#(shes fine its for her spay appointment) i would probably have handled it like a champ

[lupismaris]

My local radio station's morning show really has it out for my mental health these days

[mar-bluu]

How do you reckon Elmer and Buttons would react if Lucy got pregnant? Can just imagine how excited Elmer'd be, calling everyone like "im gonna be a grandad!"

Akdksoske ohmygosh okay!!! (This is gonna be my long, and incomprehensible ramblings, sorry!!)

So! One day Elmer's sitting in the kitchen eating his breakfast when Lucy walks in and just throws up right in front of him. Elmer's like "oh okay that's nice, you do that, yeah right in front of my toast, okay" and Lucy just walks out and leaves him to clean it up. So Elmer finishes up his toast and cleans up Lucy's mess when Buttons walks in. Elmer's like "Lucy threw up just before but i cleaned it up, so be careful, the floor might be wet." And Buttons goes "huh, she threw up yesterday as well." So they're a little concerned but chalk it up to her probably eating grass. The next day, however, when she throws up again, they're like "okay something might be wrong, let's take her to the vet" so they bundle her up in the car and drive down to the vets, Elmer's quietly freaking out because all he can think of is the absolute worst, and Buttons is trying to keep him calm, saying that its probably nothing as he tries to stay calm as well.

They pull up and head inside. As theyre sitting in the waiting room, Lucy throws up again, so the lady at the desk is like "okay, we should probably look at that like, now." So Lucy's brought into a side room and Buttons explains that she's been off her food and vomiting for the last few days. So the vet's like "is she spayed?" And Elmer and Buttons look at each other like "is she??" So they say that they're unsure and the vet's like "okay, well we're gonna do an ultrasound real quick" Lucy's whisked off to the back room for an ultrasound and now, Elmer's f r e a k i n g out. "Buttons, she could've eaten something really bad! What if she's been poisoned? Did we remember to give her her heartworm tablets? Did we check her for ticks!?" And Buttons is trying to stay calm and reassure Elmer, and theyre both too busy worrying about Lucy to notice the vet coming back. She opens the door to the two of them panicking, and just sets Lucy down on the examination table, waiting for Elmer and Buttons to notice. Lucy sits on the table with her tail wrapped around her paws and meows loudly. That gets their attention, and the turn to the table, holding each other's hands nervously. "Well," the vet starts "Lucy's gonna be just fine." Elmer and Buttons share a look of relief. "But," they begin to grow nervous again "you might wanna consider kiddie proofing the house, cause Lucy's gonna be a mama"

The two of them are completely silent, staring open mouthed between the vet and their cat, who stares proudly back. "What?" The vet just nods, giving Lucy a scratch behind her ears. "A mother of seven, actually. Or at least thats how many i can see." Buttons squeals excitedly as Elmer tackles him in a hug "we're gonna be grandparents!!" The vet laughs along before stepping them through the pregnancy process. She walks them to the counter and gives them a card to an all-hours house call vet who can help them if they're worried about or during birth. They thank the vet and bring Lucy home.

The second they got inside Elmer's on the phone to everyone telling them the good news as Buttons lectures Lucy about running off and getting pregnant. Everyone's so happy for them (especially Davey who's a big cat person, though he doesn't often show it and Mush who comes over as soon as possible with extra cat food and bedding) and Buttons and Elmer spend 110% of their attention on Lucy and making sure she's comfortable ("pregnant cats are called queens, Buttons, we should treat her like one!" "She has three beds stacked on top of each other and enough food to last her a life time, i dont think she needs another cat-box" "fine, but we need to get her a "world's best mum" cat bowl!")

