Lacy's first CES.

When we first started going to CES we'd fly in to Vegas in the morning and take the last flight out. Normally the weather is always clear. Always. But you knew there would be a year that rain would make that not happen. Like this year for example. And CES got too big to do in one day anyway. So it made getting rid of that stress a lot easier. Plus, over the years hotels have gotten crazy pet friendly. Although sometimes we have to sneak her in as a dog. For some reason some hotels are only dog friendly. Which is why she has a nondescript pet bag that doesn't draw attention.

Our last bun Jasmine logged the most miles. We took her to Ohio and Illinois and back. Which is pretty much how we came up with this set up. She has her litter box in a medium sized dog carrier and then we hook a medium sized dog crate to it so she can stretch out and not have to lie in her litter box.

Lacy is a crazy good travel bunny. Usually the first day they are off their kibble. But not Lacy. She is a trooper. Maybe it's because she started out traveling. We drove down to almost L.A. to get her when she was a baby. Then we took her to San Diego and back. Now Vegas and back. And she's only six months old.

We put down a drop cloth in the hotel to make sure everything stays clean from hay and cocopuffs.(poops) For some reason the first day or two she pees in her littler box but she won't poop there.  After a couple of days she goes back to getting the routine.



This is her in the truck.

Where else is a guinea pig gonna keep her credit card?

Our plan was to check out the rabbit show down here and then head over to the chalk show in the little Italy section of town. So far I've only made it a little more than a mile from where I'm staying.

You see, I think I've just been to the CES of rabbit shows. A truly stunning amount of bunnies. When I close my eyes I just see rows and rows of bunnies. I thought this thing would be about the size of my fair and then Mr S and I would be off to do other things. But I spent about 4 hours at this thing an not because I was ogling tons of bunnies. There were just so many of them. Literally thousands I'd guess.

I'm basically trying to shore up sources for one breed. Velveteen's are really not easy to come by right now. I mean they are out there, but it's not as easy as you'd think to get someone to let you have one.

Initially I was sure I was going to get a spare because when Jasmine kicked it I was without a pet for about three months. And it kinda sucked. But I'm just not sure I want to make Lacy jealous yet. Yes, even bunnies get a pecking order and their behavior can change. Lots of times for the worse.

Anyway, even though this story about bunnies, I'm not going to give you any pictures of that. Instead you get these guinea pigs because I've never seen this before. I'm not into cavies(guinea pigs) they were just there.

They got their hair did yo. I guess they do this because their hair gets all tangled. Which has got to be a ridiculous amount of work for a pet. But what can I say? I'm in San Diego trying to find breeders for Velveteen lops. I don't have any moral high ground.

I was having a failure to bond.

The new girl has been in the house for a little more than a week now. She has yet to get a name. Naming convention around the snarkolepsy household is pretty contentious. Mr S. wants to name them after food or old people names. I want to name them after strippers. Our last girl Jasmine took two months to name. You see who won there with the name... right?

I'd been in a fairly consistent funk because the first few years with a rabbit...... it's not the greatest. If they weren't cute and all I might not do it. They are like puppies for like 4 years. They chew everything. They can sometimes be a challenge to potty train. And it can take them a while to start spitting out the kisses. It just sucks having to start over because we'd just gotten our last girl to 5. Which means she was past the terrible twos, threes, and fours. They are nothing but love at that point. But it's a little rough to get there. In the beginning they don't even care if you exist.

When the new girl arrived she didn't act anything like a baby. She was acting a lot more like a veal rabbit. And I was pretty bummed about it because our last girl was a little like a tank in size and personality. The new girl had absolutely no personality.  Which was a new experience. Every time we gave her a chance to run around she wouldn't. She was really low energy. Remember I didn't chose her, I was bequeathed her. This time I went to a particular breeder for the best chance of a healthy rabbit and she gave me one with no choice to see it's personality. For three days she was like that and I was freaked and bummed. We actually brought her home a week earlier than they usually let to go. She was 7 weeks not 8. So we thought maybe that was the reason why.

Velveteens are known for being a really chill breed, but she was being ridiculous. Now after about a week we have been able to stuff some personality into her. You never know how much is them, or you rubbing off on them. In her case - it's all us baby. But she is about as opposite of our last girl as you can get. She is more like our first Velveteen Paisley. She was delicate, but this new girl takes delicate to a whole new level. (I'd link pictures, but That part of my blog is still broken. Maybe I will get to that tomorrow)

Next week after the 100 degree heat clears I'm going to get blood from her. All new bunnies get blood draws now because they can harbor landmine viruses that explode later in life. You don't even know until they get sick. So right now I'm calling her Turnip. But that name of course is not going to stick. You never see a stripper names Turnip.

