MEET SOME OF THE "MOVERS"

hey, y'all, well, since we introduced you to John and he's going to help us move, we thought we would introduce you to some of the other volunteer movers who are taking us to our new home in the city. you've all met Susan, mom's bff, but maybe the other pics of her were not as flattering as this one: and...just so's you know, that's not a bowl of soup causing her to take her temperature with a spoon, that's a double shot of latte swirling around in her bowl!

mom and susan's favorite place is in a little town on hwy 542 (everybody here in bellingham who skis and snowboards and snowshoes and does anything on Mt. Baker - which is everybody in town - has a little sticker on their Subaru, including mom, that says either "Go East, Highway 542, Mt. Baker" or something close to it.)

nobody outside our little hamlet knows what that means, exactly, but it is a badge that the driver is a burly mountain girl or boy and local!

so, when city Susan comes up from Seattle to be burly mountain girl Susan, they stop to fuel up with - not food, not trail mix, not power-bars - but lattes!! BOWLS OF THEM! then off go the burly mountain girls and susan returns to the city with a renewed sense of purpose. which she describes to mom in anywhere from 2 - 7 voicemails the next day because she works as a volunteer tutor co-ordinator at Washington Middle School in Seattle where anything can and does go wrong (i mean, HAPPEN!) and she is the fixer-upper! today she and her family are at a Mariner's game and we hope the Mariners win because she loves them with Holiness! Go M's!

i'm just a little guinea pig and don't feel like capitalizing words but it's really because i have a Mohawk running down my back from my top-notch to my rump and Mohawkish pigs are not obliged to use capital letters.

we love susan. she just became a grandmother for the first time in January and the new baby is our designated moving van driver. if he can keep it in his diapers!

YY OUT!

JOHN DISCOVERS MY "GRIEF PLACE" AND FEEDS ME THERE, KINDLY

mom and i are allowing ourselves to grieve naturally and each one of us has our own ways. i like to sit in the darkest place i can find in my cage and be quiet there. nobody disturbs me, not even the Mahals. but, today, John came over and offered me some wheatgrass after noting that i was sad. he did not ask me to come out, he simply placed the treat between the bars of my cage after he noticed me watching him treat the Mahals. i didn't make a peep. just watched (top photo) with my nose, which is how we watch Best, through our sense of smell. i felt so lonely. but i didn't make a peep. too sad.

then John, noticing my wee little nose and whiskers, made a humble love offering. i accepted. and he continued. now we are friends. guinea pigs are highly sensitive creatures. in fact, mom sneezed a few times and both Mahals scurried into their Pigloo so fast you'd think a tiger roared!

mom thinks they were well-taken care of, but not handled by their people. they cannot be petted in their cage while eating:
YET! i know from personal experience they will become accustomed to being held and cuddled and brushed and played with and have their fur scratched affectionately as much as i do, because they hear how much i purr every time mom does that
to me.

John is very gentle and sensitive to us, and made offerings respectfully so as not to interrupt my grief with merriment (unlike certain Mahal Party Animals we know) and i like John very much.

thank you, John, for noticing me in my grief-hiding place and not ignoring me...yet, not intruding, either. you are a real
good guy!

YumYum Out!

SOCIALIZATION: FOOD = LOVE!

OUR FRIEND JOHN took to the Mahals as quickly as the Mahals took to John! Not that the wheatgrass sped things up.
(NOTE FROM EDITOR: WHEATGRASS SPED THINGS UP.) It's been a good day.

...I even "popcorned" for the first time since we began grieving.

The Mahals brought in a Zydeco Band last night...MAHALS, WHO ARE YOU?!
DEY Mahals den danced on dey's little piggie feet,
sang wid dey's little piggie voices,
and Popcorned de piggie night away to dey BIG SWAMP Zydeco Beat!

where mom find 'dem Mahals, eh? dem's some noisy beasts, dem Mahals! what? yeah!

Mom said she and Edwin took Zydeco dance lessons once but Edwin danced on her and sprained her
ankle and their first lesson turned out to be their last. Probably good thing, yeah?

ALL NIGHT LONG! o.k. they maybe cheered me up because I tapped my little piggie toes, too. If you listen to Zydeco
music and don't tap your little piggie toes you need your little piggie head examined! They cheer me up those crazy
Mahals. A little. A little at a time.

