Ferrets and Rehoming

I like getting up in the morning and drink coffee while perusing Craigslist. Lately I’ve been drawn to the pet section of the web site. Partly because I enjoy reading what kinds of animals are being re-homed and partly because I’m half heartedly searching for a ferret to be a bedmate to my four year old ferret whose bedmate died late last year.

I’m specifically looking for an older ferret who’s more the age of Ponc. If I get a younger one then I’ll be in the same situation when four year old Ponc dies that I’m in now; looking for a bedmate for the ferret left behind. They live to be - on average - eight years old. Pogo, Ponc’s former bedmate, died almost exactly at eight years of age.

But I haven’t found an older ferret being re-homed. The ones listed are anywhere from ten weeks to one and a half years. This has really begun eating at me. Why, I have asked myself, are only young ones being re-homed while middle-aged ones aren’t? Most of the listings indicating they have no more time and their little friend isn’t being let out to exercise enough concern the ones ranging in age from one to one and a half. I can certainly understand taking on extra work or taking the opportunity to work full time considering today's economy. These people have had their ferret since it was a baby and hate giving it up but know that it's for the ferret they do this. But what about the little bitty guys - the babies - who are being re-homed? Well, I’ve come up with my own theory regarding people rehoming them.

I believe those people who are listing their young ferrets on Craigslist purchased a ferret before researching and learning about them. This is an absolute no-no when buying any pet. You must research in order to make sure you will be happy with your choice prior to buying. Why? Well, if you’re wanting a dog do you want one that needs a lot of exercise because you enjoy either walking or running? What if it’s a barker; barks at a fly in the house or a leaf falling from a tree? Or would you rather have one that enjoys quiet time and is content simply laying at your feet? Size is important. How much food can you afford? Is your house large or small? There are so many important factors to consider before purchasing any pet. Period.

Ferrets are naturally curious creatures. They enjoy slipping through cracks and holes, love burrowing, and want to investigate every part of the room in which they are exercised. They will not hesitate climbing into and tipping a waste basket. They’ll force their heads into holes in bass speakers. They will crawl in between the cushions and get into the inside of your couch or recliner. Some enjoy digging at rugs or carpets creating holes while others don’t. They can open cabinet doors on entertainment centers, climb up onto shelves if there’s a way up and knock everything off the shelf.

One of Ponc’s (my four year old ferret) favorite activities is opening the door on the little cabinet sitting on the floor and that houses all of my Cds and DVDs. He enjoys pulling out all of the cases or climbing in behind them and shoving them out onto the floor. I let him because it doesn’t hurt anything, I don’t mind picking up after him and I know he occasionally gets bored.

Sometimes he gets it into his head that he simply can’t live unless he has done a couch dive (my term for squeezing past the cushions into the interior of the couch). I might have to get up twenty times to retrieve him. If he does manage to get in there and falls asleep inside the arm of the couch I will play hell trying to wake and bribe him out.

He’s not a digger, thank goodness but he does love pooping and/or peeing in one corner of the room. Some ferrets can be litter trained; others can’t. I live during his play time to wipe pee and pick up his poop. This reminds me, they must have time out of their beds/cages to exercise otherwise you’ll have one very unhappy and untamed ferret on your hands. They must be let out at least twice a day for an hour.

To keep Ponc from roaming the rest of the house and possibly climbing into the back of the refrigerator or finding a hole to climb into within this sixty-year-old house, I have put up a baby gate onto which I stapled cardboard. The gate is too high for him to reach the top if he stands on his hind legs and the cardboard too slippery for him to claw up. He is confined to one play room in which I spread his boxes, plastic bags, old jeans and old throw blanket. Periodically, he gets a new paper bag or a suitcase I don’t care about to play in.

I adore the little guy. He’s fun and comical but I’m telling you there are times he’s a pain in the ass and I could just shake him silly after I’ve gotten up out of my chair for the twentieth time to retrieve him from the sofa.

So honestly, if you can’t put in the time to watch him while he‘s playing, have no patience for curiosity, or don’t have a way to keep a ferret from climbing into the walls of your house, into the back of your refrigerator or squeeze beneath a stove, please I beg you not to purchase a ferret.

A Couple of My Acrylic Paintings

I'm teaching myself to paint. I'm not an abstract artist but I tend to render. Lately my subjects have been fruits. The pumpkins and pears are my first. Next will be carrots. This is another fun journey...