I'm dying to have their babies.

For the past 5 weeks I've been trying to replace my girl Jasmine. And the breeders about to drive me nuts. You'd think I was trying to adopt REAL babies with how hard it been.

I've been hedging my bets with two breeders. One in Southern California and one in Oregon. The one in Southern California is basically the highest on the food chain for Velveteens. And she works for a vet. So I have to suck it up because presumably those are the healthiest babies I can find on the planet. She also puts on the shows for ARBA. So she is really well respected.

It's like neither one of these two wants to give any of them up. I've never seen anything like it.

A Sunday update.

Things are starting to me like a blur now. I'm trying to get ready to see our folks while trying to do all the normal life stuff. Since we are taking the girl, we felt like it would be better if we put on a bed cover on the truck so we could stick all of our crap there so Jasmine wouldn't be cramped up in the back seat. Plus it doesn't make us look so much like we are tourists.

Mr S. said that he read an article where two guys got one of these Peragon covers installed in 5 hours. I'm pretty sure it took us like eight. But Mr S. did most of the work assembling.

Even though it was dark when we finally got it done, we came out this morning to find that it's raining soot from the fires. The sky is basically an overcast color. I'm so over summer.

Jasmine chillin'.

I have about a million conferences this month with a wide range of topics. Posts will probably early, late, non-existent, or generally more sporadic than normal. You know how this blog works. Most times I just go for the exhibits, but most of my confs this month are all day things. A couple might be multi-day.

I hope they have something interesting or else I'm going to be more surly than normal.

Jasmine before the rain came.

Pictures I should have posted.

My girl Jasmine chillin' in a Barstow hotel. Some hotels don't even charge for pets now. If they do, they charge very little.

Back to reality on Monday.

This isn't to say I won't have anything for you, but things start getting good next week with CES.

For the past handful of years I've almost made it a science getting in an out out Vegas in a day. The getting "in" isn't so much the hard part. At the beginning of the day-  the cab situation is like a perfect ballet. It amazing to watch.

Leaving Las Vegas is a different story all together. You could easily wait two hours for a taxi. When you have a flight that night - it's actually a lot of stress. Last year I found the perfect way out was actually by city bus. It takes you straight to the airport. I think it might be a preferred method right now. Every year I've tried a different way to get out. The cabbies are amazing - but at the end of the day it's every wo/man for himself.

This year though - we are driving and staying two nights. Have you seen the price of gas? Mr S. took some time off. I'm bringing the bunny. Oh yes I am. We are pulling a minivaca/conf. Jasmine travels remarkably well. She's been on a plane to Ohio. She's been to Tahoe and Ft Bragg. I'm thinking of getting her a little tiny passport. Hell - last year someone had their dog on the show floor in a baby stroller! So, I'm obviously not the weirdest.

I'm on the floor late Wed into Thur - but I'm leaving Tuesday. So... sit tight. I will have stuff to entertain you soon.

When slinkies attack.

I had my girl Jasmine in yesterday to get her staples out from her slinky accident. Oh yes. You heard that right. Pets can be really imaginative when they screw themselves up. 12 staples. 10 the first time. Two the second. Oh yes. You also heard that right. Almost 700 bucks in vet visits from a toy that costs probably less than 5 bucks. Middle of the night vet visits are spendy Yo.

Bunnies have really thin skin which I didn't think I needed to know about since she is the only one I have now. She doesn't have anyone to fight with so I thought open wounds were almost a non issue. The wound opened up a second time needing two extra staples. Then actually a tiny third time that didn't need a vet visit or staples. Her staples were in for 21 days. If she hadn't opened up a second time it would have only been 10 days.

It's going to be one of "those" summers already.

Every summer I have a bug out plan for the bunnies because they can only handle so much heat. They can't pant like a dog to shed heat from their bodies. I have to have a plan because every summer I get hit with a blackout. Some are pretty minor, but when it's over 100 degrees I start getting anxious. I like to stay close to home just in case the power stays off for a long time..

Yesterday we hit 104. We figured we'd just lay around the house and be lazy. It was really pretty fabulous until I went to cook something for us. The cook top goes out while I'm cooking. We assumed it had just run it's lifespan although I've never seen those die. I go to put the food in the oven which is also not working all of a sudden. Now we are trying to figure out if the wiring in the house fried, and we're pissed about having to replace two pricey appliances. Neither of us had ever seen this happen before. Then we realise the AC is out too. But all the lights in the house work. Everything on 220 power does not. You could also tell we were having a brown out which I've never seen before because the lights were getting extremely dim. Usually you get a warning hit, and you go dead. This actually went on for around an hour where the power was pulsing up and down. We just shut everything off and decided to go to bed.

