GUILT: THE NEW FRONTIER!

I SO PRETTY ONE DAY.

All Calvin's singing got him was a Big Cuddle, but WE got our cage cleaned!
Thank you, Ms. A: guilt really IS a great motivator. AND MacNutPie stopped scratching so we're going with the "dirty cage, not dirty mites" theory implicating mom as the source of our itchy-scratchies thus gaining clean cages and NO trip to the vet for mite shots...unless the thrift shop gets another microscope. But until then, our new mantra is:
IT'S YOUR FAULT, MOM. NOT THAT WE DON'T LOVE YOU AND SEE YOU ARE IN AGONIZING, EXCRUCIATING PAIN WITH NAUSEA, SENSITIVITY TO LIGHT AND SOUND, VISUAL AURAS, AND JUST WANNA JUST THROW Y'SELF IN FRONT OF A TRAIN IT HURTS SO BAD, PATHETIC DEAR THAT YOU ARE, but...we DO come first! So, care for us then y'self.

FURTHER and forevermore:
Quit calling the vet 'cuz we'll get on the phone and tell him "It ain't mites, it'z  MOM!"
We will, too, and you know it.

Normally I am a quiet, shy plumpy little girl. But having a clean cage makes me realize how neglected we are due to these stupis migraines so we convened TribalTribbleCouncil and passed the following resolution: Taketh careth of us before thou knocketh thyself out with migraine medicine taking a long, long nap
of dayZ, providing you also take care of us even in your sleep.

Okay, mom. We love you! Mmmm, Hugs, mom! Squeee, oh you are the best!

MacNutPie: "Coconut, ease up or she won't buy it."

Coconut: "Oh. This my first time at flattery..."

MacNutPie: "Then may it also be your last, Geez-A-Loo!"

Coconut: "SQUEEEEE ON YOU, MacNutPie: Pirate Wedding Cancelled after that!"

MacNutPie: "Can I keep my pirate hat?"

YumYum: "Would you two keep your domestic squabbles to y'selves, the rest of
us don't care, none of us have hats, we is Pirates on the inside! Don't be a baby!"

MacNutPie: "ARRRGH!"

SIGNED,
Your very own Sweet, loverly, not-gonna-get-my-Pirate-Wedding-am-I?
Plumpy Coconut, bridal (NOT-TO-BE) tear in my eye...

Planning the "Guilt Surge"

"Hey, Pssssst...Calvin! We got it all figured out, see, well, YumYum did and then he told us to spread the word! We gonna do a "Guilt Surge" like remember "strategerie" from the Bush II War Planning Days? Ya, see it goes a little something like this: if she don't get outta bed today and clean our cages we all start whining in our most pathetic: "Don't cry for us, Argentina" voices and she feels so guilty we get her into the fridge and out with more sumptuous treats! Gotta give that YumYum his props, he can really work that mom!"

COMMENCE SPECIAL OPS PHASE 1:

Calvin: "Squeeee. Squeee. Nobody loves me..."

Raj and Taj: "Can you bring it up a few notches?"

Calvin: "How about a song to the tune of Don't Cry for Me, I have Mommy?"

"They eat guinea pigs in the Andes...
But we are so lucky to be here...
Our mommy loves us so,
Her actions tell us so...
And when she FEEDS US...
WE KNOW SHE NEEDS US..."

Raj and Taj: "Yeah, that good! Yeah, keep it up, lil Calvin, maybe a higher octave..."

Calvin: "That'll really hurt her head, guys."

Raj and Taj: "Oh. We would NEVAH want you to do that!"

Raj and Taj scurry off giggling and pointing to naive Calvin with their front toes,
and he hears the rest of the herd (except Coconut) rolling over on their backs in
maniacal laughter.
Which also means their new comb-outs will contain more dirt that resembles mites...
This could backfire on them. STAY TUNED TO "When Bad Pigs Go Badder!"

HEY, DID YOU HEAR THE NEWS?

Mom didn't clean our cages last night! What a surprise...
(But she did cuddle us from beneath her ice packs, that part was nice.)
Will it happen today?
We don't recommend you hold your breath...she still sick.
Thought her walk yesterday might help... Didn't. Migraine Back.
But, we are starting to get the hang of "exploiting mom's guilt"
and, baby, are we workin' it! You shoulda seen our breakfast brunch!

Taj Out!

DIDN'T DO IT, WHATEVER "IT" IS!

Hey, it's just me. I know the rest of 'em is gossiping about how banging on my sippy bottle and the bars of my cage until mom picks me up is annoying. But they isn't annoyed, they is jealous! So, from now on, no matter what ANYBODY says about me, it ain't so!

