quite an impression.










Tidbit couldn't resist a good party...












and we had a great four years together, celebrating...










and sharing a lot of love.










I want to thank Tidbit’s friends at Animal Avian Hospital for caring for her and for staying open late for us on Saturday so we could be with her. Dr. Jordan and his techs were incredibly kind and it wasn’t until we were on our way home that we realized they stayed nearly three hours beyond their Saturday closing time to monitor her situation, call us, and let us do what had to be done.

If anyone would like to make a charitable donation in Tidbit’s memory, this was one of her favorites: Best Friends. You can also donate to her doctor's veterinary school, or to the local charity of your choice. If you’re not into charity or are currently going through hard times, just do something nice for someone. It’s important to add to the balance of good in the world so the negative won’t overwhelm us.

Dan, Pix, and I are doing fine. We would’ve preferred a different outcome, but we’re glad Tid isn’t suffering or having to keep going to the vet, which was stressful for her. I'll continue with this blog, even though I originally set it up for her as much as for me. I'll also continue to post "Classic Tid Pics" from time to time. Keep us on your blog reader, and hug a bunny, if you've got one (and if it will let you)!

On Vacation

My first day of vacation and my first day between jobs! And I was insanely busy all day, running last-minute errands, preparing road food, packing and staging things we’re taking, and cleaning the house so we don’t look like total slobs to our friend who will be feeding the cat while we’re away.

Tid will be boarding with her vet while we’re gone. I know it’s going to be very confusing to her and I feel bad because she’s almost 100% again. I think it will be for the best though, and they do like her over there. Tidbit is a very sweet and friendly girl. Pixel will miss her, especially since he’ll be stuck here all alone, but he’ll enjoy watching birds out the windows and taking long naps, or whatever it is he does all day.

I hope to be able to blog from the road. We want to do more camping this year, so that would cut into my blogging time. During my absence, I’ll be posting my adventures to my Vacation Blog. Updates will be nightly when I’m at a place where I can log on. And since our first stop is San Angelo, where we’ll be staying at a hotel, the first vacation blog post will be Saturday night!

Have a great two weeks, friends. Thanks for all the support during our Tidbit Trials, and I look forward to catching up with everyone upon my return.

Updates

Tidbit is slowly coming around. She still doesn’t come to my bedroom door in the morning if I’m too slow with her breakfast, but she eats on her own and tonight she settled beside my chair in loaf position—something she hasn’t done since becoming ill.

I’ve found a way to get her antibiotics in her. They’re supposed to be administered orally via syringe and I found that if I rub the tip of the syringe with the inside of a raisin, I can get the antibiotic into her before she realizes I’ve tricked her.

We’ve decided to board her at the vet while we’re on vacation. I hate to do that to the poor girl, but she’s still on twice-daily meds and I have more confidence that the vet techs can administer them than a petsitter. Also, the vet is cheaper and if she relapses, she’ll get the care she needs right away. She won’t be too happy about the arrangement, but no other solutions make much sense.

Earlier this week I saw a duck and ten itty-bitty striped ducklings paddling around the university’s big fountains (the jets were turned off for cleaning). I took pictures and I’ll try to post them tomorrow.

Finally, today (Thursday) is my last work day in my current department. They’re going to have a party for me, which I don’t really want but since they’re using one of my favorite caterers I’m not complaining. There’s a lot that I’m going to miss, but if I have even ten percent less stress in my new job, it will have been so worth it.

Tidbit Update

Thanks again to all who have stopped by to wish my bunny well!

I brought her home today and she was certainly much more alert than before. She had to "tour" her room and check that everything was in its proper place, and then she settled in for a little alone-time, which is typical behavior when she returns home from a vet visit.

Since coming home she has yet to use her litter box, which has me concerned, although they said at the vet she was generating a lot of "output," so perhaps there just isn't much in there right now.

She's still off her feed. Normally she would spend most of the evening with her face buried in her hay, but instead she only nibbles the occasional little bit and does her best eating when Dan is on the floor with her, feeding her strand by strand. She did drink a lot of water, though, which is encouraging. And although she grunted and ran away from me when I tried to give her the mineral oil, I was able to dip her favorite greens in it and fed it to her that way.

Salad dressing and hand-feeding. Someone thinks she's royalty!










We'll be monitoring the situation closely. We were hoping to leave town on Friday but if she's not aggressively eating on her own, we'll just have to find other things to do with our vacation. We're willing to vacation locally if we must.

As Tid's health improves, she'll be hopping by to visit all the kind humans, felines, bunnies, and other folks who have wished her well. But for tonight, no computer for Princess. Next thing you know, she'll expect us to peel her a grape!

At Home

Whew! What an ordeal! I'm home and resting now and my biped will be back later with the details. Thanks for all your love and support!

Sunday Round-Up

Since we still hope to go out of town at the end of the coming week, today was a Big Shopping and Baking Day.