Anyway! One morning at about 2:40 am Elmer wakes up to Buttons shaking his shoulder. "It's happening!" "What?" "It's happening!!" "Wha- oh, oh!" He springs out of bed as Buttons dials the emergency vet. Elmer sprints through the house, finding Lucy huddled in a corner, washing her fur. Elmer kept his distance, not wanting to annoy her, as he tried to keep his excitement quiet. Not too long after that the emergency vet arrived, following Buttons into the room. He said there wasnt a lot he can do, as Lucy seemed to be handling it very well, so they sat there and talked about Lucy, if this was her first litter, how well she'd been dealing with the pregnancy etc. They waited there for an hour and a bit, cooing over pictures of the vet's own kittens, before Lucy gave birth to the last of her kittens. The vet monitored Lucy for another half hour or so before heading off, ("make sure to take them to the vets within a week or two for a wellness check") and Elmer and Buttons move in closer for a look at the newest additions to their family. They count the kittens, finding another 2 the vet missed, and excitedly snap pictures and send them to their friends. As they continue to melt over the kittens, they notice that while a lot of them have the same black and white colourings of their mother, a few of them were a pretty orange, that looked suspiciously like the ginger cat who lived down the street. Buttons made a mental note to have a stern talking to with him the next time they saw him.

Already Elmer's thinking of names for the kitties, sending options to the groupchat (only Race is awake and his suggestions include Professor Cheeseball and Sir Meatball Daggertooth, which he reads out to Lucy who doesn't look too pleased with them) Buttons had already picked a name for one, Tigger, which they settled on giving to the biggest ginger fluffball. They settled on Gizmo for the kitty that looked like a little clone of his mum, then waited for the others to wake up and help (Race is officially banned from naming anything after suggesting Moldy Stink Rat) Elmer and Buttons sat on the couch and watched Lucy with her new babies, wrapped in each others arms, as they fall asleep listening to Lucy meow softly to her kittens.

After about three months, the kittens were all named (Tigger, Gizmo, Oreo, Luna, Willow, Sunny, Marmalade, Cedar, and after lots and lots and lots of pestering from his human counterpart, the last one was named Jack) and had their appropriate vet work done. Davey appointed himself as godfather and was over any time he could ("where are my babies? I want to see my babies!" *scoops up Gizmo* "And how's mama Lucy going?") Mush and Blink would come and visit them frequently too, always bringing little toys and things for the kittens to play with. Cedar had taken a real shine to Mush and Blink, and would always go running towards them whenever he heard their voices. (Elmer and Buttons had a feeling of who they wanted to give Cedar to when the time came) Jack couldn't come over as frequently as the others but would constantly text Elmer and Buttons for updates on Cat-Jack, and had a picture of his kitty twin in his wallet and would show it off proudly to anyone who asked.

Unfortunately come month 4, Buttons and Elmer had to make the tough decision of giving away their precious babies. Lucy was just as upset as the two of them, but they couldn't keep looking after all of them, they'd already lost a pair of shoes, two pillows and several cups and glasses. So they needed to make sure the kitties went to the best of homes. Naturally Davey offered to take two (Oreo and Marmalade), Katherine took Willow, Barney adopted Luna, and Albert got Sunny. Elmer and Buttons asked Blink and Mush if they wanted to take Cedar, but they were slightly hesitant as they didnt want him to be overwhelmed by all the other animals (though they seriously had to restrain themselves from accepting right away) So Elmer and Buttons held onto him (tho they had a feeling that in a month or so he'd be living on the farm) Jack obviously adopted mini him, and Gizmo and Tigger stayed with Buttons and Elmer

Every month or so, they would all organize a meet up together, usually at Buttons' and Elmer's house so Lucy could see her babies again, and have kitty hangouts. Lucy, Elmer and Buttons miss the other kittens a lot, but they're happy knowing that they're with good families and good homes :)

Also Lucy definitely got spayed after bc they couldn't deal w the heartbreak of giving away kittens again, and also to help keep kitties off the streets, and the cat from down the road got a very stern talking to

[seperis]

The Bunny Files

You’re probably wondering how it is I ended up with eight rabbits in my life when I started 2017 with despair and no rabbits at all.

My son got them for me for my birthday. 

This decision was not made lightly.

About twelve-thirteen years ago, while enduring the horror of an exotic pet store to get my son a bearded dragon and staring horrified at giant cages of snakes, I ended up in the bunny pen at the store with a rabbit in my lap.  I walked out with that rabbit (and a goddamn bearded dragon).  I named him Sir Reginald Westinghouse, aka Reggie. 

