Friday, April 4, 2008

It's Rat Day


Yes, today is the sixth annual World Rat Day. How will you celebrate? Watch Ratatouille? Scamper gleefully? Be willfully destructive and chew through the back door of a restaurant? So many choices...

Nah, I've never owned a rat. The tails kinda freak me out. My family has had a number of pets, though. Let's see: a parrot, a cat, about 10 dogs (never more than two at a time), an owl, a ferret, hermit crabs, a turtle and many fish. The owl was found by my dad when he was in the woods. It was a baby and its mother had been killed by hunters. The baby owl imprinted to him, and we ended up raising him. We named him 'Hootie' but there were no blowfish.

I have some amazing pictures of my brother and me sitting on our swingset with a great horned owl resting on the top bar. We gradually got Hootie acclimated to hunting (don't ask) and he flew off into the sky at sunset one night. He came back about three minutes later, being chased by a throng of crows. It took about another month before he silently glided away in the clear Oklahoma night.

He'd never wear a mortarboard, give a hoot or eat a Tootsie Pop. I loved him anyway. And Hootie would've LOVED Rat Day. (again, don't ask)

Happy Friday, gorgeous! Enjoy your freedom and don't let the crows get you down!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Did you know that a group of crows is sometimes called a "murder"? Crows are pretty mean. Did the owl survive in the wild? Will you make this into a radio play with lots of suspense?