I've heard brown out can toast a lot of your stuff, and at this point I'd grown pretty bummed I was going to have to spend a lot of money. I figured they took  a surge and that's all the wrote. Mr S. read on the nets that sometimes this can happen when the utility isn't pumping both 110 and 220 into the house due to equipment failure. I was sure there was a snowballs chance in hell of this being true. I'm never that lucky. But we wouldn't be able to find out until 4 in the morning anyway when they expected the repair to be done. I went to bed super bummed because I hadn't hardened by bug out plan for the year. It's really early in the season to be losing power. And it's going to be 105 today so we had to figure something out quick.

About 1:00am we lose all power. I figure by the time we wake up the power will be on.

Nope.

So Jasmine got to be a corporate bunny today so she could have AC. The power had been out for 10 hours. Who knew when they were going to get it back on. Once I was out for three days!

The did get the power back on around 11..... and all my stuff works. The AC. The stove and the cook top. I've never seen it where half of the power to your house works. I didn't even know what was possible. But it apparently is. That was really stressful though because you start adding up the dollar signs.

Flying the pet friendly skies of United.

Much of the past week has been a blur. When we found out about Mr S.'s dad we thought we would have more time, but things deteriorated quickly and all of a sudden we were booking a flight for the next afternoon. His heart dropped from 29% capacity to 14% in one day. All the siblings were flying in to say their goodbyes.

We didn't have time to find anyone to watch Jasmine. We are down to the one now. And when emergencies happen - you just throw all your shit in a bag and sort the whole thing out later. We weren't even sure where we were staying. His mom has developed very severe allergies to everything, and we didn't want to put stress on that. His sister is a savage smoker, and Mr S. is allergic to their dogs. The first night was pretty crazy. Jasmine flew in a soft carrier which she could have chewed out of if she wanted to. After we got out of the hospital it was pretty late. We needed to find food and some method to keep Jasmine contained while we were away attending to family stuff. The soft carrier was way too small to keep her more than a short time. Luckily a 24 hour Walmart saved our ass. I kinda got the idea from from South Park episode where Randy was shopping in the middle of the night. I don't shop at Walmart, so we were just hoping their pet section would have something we could use and it did.

It's been a few years since we've flown with bunnies. So you are always a little nervous if you will actually get on a plane. Especially since they put in the new scanners. I wasn't sure how they were going to screen me with a pet. As it turns out though, so many people fly with them - the airports on both sides have pet relief areas. You don't even need to see a vet before you go now to get a health certificate. At least on United. You do get extra screening, but I would have volunteered for a strip search if I had to. And the TSA reaction to bunnies is always a bit priceless. As you can imagine - they don't get them often.

We were pretty surprised how well she traveled. On the way back we had to leave her in the parking deck for a couple of hours, so by the time we got back to the airport we wanted to give her a few minutes out to calm down. Our flight had been delayed anyway. To our surprise, she didn't want to crawl immediately out of the carrier. Which is what most bunnies do once you open the top. The whole time we were waiting for the plane I had the carrier open. Then it got better. Our flight was practically empty. Everyone on that flight could have gotten their own row. Which was kinda funny because first class was packed. The back of the bus was empty. I've never seen a flight that empty. But a pet takes up all of your foot room and it was a relief to not be stuck in one position the whole flight.



The whole plane was empty and we gave her the window seat. Since she was super chill in the airport, we figured we would try to see if she'd be that way on the plane and she was. We weren't sure how the flight crew was going to feel about that. Before 9/11 they used to be chill enough you could snuggle them out of the carrier to comfort them. Obviously after - not so chill. The crew was aware of her and only warned me to not let her get loose. Even when we were landing they were okay with her being in the seat as long as she was buckled in. Which I do all the time anyway. Once I had to stop fast in the car and a bunny wound up on the floorboard. Every since then I buckle them. Plus I didn't want to hit weird turbulence. She was happy with this arrangement the whole time. You can see my bag of chips is all blown up do to the pressure.



Yesterday when we got home we found out that once you get whatever is causing congestive heart failure tamped down, you can stabilise. His dad already seemed more alert the day we were leaving. We still thought it would only be a matter of days. Apparently Mr S.'s sister has a friend who's parent lived on only 10% capacity for three years. Which was a huge surprise. This is why I gave you the whole Jasmine story. Otherwise I might have had deal with grief in the way I do by not talking about it for a while. I'm like a guy that way.

Fishtank bear?