And John cheered THEM up! So, we all cheered up today. The first real pinprick of light through our dark cloud of grief.

Thank you, God. We needed hope!

Today, John also took mom to see our new city place (everything but the inside of the apartment itself, because somebody still living there until April 30) and mom said we were going to be very, very happy because it is SUFFUSED WITH SUNLIGHT! and lots of nice neighbors and a view of the city and the Bay.

Yes, a view is the most important thing to a 6-inch tall rodent: always the view! Good one, mom. Funny!

Thank you, John, for cheering us ALL up today!  And volunteering to help us move. Come back soon!

love,
YumYum, Raj and Taj Mahal

"MAHAL" MEANS LOVE IN FILIPINO (TAGALOG) LANGUAGE

SPRING GRIEF: HEAVY CLOUDS OF RENEWAL

TAJ MAHAL'S SOCIALIZATION TIME: DAY 2

well, it didn't take long (day 2 here, readers) for mom and Taj Mahal
to make a surprising discovery: the little scamp is a Cuddler!

after throwing the biggest hissy-fit in Creation when mom tried to lift him gently out of his cage so that he could become used to being handled and cuddled and - eventually, let's face it - those toenails need a-trimmin'

Taj the Alpha Male with the bird's nest 'do on his topnotch,
ON DAY 2, MIND YOU,

decided that being loved was actually kind of cool.

more than cool.

he ended up curling up on the bed, him in the crook of her neck,
sidled up against her (could've been the warmth from her bath)
like old chums. things here just get better and better for the Mahals!

STILL LIFE: little "mom" AND "NURSEY" WHO RAISED HER LIKE HER OWN DAUGHTER

GUINEA PIGGIN' COMFORTED BY RABBIT AND HEDGEHOG

Dear Readers,

Yeah, right, you're thinking, "Oh, there goes another cutesy picture."

How many of YOU have been to Mt. Baker on skis in a spring snowstorm to inspire piggies everywhere to
"think outside the box (of their cages)" and how many of you have a dapper, hand-made authentic, fair-trade
Peruvian hat (got a special name but who remembers?) of pure alpaca wool?

Guinea Piggin' is our "embedded correspondent" going where no pig has gone before, and that includes
grieving like the rest of us.

So, before you dismiss Guinea Piggin' as just another "cutesy stuffed animal" ask yourself some serious questions:

Like, if people are so smart, how come they can't fly when even little bugs can?

Like, if people are so smart, how come they can't burrow beneath the soil like an earthworm and nourish the earth
like worms, which people think are not so smart?

Like, if people are so smart, how come they don't emerge from the cocoons they spin around themselves with the
elegance of a butterfly?

Can people spin silk from inside of themselves like silkworms without wanting credit for it? Silkworms never ask for celebrity status, nor do any of the younger brothers and sisters in creation.  We are our own Reality Show and go on, unobserved from birth till death, making yours a better life in ways you can never fully comprehend. We are humble.  We were created to serve and ask only to be allowed to do so in peace.
And if you want to love and protect us, hey, we can dig it!

Can people open like daffodils in spring, bringing delight to all who see them?

(WHAT A LOADED QUESTION, HUH?!)

Some, yes.

Some... not so much.

SOME, well, never mind. You know who you are. (HINT: You have your own "Reality Show" on T.V.)

So, dudes and dudettes, we must all rethink our place in the Universe: we are ALL important, each and every one of us.

Guinea Piggin' can grieve and receive comfort from Rabbit and Hedgehog.

Read "The Velveteen Rabbit" sometime. One of my favorite books. And Panda and Bear's, too.

Sermon over.

See ya's.

G'night mates and maidens, all. YY-OUT!

RACHEL'S PRAYER: "GOD BLESS PANDA AND BEAR, HAPPY PIGS IN CHANA'S CARE"

it's me, YumYum. hey, y'all, these are pictures from the first time Rachel and Bear met and it was love at first sight, Bear adored being held by her! He thought her home visits were all about him. Kind of...

Today Rachel came over and did what we Jewish guinea pigs call a "mizvah" which is a good deed. People do not have to be Jewish to do mitzvot (plural for mitzvah) but, it being Friday and all, we're feeling all Shabbos-y and stuff.

