2 New Additions

Hello!

We've had some exciting events during the past week...

THE DISCUSSION. I mentioned before that Teresa and Kara have been asking for pets for a loooooooooooong time. Frank and I grew up with pets, but now we look at it from the parents' point of view: hair, mess, feeding, mess, torn-up-furniture, shedding, make-huge-arrangements-whenever-you-go-out-of-town, etc., etc.

So..... no pets so far.

(BTW, I would get a cat in a heartbeat, but Frank doesn't like them. It's the sacrifice I made to be married to the best husband in the world, I suppose...poor me...)

THE DECISION. Anyway, we finally decided that this Christmas they could get pets: Kara wanted a hamster, and Teresa wanted a corn snake. I tried to push her towards a Bearded Dragon. But a corn snake is mild-mannered, pretty clean, and a good starter pet. So, a corn snake it is.

(Teresa's science teacher reminded her that those 2 pets--hamster & snake--should NOT live together...)

THE RESEARCH. Over the last 2 months, we have researched how to take care of, what equipment to buy, Craigslist, Ebay, websites about length of life and growth, what to feed, etc., etc. these animals. We have compared prices and packages, determined how much money would be put in by Teresa and Kara, also by Mom and Dad, speculated how much money they MIGHT get for Christmas, and what that money might go toward.

We have visited the 3 pet stores in the area SO many times, all the employees now know our whole family by first name...(ok, I'm being a little faceteous. But some of the employees DO recognize us...)

So. The ridiculous volumes of research paid off: I believe we pretty much know what we're doing now, but more importantly, the GIRLS know how to be the caregivers for their pets. They also note how much things cost to care for a pet, and compare prices.

THE RESULTS. For those of you who did NOT buy a hamster or a snake this week, here are some photos.




A hamster comes from a pet store, taken home in a box like this:




Here is Kara's new pet, "Karamel," of course spelled with a "K." We got a very small, very basic cage--all those tubes and fancy stuff came from the neighbor's garage--they were happy to pass them on to us!




They sell snakes in the pet store, too, but the selection is quite frankly better online. I found a site with tons of choices and colors, this guy and his wife ship out 4,000 snakes a year, for Pete's sake! So Teresa's snake came from Texas, via priority overnight: FedEx.

How does one ship a snake to the frigid cold of New England in December, you may ask? Well. I guess I expected a big box labeled "SNAKE" with airholes, open the box and the snake is just slithering around in there. Not so. It was a pretty small box, simply labeled "Perishable."

Open it up and it's insulated with styrofoam. Then take out the newspaper, and you find: a little plastic container like for cream cheese or something (with airholes), and he's curled up inside that.

The breeder put a hand-warmer inside, which was still warm when it arrived.

I didn't want to take too many photos of him and scare him with the flash, but here is Teresa's new pet Corn Snake!
We are/she is still deciding on a name. (Any suggestions? We don't want to name him anything "bad--" no Lucifer, Demon, Slimy.)

Have a great 4-more-shopping-days-until-Christmas! Kari