Today's been one of those days where everything goes wrong. I'd planned to do something else today, but Jasmine came down with a belly ache 2 days ago. So we decided to stick closer to home so we could check on her throughout the day. The thing with her is she drinks more than any other bunny we've had. So when the eventual belly ache comes, we have to be extra diligent to keep her hydrated.

So, we took in the lame home and garden show we were going to on Monday. It all turned out well because my camera's battery was full dead. I didn't realise it until I went to take a shot.

The Chrysler has some problem with a vapor lock. Which occasionally causes it to stall after it's just been filled with gas. Which it did. Some guys came to help Mr S. push me out of the road. For a moment I felt good about the world. I was telling Mr S. - the one thing you can usually count on with people. They will help you out of traffic. It's easy do-gooderism. Only takes a couple of minutes. You feel happy, the stalled person feels happy. When I've helped push people out of the road it makes me feel happy. And well, I also get to where I wanted to go. So it isn't exactly selfless. But it still feels good.

Not four stop signs later did I stall again. I flip on the flashers and we go to push again. Only this time the guy behind me was a dick. First he honked the horn. Which got him an "I"M BROKEN DOWN yell." I'm already out of the car at this point. Well move! Me - You can see my flashers are on! He went to say something else. I flipped him off then went to trying to get the car out of the middle of the road.

Which totally wiped out the good feeling of the first time. It's like the world said - oh, that made you feel good! Here. Take this one then. Balance, byatch.

But I did get you fish tank bear. Which sounds like the worst idea ever.

Of Monsters and Murples.

I thought I'd give a post about Jasmine today. Normally I post more pictures when they are in this cute one year phase. However, she has not been cute at all. She's been driving us crazy. She is ridiculously strong willed.

The bunny we replaced her with was such a delicate rabbit for a mid size. It sounds stupid to say. She was born pigeon toed, so she always had sort of this light demeanor.

Jasmine is sort of more like.....a monster truck. She went through a false pregnancy. Which literally makes them the most aggressive animals on the planet. She gave Mr S. one of the most severe bites we've ever had. This is saying a lot because owning rabbits means you really get bitten all of the time.

They start ripping out their fur. In all the time we've owned rabbits, we'd never had false pregnancy. It was all I could do to not rip out her ovaries.

She has started evening out the past two weeks. Which is a relief. She had the kind of aggression you can't really tolerate for a lifetime. She would have had to have been neutered.

Sadly in my opinion, you can't tell if you have good breeding stock for about 5 years. And by good - I mean long living. I don't know that I will breed her. But I'd like to have the option.

Also, her ear never dropped. For a couple of weeks when she was younger I was sure it would drop. She is at an age now where we are almost certain it might stay up. So, technically she is a half velveteen lop.

Back story on why we call her Murple sometimes.

Go where the road takes you.

The past couple of weekends Mr S. and I have been basically free styling it. There hasn't been much tech, and I haven't been feeling like being around people lately. The whole world has been frustrating me.

Usually free styling amounts to a lot of dry holes. Nothing interesting. Mostly due to gentrification and sameism. You can go to any town anywhere in California, and they have exactly the same things in every strip mall. Cookie cutter to the nth degree. One town looks virtually the same as the next. I even noticed this when I had to track down Jasmine. I was an hour and a half inland, and everything still looks new. Not a rusted broken down barn to be seen anywhere. No real charm anywhere.

Anyway.

Last weekend, we'd made it up to Antioch - where my car broke down again. So, we had to turn around and come right back. But, not before wondering if Antioch always smells like a tired fire. We were going to have breakfast there, but the whole tire fire ambiance put us off.

This weekend we decided to stay closer to home and found this little valley to explore near Castro Valley.



Now, all I can think about is trying to find some money so I can buy a house in this little hidden crack near Fremont and gentrify it. It's like living in the mountains, but really it's just a tree covered wedge that cuts through the rolling hills.

We finally named her Jasmine.

A stripper name. Just not one of the sluttier ones.

She has only had a name for a few days. Which has to almost be a record for us. Naming convention in the Snarkolepsy house had to involve these criteria.

Most important - you have to be able to yell it. They do learn their names and will stop temporarily chewing on - whatever. It gives you time to get to the squirt bottle.

It needs to have a cute short version. I'm not crazy about any of the short versions of Jasmine. But we were coming under pressure because a little over a week ago she learned she could beg for attention. Before she was just cute, and what the fuck else did she need? A bunny that begs for attention deserves a name.

Also, I'm starting to believe this trait she has about flopping out in Mr S's armpit is going to stick. She doesn't do it all the time, but enough that I think that once she hit puberty, she might keep it.