Use Your Voice

I didn’t really mean to do it but it seems I am writing quite a lot about finding your voice. I thought at first that I was writing about finding my voice but I’ve used mine quite a bit through the years. With age it has gotten stronger, more confident and loud.

I didn’t use it much when I was little. Neither of my parents allowed me (or my brothers) to use it much and I’m ashamed to say I was scared of them and the consequences of using my voice to tell them I was unhappy with the life we were living, or I was unhappy with school, the lack of instruction in art and music. Starting something verbally meant a slap or a spanking, and it was considered just that: Starting something.

How often did you hear the words don’t start with me or don’t start with your brother (or sister)? Don’t start something - those words lived with me for quite a while. But I’m me, I’m older and if I see something I don’t like - particularly an injustice - I’ll start something.

I started something when I found female editors at a publishing company I worked at were being paid less than their male counter-parts. Via internal email, I contacted the president and carbon copied the COO. I merely asked why the difference in pay? In about two month’s time, all the females within the company were given raises to match the pay of their male counter-parts.

Using your voice must be done with some discretion, however. Why ruin a perfectly good working or not relationship over the last bit of coffee being taken and a fresh pot not being made? Things, events, instances that mean little in the long run are not worth mentioning. But contacting your senator about what is being done with our tax dollars is most certainly an instant when your voice should be used. Finding illegal immigrants working at your company should be loudly voiced as should unequal pay.

Of course, those are my opinions so whatever you do, find your own voice and ways to use it. Don’t let anyone bully you or scare you into thinking you have no right but at the same time, make sure you do have the right. As a former boss once told me, don’t take any sh** from anyone.

To Voice or Not to Voice

A friend called me over the weekend to catch me up on the latest news. It seems the restaurant she works for was invaded by the IRS who raided the cash register of all its cash contents, receipts and pay checks not yet distributed. The owners were on vacation in Florida and were unaware of the invasion. But that is not what this is about.

During the raid, a minority immigrant cook in the kitchen began sweating, scared the suited people who invaded the restaurant were actually INS. My friend and I wondered about this. Why would or should the cook be frightened? Only one answer came to us. The female cook is in the United States illegally. This realization prompted another question. How could she be if all businesses are required to take a copy of a drivers license or Social Security card?

I don't begrudge any human the right to survive but I have to say I became very angry about that cook being in this country illegally. The right to survive does not include illegal activity. One doesn't steal. One labors to find legal means to buy food and housing. Then I became even more angry when I thought about the restaurant hiring the illegal immigrant. When I voiced this to my friend, she told me the co-owner is an immigrant who has family working for him - one of whom is the immigrant cook. My friend feels she can say nothing to authorities for fear of losing her job.

All of this aside, I have to wonder how living life in fear affects the quality of life for the immigrant cook? How does it affect her home life; the quality of her work? Years from now, yes, she will probably look back and say leaving her home country for the United States was the best thing she's ever done but if you think about it, how can she possibly recall any pleasant memories if she was consumed with fear and guilt for going against the law?

If you are here illegally, then do the right thing. If not to obey the laws then at least for yourself and your quality of life.

Voicing Your Opinion

For as long as one man has worked for another, he has found difficulty in using his voice to protest to his employer. In fact, man (used in this instance as a collective we) has done the opposite. He has coddled, bowed to, agreed with, and kowtowed to his employer all in hopes of keeping his job. I'm just as guilty of this as the next.

Last night while listening to Juan Williams, a popular NPR host, I was reminded of those times when I chose not to kowtow to my superior. NPR fired Juan because he stated on a popular television station his fear of seeing a traditionally dressed Muslim on board the same jet on which he was flying. He was - basically - fired immediately for stating his opinion; his fear.

I could only emphasize with him as I recalled my last encounter with an employer who fired me for what I thought was informing him of troubles within the organization. Troubles involving someone the owner hired to run the company and lift it into a better financial position. The newly hired person was - in fact - ruining the the company's reputation with those who purchased our product.

Two years later, unbeknown to me I was proven right and the company closed its doors. The affect on me of voicing my observations and opinion and subsequently being fired haunted me for years to come. Despite knowing I would never have been happy working with and for someone who was obliterating the company's reputation I wondered if I had been wrong. None of our customers expressed their dismay or unhappiness so where did I get my information? The answer was in my gut; it was intuition and past experience in customer service. If you want customers, you do not alienate them which was exactly what the new hire was doing.