Also, mom just received her family tree and learned what her real last name is and where her family is ACTUALLY from and all kind of stuff, so she's feeling all Jewish-y, too:
"Mednitsky, originally from Belarus."   Bela-WHAT? Med-a-WHAT-WHAT?! ya sure, mom?

"YumYum" is sooo much easier! Hey, please keep the name they gave your Papa on Ellis Island
and i promise not to tell any of our readers that your grandparents were cousins: PROMISE!

Rachel is our social worker who comes and looks after mom because mom never tells anyone when she needs help and Rachel knows that; so she comes to check on us on a regular basis. Rachel is Wise: Today, mom not so good. Me, neither.
Raj and Taj Mahal are helpful; just that the sun came out this morning and Bear so enjoyed sprawling his big, beaver self on his special flannel platform in the sun..he'd stretch out his long feet and deformed toenails and luxuriate like he was in a SunSpa for guinea pigs whose feet were deformed because no one ever cut his toenails and they curled in on his feet but he never complained, just did his sunning in quiet gratitude...Neither Bear nor PandaPig EVER COMPLAINED of anything and it's one reason we never realized how ill they were...mom and i both cried.

Sun came to say hello to Bear, but no Bear to say hello to sun.

me sad, mom sad: we both sad. not Raj and Taj, though, they discovered fresh lettuce and carrots this morning, so...

Way Happy Mahals!

Rachel helped mom unpack the last unopened box that the vet sent home with us. It was PandaPig's bedding and Bear's special "sunning-platform flannel" - mom just fell completely apart. Since they both had cancer, mom doesn't think it is a good idea for us to re-use those items, but the real reason is every time she sees them, she falls apart and the woman has GOT to pull herself together
EVENTUALLY because we have to MOVE IN A FEW WEEKS AND SHE NEEDS TO GET CRACKIN' ON THE PACKIN' but we are all taking time to grieve and have faith that time will extend itself and we will receive Special Time Dispensation for Grief.
Whatever that means. It's metaphysical. Whatever THAT means. I'm just babbling, because I saw their things today, too.

BACK TO RACHEL'S MITZVAH: Rachel kindly took PandaPig and Bear's personal belongings and dispensed them LOVINGLY for us with the following prayer she made up:

"GOD BLESS PANDA AND BEAR
HAPPY PIGS IN CHANA'S CARE."

now i'm crying again. we can't express the agony of their being gone from our daily lives. and i'm just YumYum.

Special Thank You to Rachel for her Shabbos Mitzvah. Mom had to recycle all their "play boxes" with their names written on them and decorated like little houses yesterday. She just couldn't do today what Rachel mercifully did for us. It was too much.

But the good news is that mom found her earplugs and slept (sort of, with bouts of sadness waking her, and meditation and prayer throughout the night and day) through Raj and Taj Mahal's "NIGHT OF MADNESS!" and i just sat on my sleeping bag loft and watched them play and chase each other through their big Pigloo and scurry so madly about that they re-scattered all the litter mom had picked up off the floor before bed, which is now back on the floor again. them some crazy-pigs!

hey, y'all

it's YumYum saying "Good Shabbos: Peace Out!"

and thank you, Rachel, for everything

MOM IN CANADA

mom and edwin made a new friend in canada, where they went to be with Sant Rajinder Singh Ji Maharaj, April 11-12, 2010
the man reminded them of an old Afghan horsemen riding across the steppes as a young man, although he is actually
from India and one of the few remaining initiates of Hazur Baba Sawan Singh, The Saint of Beas. mom told him how naughty she is and why she and edwin don't live together because, although he often knows best, she refuses to listen to edwin but not
for any particular reason. he was puzzled until she explained that she continued bringing home stray and abandoned animals
to rescue, leaving edwin to take care of them when she was unable to. and that no matter how difficult it was for edwin, she
could not stop herself, so it was better to live in separate cities so he didn't have a zoo in his apartment because he asked her not to bring home any llamas or alpacas...he laughed and laughed.

MY WORLD CHANGED IN AN INSTANT

HANGING BY A THREAD: VULNERABILITY IN APRIL