Birds and Blessings

 
Oh Thanksgiving, that most joyous day when we gather ’round a roasted bird, commune with the family members that get in our fur, and express gratitude for our many blessings. (I’m still thankful from past pawlidays that I’m not the copy of Golf Magazine Uncle George likes to enjoy during his annual post-turkey trip to the loo!)
 
We in the Rat hovel have much to be thankful for this year. The pups are excelling in school; all eight are earning straight R’s (you know, R for rodent). This year they took up a new subject: Ratin. Consequently, they’ve gone from calling me “Paw-Paw” to “Rattus,” my species’ scientific name. (Squeaky – er, cheeky – little critters.) Meanwhile, the love continues to compound daily between my wife, Bobette, and me. I can also thank the extended-life gene she and I both received in our days as lab animals, and its subsequent transmission to our octuplet offspring. Due to it I know we can look forward to many more Thanksgivings together, in spite of the fact that the process of “looking” itself is difficult for poor-sighted rodents. (We tend to rely on our sense of smell.)
 
Squeaking – ahem, speaking – of smell, I catch the waft of a turkey feast coming down the hall now! We’ll be dining (invited or not! though we always are) with my human family. And they can have their gobbler; I’ve already smelled what I want: can anyone squeak, “Cheesecake”?
 
Keepin’ it squeak,
Bob

Test Squeak

 
This is a test squeak of the Emergency Rat-cast System. This is only a squeak. Had this been an actual emergency you would have been asked to scurry around frantically, hoard your stores of cheeses, and raid the kitchens of every restaurant in sight!

Flealection 2012

 

Last night, America’s all-important Presidential Flealection 2012 was held, and unlike the mid-term flealections two years ago, this round did not see a great deal of change on the squirrelitical scene. The Burrow of Ratresentatives and Senate saw the swapping of only a few seats between Democrats and Fleapublicans. And though flealection night coverage of the race was a real claw-biter at its outset, media outlets proclaimed President Barack Obama’s victory over challenger Mitt Romney in the 10 o’clock hour, announcing that we’ll be referring to Obama as the Big Cheese for another four years.

Competition in the realm of rodent pawlitics was no less fierce, from vocal rat rants to spirited fleabates to instances where candidrats on both sides ended up putting their paws in their mouths due to their out-of-taste squeaks. Action on the campaign tail was pretty focused, with each candidrat keeping their visits to primarily the rattleground states. Both sides were also criticized for forgetting the purpose of our rat tails — to maintain balance — with their stances leaning so far to the right or left.

Topics like cat population control and cleaner sewers remained on the docket from 2010’s flealection, and new issues were added, such as the cheese shortage currently being experienced by some of our nation’s top dairy states and the promise of the Democrats to put a flea-swatter in every hovel. Economics was also at the forefront of everyone’s mind, conservratives (and especially supporters of the Flea Party movement) still arguing that the trillion cheese-crumb bailout of 2008–2009 simply hasn’t worked. Those in opposition to illegal immigration also made their squeaks heard, channeling the desire of activist Fievel Mousekewitz’s mantra “There are no cats in America!” to come to pass.

In the end, Wrongress has stayed more or less just as it was. (Many in the rodent world are happy to see that they didn’t vote all the rats out of office.) Obama won both the pawpular and the flealectoral vote, sealing the deal on Romney’s loss when he won the rattleground state of Ohio. So congratulations to the president and his fellow Democrats; the Fleapublicans will have to wait another four years.

It seems, at the end of the night, that it’s back to pawlitics as usual.

Keepin’ it squeak,

Bob