Some four years later, I emailed the owner of the company. I felt I had to put closure to the incident and I needed relief from guilt of perhaps doing something wrong. The owner responded to me shortly after, wrote that I had done nothing wrong that - in fact - the person he hired had treated him as the customers were treated; had not increased the income as he had promised he would do.

I thanked the former owner for telling me and expressed my relief.

My congratulations to Juan for his voice and - perhaps - expressing what many of us feel or at the very least exactly what I feel, and poo-poo on NPR who I discovered last night is partly funded by our government expressly you and me.

Desperate Times

I heard a news reporter not long ago say something about how more people are starting up their own business. I wrote about this a while back. As more people discover they don't have much time left to find a job they're reacting in a survivalist way and doing things they wouldn't normally consider like starting a business.

I started a house cleaning business when I moved back to my home town because I was over qualified (and I'm sure too old) for anything within this small college town. I began with one customer by answering an ad in the newspaper. She referred me to another who referred me to another, and I found yet two more on my own. Starting a business is all about finding and fulfilling a need. After two years, I had to give it up because of physical difficulties.

A month ago I came across an ad in CareerBuilder.com advertising a work at home position. I wouldn't normally consider an advertisement for a work at home position but my husband had just been laid off from work and I needed to be open to something - anything that would bring income into our bank. Prior to his situation I would have thought the opportunity to be a scam and I still did. However, I began to dig. I started with Dun & Bradstreet. I looked up the company and found them listed. I checked the Better Business Bureau and found them listed there as well. Then I stumbled upon a forum call WAHM (Work at Home Mothers). There I found everything I needed to know from postings of individuals who had worked at home for a few years and knew legitimate companies from the non-legitimate. Some worked with NEC and found them to be legitimate; paying regularly and holding up to their promises found on their web site.

This was all I needed. I dragged my husband in to read all the information I had found. He agreed with me that based on the information we were safe from fraud. Armed with this, I made the dive. New England Crafters (NEC), the company I was interested in, required me to purchase supplies. I wasn't happy about this but being a business woman I understood their need to protect themselves. What intrigued me was their promise to repay the cost of supplies and postage so in essence I would potentially loose nothing.

Based on what I have read in the WAHM forum, NEC's quality control is high; very strict and it could take me a few times to pass their inspection but I'm confident I can and will. The driving force is the extra income and the need to work. I do give plasma twice a week for which I'm paid $234 a month but I need more. I'm looking forward to this experience.

If you're looking for extra income, consider plasma donation and NEC. And while you're at it, check out WAHM. You just might find something for yourself there because they have a load of information about opportunities.

Whatever it Takes

Recently my friend, Lauren, lamented to me that her husband's hours were cut back yet again at the printing plant at which he works. Another of several cut backs for them within the past two years which left them living on yo-yo income.

Shortly after that, Beth, a stay at home mother of one, who lives in Bonner Springs, Kansas, developed excruciating pain down her right arm. The pain left her writhing on the floor and crying one night. The next morning after a sleepless night for her and her husband, they made an emergency appointment with her chiropractor. The chiropractor examined all of the numerous x-rays then told Beth and her husband that Beth developed a compressed disc in her neck; that she was going to have to make regular weekly visits for adjustments if she didn't want to experience the pain.

The news sent Beth into a downward spiral of grief. They have insurance through her husband's work but the deductible is $500 and even then the insurance company pays only twenty percent of the cost of the visit. What was even more upsetting was being behind in their house payments due to the cut back in hours occurring several times over the past two years. Beth felt hopeless and helpless.

I assured her we'd find money for them somewhere. We'd sell collectibles she had inherited through Ebay. I would help her post a garage sale notice on Craigslist which I did but we haven't yet posted her collectibles on Ebay. She had made up her mind that she would take a job waitressing at a family owned restaurant not far from her house in the small town. As well, she managed to get two free visits from the chiropractor when she informed the doctor there was no way she could afford the weekly visits.

Beth made over one hundred dollars from the garage sale and the waitressing job is providing a bit of cash through the tips she makes. She has used her two free chiropractic visits and is nearly pain free. She seems more calm and in control these days despite the phone calls and letters from the mortgage lender.

The two of us agree that sometimes we have to do whatever it takes.