I started my morning by doing a little writing while sipping Sumatran coffee. I suspect I’ll be going down to the wire on my draft, but I do think I can make my target of finishing before Thursday.

Then I went out and ran a few errands, came home and started cooking:

• cornbread with cheese and black pepper
  
• pumpkin bread (2 loaves)
  
• hard-boiled eggs
  
• curry zucchini
  
• curry chickpeas and potatoes (using remainder of pumpkin from the pumpkin bread)
  
• fried rice
  
• steamed rice (mix of brown and jasmine rice)
  
• humza bread
  

For anyone curious, the humza bread was at one time touted as some sort of miracle diet food. I don’t believe in “miracle foods” and my weight is just fine, thank you. But any sort of food that travels well and packs a lot of hunger-reduction in a small package is good road trip food, especially for the long stretches of West Texas, where you can drive all day without finding anything better than a gas station convenience store selling hours-old fried chicken from under a heat lamp. So rather than take a chance of starving, I’m giving the humza bread a try. It’s quite tasty in its own right, so I may make this a regular thing.

I now have a refrigerator packed to the gills! Later this week I’ll be making some more cornbread and some carrot or zucchini bread. I also want to try my hand at spinach frittatas. I saw a recipe for some that are quite small and I think they would make good road trip food. One of the great things about hours and hours of driving in the western sun is that if you wrap a food item in foil and set it on the dashboard for a couple hours, it gets nice and hot. Try it yourself if you don’t believe me! You’ll never think of travel food the same way again.

So I’m envisioning stopping for picnics that consist of frittatas and grape tomatoes or curry chickpeas and zucchini. And in between stops, well, there’s that humza bread.

After I did all that cooking, there wasn't much time left in the afternoon and since this is my last week on the job, I did the performance appraisals on my staff instead of a bike workout. I'm running out of time to do all the projects that need doing and it doesn't help that I've got short-timer syndrome pretty bad. But not in regard to my staff. I'm trying to do everything I can for them before I go.

I’ll be getting an update on Tidbit tomorrow. For those who have asked, Tidbit is about five years old. She was a shelter rabbit, so I don’t know much about her history before I got her four years ago. She’s under the care of a vet who specializes in exotics. She has been checked for issues with her teeth and she’s had an x-ray. The diagnosis is hypomotility, likely due to hair ingestion (although we suspect her love of chewing on sheets is also a factor). She has been alert and responsive throughout her ordeal, so hopefully this is just a simple hairball situation and not symptomatic of some obscure and expensive rabbit disease.

Her situation as of last week was considered urgent but not immediately life-threatening, but going without an update all weekend is nerve-wracking. She went from doing binkies on the bed and begging for food to refusing all food within twenty-four hours, so my mind comes up with awful scenarios of what could be happening over the weekend! I hope they call with good news on Monday!

And finally, tonight we mourn the passing of one of our dear little blog-bunnies, Archi Ann. I will so miss “your” posts and visits, sweetie.

A Zoo of Their Own

This morning I took my camera on my run. I need more pictures for the not-yet-released blog associated with my new novel in progress. What better way to get moody urban pics than by running through urban areas on an overcast morning?

When I was almost home, running up my street, I came upon something really cool-- a mini petting zoo in someone's front yard!












The zoo was for a children's birthday party and was provided by Marsha's Zoo. They provided animals, an awning for them, and they gave pony rides up and down the street to the children. The workers were very friendly and told me that their operation is a family business providing animals all over the city. I was ready to hire them to set up in my back yard, but instead, I contented myself with petting a friendly fawn.














In other news of the day, Dan and I had lunch at our favorite Indian restaurant and since it was raining when we were done and we hadn't brought umbrellas, I suggested we cut through the Pier One store to get a little time out of the rain. Dan said we should at least pretend like we're looking at merchandise, so I obliged.

And dammit, I bought.















Getting wet would've been cheaper.















I miss my Tid.

No News

No change with Tidbit. She went back to the vet this morning and although they said she was "active," she wasn't eating or drinking on her own, so they're keeping her through the weekend.

It's starting to scare me that this hasn't resolved itself yet. Tid has always been a good eater, almost never without a mouthful of timothy hay. It's hard to imagine what could've caused this, except that rabbits are rabbits and it happens.

Pixel misses his friend. He keeps wandering into her room and checking all the spots she should be. Funny boy, he's always too busy being a cool cat when Tid wants to snuggle and we're in the vicinity, but at times like this, his true colors show.

Thanks again to all who have posted their kind thoughts for Tidbit's recovery.

Tidbit Update

Well, we were told she was eating hay and throwing fits about being cooped up, so I went to pick Tidbit up today. Upon arriving home, she went into a corner and has refused to eat, drink, or use her litterbox since.

It looks like she pulled a fast one at the vet's in order to get sprung. She's not fooling us, though. Unless she makes some progress with either input, output, or both, it's back to the vet for her in the morning.