Aside: For those wondering: this isn’t that kind of pet store.  It was also a licensed rescue for abandoned exotic pets (like meerkats and sloths and anacondas and boas the size of houses) and worked with schools and universities for ethical animal things, there was a list. One of the reasons I’m glad we went there was they were also one of the few who would gladly take back any reptile you couldn’t handle (though no, no refund) and also were huge on taking everything out of its cages for you to hold, which is why I ended up in the rabbit pen because snakes.  Anyway.

My warren grew to four: Reggie, the Lops Two, and Waffles, who I got off craigslist.

(Waffles never quite forgave me for this)

I bought all teh house rabbit books, built them several different cages, became a central market groupie who could identify ten types of lettuce on sight, was super into making sure the hay mix was just right, and generally was a crazy rabbit owner.  

Then I got pneumonia, and unrelated a month later, so did my rabbits.  At Christmas.

My warren was hit by snuffles, aka rabbit pneumonia (sort of), which kills very, very fast; three of the four died in twelve hours, one in my arms while racing to the vet.  The last survivor, Waffles, lived about a year longer, showed signs of illness, was taken to the vet, told he was fine, then died a couple of weeks later.

I took this really, really fucking badly. I ripped down the cage, hid the rabbit toys (or tossed them), and basically pretended rabbits didn’t exist because this was bullshit.

After a suitable period, my mother adopted two rabbits to give to me; I refused to bond, and then they escaped, the neighbor caught them, claimed she took them to a shelter in a city a hundred miles away immediately (...we live in a city with lots of shelters and rescues), and then asked for all our hay, rabbit food, adn toys, unrelated. After verifying sure, she stole the rabbits, but she really loved them, my mom gave her the supplies and her blessing.

Fast forward to January 2017, where I was depressed, still considering talking to the doctor about it maybe, and my son and mother sneakily asked me to go by her house.  In the living room waited two rabbits.

Charlemagne, just eight weeks old:

And Augustus, a rescue rabbit they threw in with Charlemagne: 

I didn’t know until that moment how much I needed rabbits in my life.  I hit all the websites, prepared my rabbit spreadsheets, and got to work living the rabbit life.

And so my life has been since.  Except despite my care and keeping them separate until I could find a vet who had actually done rabbit neutering and spaying (my vet from the first warren had since retired), they were determined and managed to do it literally within two weeks of finally getting a vet recommendation and making an appointment they...copulated.  Rather traumatically for their owner, who was forced to separate them after several horror filled seconds of seeing a rabbit’s (Augustus’s) hindquarters in a fast-forward bouncing maneuver and then realizing she was watching rabbit porn and kind of wanting to cry.  Third person for a reason here, people: that was just....something.

But I did think I got there in time. I did not.

Twenty days ago:

However, all’s well that ends well: Augustus is fixed and separated from Charlemagne for fear of any lingering sperm, I bought them a much larger house:

(This is Charlemagne and Augustus playing Romeo and Juliet whenever they see me just in case I don’t know their pain.)

 ...and they look like this now:

If you’ve been following my twitter, you’ve seen daily updates from “mammalian maggot” to “holy fuck that’s an actual bunny”.

Currently I have two serious offers for the babies and about ten inquiries.  For now, I’m working under the assumption I’ll be keeping at least four of the babies (bringing my total to six in Casa Seperis) and just in case plans for all six, because until they leave my hands, I do not put faith in even serious offers and they won’t leave until they’re three months and out of adolescence.  My best case, should all offers be real ones, is to keep two babies for myself, which will bring me to four and a proper rabbit warren, since rabbits do much better if they have friends around.

Which means future plans include utter bogglement on how the fuck I am going to afford to get six more rabbits fixed/spayed when they’re six months old and it’s safe (they’re fertile at fucking three months) and planning for new separation and how to arrange my living and dining to be bunny proof wonderlands since a play yard is practical for two bunnies but for three and above, it’s just not.

Having said that, the rabbit life is the only one for me.  The new Seperis Warren is fantastic.