I'm not bankrolling Verizon. Or any other phone company.
I was a late, late, late entry into the cell phone market, forced into it by a relocation and family insistence that I have a phone for job contacts, so they gave me one. I know how to dial numbers, answer calls and check messages, that's it. Around texting and taking pics, I'm clueless. And content to remain so.
Point being, I'm not a phone person. Except when it comes to my sister (who, by the way, is equally outta the cell phone loop). We can and do talk nonstop for hours. Two hours would be a quickie chat, four would be approaching an average, eight wouldn't be unheard of.
Funniest illustration was when we both lived in the Bay Area, about an hour, 1-1/2 hour drive apart. This was back in the era of landlines only. We're yakkin' and her partner leaves their home and drives down to mine to deliver something. Walks in and finds us still gabbin'. For all the time spent on the phone, he could've easily delivered her in person! But then we woulda missed all that time talkin'.
Anyhow, necessity sometimes requires that we put down the phone and turn to e-mail and this is one such occasion.
See, my sister is a huge animal rights person. Huge. Of a magnitude beyond what most people associate with animal rights. She's a visitor from an animal planet, I swear, in the guise of a human.
And recently two new animals joined her family. How creatures find her is a phenomenon in and of itself, amazing stories untold. The two new members are rabbits.
In their former "home," they were kept in a single cage in a dark basement, starved for food and water. They were always huddled in the back corner of the cage, totally neglected and relying on each other for companionship, warmth and survival. Never let out. Never outdoors. Never saw the sun.
Then my sister came along and their worlds changed infinitely and permanently.
(Pause: the woman with the bunnies prior, she's a midwife! Um, p.s., no fuckin' way would she get near me if I were birthing a baby. P.S.-2, why why why do people like that even have animals?!?!?!?!?!? Fortunately that rage takes a back seat when an animal is involved. A "care now, shoot later" approach.)
So, the bunnies have been in their new home for a little while and are acclimating to the change and rapidly coming out of their fear and shells. It's been a process. Where once they'd huddle terrified in the corner of their cage set outdoors in the sunshine for their first time, my sister gently coaxing and encouraging, never rushing them, now they bound out, dance, run and play and do this little hop with their hind legs that bunnies do when they are in glee.
It's amazing how care and love and a good environment can transform.
Whatever their former names were, she didn't know and didn't care to know, there's no good in bringing forward the association. As is her nature, she waited for the animals to tell her their names. (On this we are of like minds.)
After a few weeks, they did. And thus I introduce to the good people of the world and blogging community:
Here they are, tuckered out after an evening exploring in their blissful, expanded world. They love their wicker balls (a favorite bunny toy), one of which is visible in the background.
They're still very connected, with one rarely venturing far from the other. Trauma has a way of bonding creatures for life and that's OK, and in this case the reason they survived. The lives of Carlyle and Matilda are forever changed, for good, because of my sister.
The darkness is forever behind you, Carlyle and Matilda. You're forever in the light and sunshine and grass now! Welcome!
Barefoot Blogger 