pets and peeves

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Friday afternoon, Meego and one of his housemates came by to pick up Meego's critter tank:  a big glass enclosure with air holes and screened cover.  It is the former home of his snake, Reese, who escaped to the wilds several years ago.  I think it's about a 75-gallon.

The guys can't have pets in their rented house, but Meego said the landlords gave them the go ahead for their herpetology endeavors.  

"Don't know if/ when we'll get anything.  We just want to see if there's a good spot in the house for the tank", he says.

Then last evening, he sent this photo.

Well, that didn't take long.  It's an as yet unnamed uromastyx. 

As I was texting back and forth about the tank and the lizard, I was remembering what easy and entertaining pets reptiles make.  We used to go to maybe a couple of reptile shows a year.  In fact, we acquired the California King Snake, Reese at one of them.

We'd usually see Reese's breeder at subsequent shows, and he'd remember us and ask about Reese.  After The Great Escape, we avoided that breeder at shows...

So this morning, I'm sitting here in my back "office".  The ceiling consists of those crappy tiles I remember from old high school classrooms.

In the meantime, the cat had managed to climb up into the ceiling.  I could hear him rummaging around, and I'm thinking he could come crashing through at any minute.

...which is exactly what he did a few minutes ago.

Napolion the cat is fine, landing on the carpeted floor, feet first of course.

And actually, I was planning to remove those ugly tiles anyway - going for the "industrial" look.

This was probably Napolion's way of getting the show on the road.

In the meantime, reptiles as pets are earning points.

Silver Liningness Sunday

Whoo, this week was pretty heavy on the silver and light on the clouds!

First of all, Magnum and I are officially an Old Married Couple.  We made the 25-year mark on Tuesday, according to our marriage certificate.  My how time flies, I remember when we were just a young stupid couple.  Now we're older...
We're planning to go out for a celebratory meal later today.  After 25 years, waiting a few days to celebrate is nuthin'.

Also this week, I got some more free bike stuff.  Lookie!

All this and the bag it came in!

The bicycling app I use promotes challenges every now and then which usually result in getting various "badges" added to user profiles.  I recently signed up for this SRAM Mariposa Challenge, and shortly afterward, I got an email directing me to go to the local bike shop sponsor and pick up my gift bag.  What?  Gift bag??

As a bonus, this particular shop is the one I adopted Bella from so many years ago.  They've moved three times since then, and their current location offers a very pleasant bike ride to get to. So I had fun just getting there, let alone picking up my loot!

In other challenges, a shout out to Wolfgang for doing the Pikes Peak Ascent yesterday.  It's a 13.32 mile foot race to the summit of Pikes Peak.  

Earlier this year, he and 3 friends decided to do it together.  Two of them had done it before, and it was the maiden voyage for Wolfgang and another.  Recall that Wolfgang first thought of doing it last summer, but missed the qualifying race after a nasty longboarding crash and resulting road rash.  

This year, he was more organized, and they signed up for the Triple Crown of Running, which is  a series of three races culminating with the Ascent.    And today is the Marathon, which is up to the summit and then back down.  Some crazies do both races!

They all made it in fine fashion.  Online results were updated every five minutes or so, so I was down here in the lowlands in Mom mode refreshing the page until all four of them had crossed the finish.  The last three miles of the race are above timberline, where Wolfgang reports that, "Not stopping is the hardest part".

I will say that the four friends didn't train all that hard.  They'd go running for about an hour every few days or so.  They did go run on the mountain for a couple of hours one Saturday, but other than that, they just signed up, did the races, then ran up the mountain yesterday and finished with enviable times.  Ah, to be young again!

And while Wolfgang was getting himself back down to where the oxygen is, Magnum, Meego, and I decided to beat the heat at a reptile show.

"Just looking!", I stressed before we walked into the place.  And it was quite fun to look at all the slimy creepy crawlies.

Stacks of Pythons - not your typical Tupperware party!

  

*Scarface mode*

"Seh Hello to my turtle fren!"

There's a really fat Chameleon in there.  See it?

I'm happy to report that we did manage to get in and out without purchasing anything other than our admission.  It was at this very show a few years ago that we got the still MIA Reese.  His breeder has been at all the shows we've attended since, and he was also at yesterday's expo.  Usually, we go visit with him and his fresh crop of king snakes and update on how Reese is doing.

We avoided stopping by his table yesterday... *sniff*

But all in all, it was a fun show, and I'm glad we didn't give in to temptation.  The Solcata Tortoises were definitely calling to us, but at $200 a pop, fuggedaboudit!  The $20 PacMan frog was a bigger threat to my resolve.  What would I do with a PacMan frog, anyway??

...Other than love him and squeeze him and name him "George".

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Olly Olly oxen free!!!

I caught a brief glimpse of June this morning.

No, really.  My neighbor friend, June, was out jogging with her young son this morning...
BUT, never fear.  June really is just around the corner!  We have three days left in May and we need about a third of an inch of rain to break the record set in 1935.  My money's on this being our year.

But I'm finished complaining.  It's terrible what is happening in Texas and Oklahoma.

In other little disaster news, Reese is AWOL.  Yep, our 4-foot-long king snake managed to escape and is playing hide and seek with us. *LOUD SIGH*

Meego fed him on Tuesday.  We feed him in an enclosed shoe box.  We were told that it's best to take him out of his usual habitat and feed him in a small box so he became accustomed to that being his "dining" area.

So anyway, Meego put him in the box, fed him the mouse, then closed the lid and placed two heavy books on top as always.

Later, when he went to return Reese to his tank, Meego noticed a small hole in the corner of the shoebox.  He remarked that we should probably get another box.  The next thing he said was,

"Reese isn't in here!"

And I said, "WHA...?!"

We all spent a good amount of time searching, but to no avail.  That guy could be anywhere.  Of course the situation is compounded by the fact that the room is filled with Chaco and Wolfgang's boxes and such of dorm crap.

Also compounding the situation is that Reese had just shed.  It was an impressive one-piece shedding, kinda like peeling the whole label off a beer bottle...  Worthy of a photo.

He's always gotten quite active just after he sheds, like he's feeling all frisky in his new "clothes".

As of right now, he's still missing.  We put his heat lamp out near a comfy crevice and his favorite hide to try to lure him.

Got any snake-trapping advice??

I just hope we spot him soon.  And the "we" doesn't include the cat!

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Silver Liningness Sunday

Another week has flown by.  I'm still trying to catch up.  I feel no guilt at all in saying that I'm looking forward to everyone starting school up again this week - although it doesn't happen until late in the week but I'll take it.

Yesterday, Magnum, Meego and I went to the Reptile Expo in Denver.   No, this was not necessarily  a romantic 22nd anniversary date, but it was fun stuff!  Wolfgang was away at Cross Country camp and Chaco's not so much into the non-furry things, so it was just us three.

This expo occurs every three months, and with Meego's ongoing herp hobby, we couldn't resist.  There were a lot of very cool snakes.

I know these aren't everyone's cup of tea - in fact don't say ANYTHING about this to my mother! - but I really think snakes are so purdy.  There were some impressive ones there.  Impressively priced too!

It was mostly snakes of several constrictor varieties.  Next highest in population were various types of geckos.  The bronze medal goes to bearded dragons.  Then there were some assorted iguanas, chameleons, and the like to round out the expo.  

Mesmerizing Emerald Pythons

It was well attended by a well behaved, reptile-loving crowd.  The breeders were all very friendly and informative.  

  

All in all, a fun time was had.  It was purely another research activity.  Not buying anything.  JUST LOOKING and getting information!

Famous last words...

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