It has been about a month and a half since we have moved from our third-floor apartment to this sprawling ranch house. I have noticed that the longer we are here, the less looming and intimidating the size of the house seems to me. I do not know if that is a good or bad thing. Check out our sunken living room - note that Pepper is in the window watching the birds on the feeders right outside.

Christmas Day, 2001 : Each day that the ferrets have been out for the past week, at least one gift under the tree was either stolen, almost stolen, or partially unwrapped. So it was with much glee we approached the Opening Of The Gifts on Christmas Eve, planning on letting all six ferrets and two cats run amok with as much paper-ripping, bow-stealing, present-theiving action as they wanted. They all slept straight through until Christmas Morning, despite our attempts to wake them up.

This morning was a different matter, however. We saved a few of the preferred wrapping paper remnants, boxes, and other weezil fun associated with gifts for the babies to play with. They all had a blast, each creating their own brand of chaos...

Bear immediately discovered a still unknown way to get into the large potted plant nearest the far side of the living room. As I was placing the last of our six ferrets on the other side of the barrier and into the hallway, I caught the resulting action out of the corner of my eye. Bear was digging furiously as if his little fuzzy life depended on it, hurling dirt from the pot to the couch. Instinct kicked in and I sprinted from my hallway position to the plant, avoiding stepping on or tripping over any of the ferrets that seemed to feed off the thrill Bear was having doing something he was not supposed to do. I scooped him up and placed him in the middle of the front foyer, returning to the scene to curtail additional ferrets from having their way with the dirt all over the rug.

At the same time, my sister-in-law Sam was cooking a Christmas Morning breakfast for all of us. She was in the kitchen working over the stove, counter, and sink mixing, chopping, grating, slicing, etc. when I heard the scream. By that time my husband had the living room plant disaster under control, so I sprinted up from the living room and into the kitchen, barely touching the dining room floor. Of course my first thoughts were that something happened to a ferret, not thinking about my sister-in-law at all due to deeply routed instincts. I can admit that without guilt because she already left ... :)

Raven was alternating between biting Sam's foot and climbing up her pants in order to reach the counter, where all the action seemed to be. No matter how cute I think that is, I can see how someone who neither has ferrets nor knows much about them would share in my mirth. I scooped up Raven with one hand [still saying my favorite ferret grabbing announcement, "SCOOP! Eagle got 'ya!" outloud to Raven, now an unconscious habit...] and the cordless phone with the other. I wanted to call my family in Boston to wish all a merry x-mas....

While I was on the phone with my family, I witnessed many ferrety infractions ranging from stealing boxes to rifling through Sam's personal stuff in the guest room. I managed to talk to my parents, rescue Sam's makeup bag, clean up the garbage can in the main bathroom that Raven yet again toppled over from on top of the toilet, and looked all over the place for the dirt-covered Bear. Since catching him brown-handed in the plant, Bear had not been seen by anyone in the house. I finished my phone call, thinking that a few moments of the two of us looking for Bear would lead to sitting down to a nice morning meal.

Fifteen minutes and an overwhelming sense of choking panic later, Bear was still nowhere to be found. If any other ferret was missing, I would have written it off to a well hidden sleeping place. Bear, however, always comes when called. Twenty minutes passed and my eyes began misting over, while I pulled the entire bed apart including taking all the sheets and blankets off, drawers completely out, and crawling on my hands and knees all over the floor of the bedroom closet. Bear was still missing.

Worry gave way to growing panic as my husband and I began looking in places like the stove, the dishwasher, the back closet, the garage, and even taking a chance that Bear could have slipped outside when the door was opened just for a well-monitored moment earlier that hour. Still, no Bear to be found. By the time thirty minutes had gone by missing Bear, I was in tears and frantic. Visions of a post-Bear Extreme Weezils flooded my devastated mind, while all the while I continued to almost aimlessly flit from room to room, calling out Bear's name and furiously squeaking Booda Bunny, with some vague hope left that I had overlooked some hiding place. My heart was already broken and I blamed myself for being a horrible ferret mom, my world was shattered, and I felt sick to my stomach.

As my equally panicked but much more held-together husband methodically went from room to room calling Bear, I tearfully walked to the end of the hallway for what seemed like the hundredth time searching for my little cinnamon Beary .... dabbing my eyes with a tissue .... wretched feelings of despair blurring my vision along with the tears .... I looked in the living room yet again and saw a little fuzzy head sticking out from under the television stand .... walking past the living room. WAIT! A little fuzzy head! I saw a fuzzy head!

"There he is!" I screamed with a mixture of relief, anger, and exhilaration. My husband swooped in and hastily grabbed a confused Bear, while I tried to figure out if we were ever going to let the ferrets out of their room again ...