With our vacation starting in just one week, we're starting to have to think about contingency plans. Once I start my new job, I can't take vacation for six months, and Dan won't have another opportunity until December. If this rabbit doesn't start eating, we are so screwed.

On the Mend

Tidbit is still at the bunny hospital, but as of this afternoon she was doing much better and was even starting to cop an attitude about having to be in a cage. Go, Tid!



















Her friend Pixel misses her and we catch him looking for her and meowing, but he's trying to be cool and not look too concerned.

We hope Tidbit will be sprung on Thursday, but we haven't been promised anything yet.

Thanks, everyone, for your good wishes. It's great to see so much support for one little bunny!

In Hospital

The Tid is sick, but she is under the very excellent care of her pal, Dan Jordan, at Animal Avian Hospital of the Village and will likely make a full recovery.

The kind thoughts and good wishes of her friends in the blogsphere are appreciated.

Hoppy Easter!

Tidbit apologizes for the late post, but she was exhausted after hiding all those eggs!

For those who celebrated, she hopes you had a happy one! For those who didn't, I hear there's lots of half-price chocolate in the stores starting tomorrow!

Tidbit's Bunspace Profile

Tidbit's Thoughts

All this blog blather about food is making me hungry. Hurry up with the greens, biped!

My New Love

Couscous.

Boil a little water, dump in the couscous, cover, remove from heat, walk away. Five minutes later, dinner! It’s almost as easy as microwaving a frozen dinner, but much cheaper and with none of the nasty plastics and preservatives! I added herbs, sliced grape tomatoes and crumbled feta to my couscous and it was filling and delicious! How on earth did I not make this discovery years ago?

I hope to have a fun Tidpic soon. Dan has been coming home for lunch lately and took some pictures of Pixel and Tidbit napping on the bed in the study. I need him to send me the pics so I can post them. It’s funny to see them hanging out together because whenever we’re around, Pix makes a big deal of being too cool to hang out with a rabbit. But when we catch him unawares, it’s clear that the real story is quite different!

Speaking of cats, there’s a new one hanging around—a tortoiseshell. There was already a black cat, who often sleeps on our front porch, but now there’s this other cat who hangs out on our back deck. I haven’t fed any of these cats, since they already look well-fed. It’s fun to see them around, even though sometimes they get to looking in the windows and then Pixel gets upset.

I ran about 17.5 miles this morning and wanted to do more but got a late start. Somehow I managed to re-set my alarm clock in my sleep! There was a lot going on around campus today, so I had to change my route almost from the beginning. I was going to do the “diminishing loops” route I tried last weekend, where each loop was shorter than the last. Good psychology! But instead I was stuck with same-distance loops. Lucky for me, my brain was up for it and I didn’t try to talk myself out of it. It’s funny how often it’s the mind that sabotages the body and not the other way around.

In other running news, it looks like the south-side trail along the bayou is essentially done, which means I’ll feel more confident about leaving the neighborhood and going up to Hermann Park. Since moving here in August, the south side where the mansions are has been under renovation, leaving only the north side open. The north side abuts some highly questionable apartments and although I’ve only twice seen people who gave me cause for worry, that’s been enough for me to not feel comfortable running that trail with regularity. The other side is much safer and I’m excited that it’s open again. I might even go check it out this week.

Recent Workouts
Monday: 30 minute elliptical, 10 minute row
Tuesday: 6 mile run
Wednesday: 45 minute spin
Thursday: no workout; got stuck late at the office
Friday: 30 minute elliptical
Saturday: 17.5 mile run

Tidbit Tagged!

Tidbit taking over here! It seems I've been tagged!

My friend Lola has asked me to answer the following question:

What three things would you do that you have never done before, if you knew you wouldn’t get caught, get in trouble, or suffer any consequences?

I don't know what to say. This question implies I have a secret desire to get up to some kind of trouble, which I can assure my friends I do not!

Nevertheless, if in theory I were to behave in an uncharacteristic way, I might do one of the following:

• Eat the male human's tortilla chips. I tried this once long ago when he left the bag on the sofa. He thought I didn't know what they were. Boy, did I prove him wrong!
  
• Find where the humans are keeping my hay and help myself. I know the nice man from UPS brings a big box every month or so, stuffed full of sweet green timmy hay from the Oxbow company. But my dumb humans hide it from me and only dole it out in little bits. Unacceptable.
  
• Finish tunneling under the bed, either through the storage boxes they keep under there or via the mattress, which I was making a very nice hole in before the humans made me stop. I don't know why under-bed is off-limits, but I think it would make a fantastic bunny hideout, if only I could gain access.
  

So there you have it. Three things I would never, ever do, except hypothetically, of course. I'm a good bunny. Just check out this classic picture of me!


















Innocent and adorable, aren't I?

I'm supposed to tag someone who hasn't played yet, but I think all my furbuddies are tagged by now. Maybe the buns at A Houseful of Rabbits haven't done this yet and would like to play? Otherwise, here's the obligatory link back to petspics and anyone who wants to play can hop on in!

Classic Tidbit