And they get plenty of attention, too, just that - well, like Coconut, for instance - she such a lady she don't wanna pee on mom so she holds it in and gets all wiggly so mom puts her back in her cage sooner so she can pee and then she don't get so much lap time like...oh, i dunno, mebbe like another guinea pig who don't mind peeing on mom. Can't help it if she got manners, I DIDN'T TEACH 'EM TO HER!

Thank you. I approved this message. And ABBA is not my favorite band. Never was.

Your Truliful,
Calvin the small

Saturday Night Pig-A-PaLooZa!

We found this on somebody's TWITTER post today and felt it appropriate since tonight hath been designated "CavyCleanCageConduction!" by...mom. She still has a migraine, although it didn't stop her from going to the Post Office, then eating french fries and vegan muffins. Real nice going on the new "gluten-free" diet mom, so how's that working out: Headache still? We feign surprise.

On a positive note, we HAVE noticed that the more mom grooms us, the less nasty the flea comb has become so we are trying to convince her we do not have mites, just been rolling in the hay! If she cleans our cages and that comb comes up clean we are going to have to fudge some kind of trans-gender identification issues, but it'll save us from having to go in for mite shots...TWICE!

And Calvin is so spoiled he won't go to sleep or get up in the morning without his cuddle time! He just chews on his bars and yanks the whole side of his cage so hard mom wakes up and gets him so she can go back to sleep, which she never can. She also gave him back his baby water bottle and even though he is FOUR, he loves grabbing it in between those long fangs o'his and just jerking it back and forth, banging it, and making N.O.I.S.E.
We have also noticed he drinks water from it, but he's using it as another tool in his "me, me, ME: SQUEEEE!" arsenal of attention-grabbing behaviors. Mom is wrapped around his liddle tail, she is!

So, as she lies down next to us covering her entire head with ice packs we are filled with anticipation of another exciting Saturday night here at the Sanctuary. Just like that comic up there, is what we gonna be doin' pretty sure. Unless, of course, we coprophasiates it, too! Mmmmm, good times.
Love,
YumYum

EMBODIMENT OF LOVE

"I have no friend except my Beloved,
I have no work except his love."
~Sant Darshan Singh, mystic Poet of India


Rarely do we share glimpses of our inner spiritual path on this blog. We do so now with profound love and gratitude, for it has taken us a little while to absorb her passing. We were not able to travel to India to honor her, yet she lives on forever in the memory of the time she held mom, sobbing inconsolably in her arms, kissing mom, whispering, "I know, I know." Mom misses her spiritual master, Sant Rajinder Singh Ji Maharaj and is unable to travel to see him. When he arrived to inaugurate the Vancouver, British Columbia Eco-Center for Meditation back in April, 2009,
mom's mystical longing literally exploded out of her wheelchair and into the arms of MataJi, who comforted mom as Her Very Own...for Sant Darshan Singh was her own husband, and he passed in 1989: one of the greatest, humblest mystic poets India ever called her very own.

Now they are Together again. Mom will never forget MataJi's embrace: she literally melted into
Mata Ji's Divine Love! It never happened before. Nor will it ever happen again. Yet Mataji's passing will never remove the memory and Divine comfort she provided in that one, seemingly endless Motherly embrace. Mother of All Creation, Love Personified, evey being her son and daughter,
every creature hers to care for with no regard for race, religion, nationality: no differences existed
in Her eyes, we all became hers...she brought Unity to diversity and we found our common
yearning for oneness with ourselves, with one another, and with all Creation in the precious
gift of her saintly embrace.

We follow the Path of Sant Mat meditation, which asks us to love all as our very own.
Easier said than done!
But we will get up each time we fall, and fall we do, and often;
Yet, for us, no aspiration in life is more worthy than the Ultimate Realization that
we are all One. United, in the words of Sant Rajinder Singh Ji, by "Silken threads
of the Divine." And that embrace is inclusive of all creatures, great and small,
human and dove.

In Peace Tonight Remembering our Beloved Mataji,
Chana

Guinea Pig Magazine

A real magazine all about us. From "Across the Pond." We were invited to send photos of ourselves.
As if we could say no to THAT!

P.S. Not a big deal, but mom lost all strength in her legs and we're trying to tell her that everything is going to be just fine (like not having to drive up to the border to see the vet) so if you don't hear from us, we're just all sitting with her on the bed, sharing the love...
watching "Gandhi" from NETFLIX, pondering non-violence towards mites. Meanwhile, we've plenty of hay and pellets and mom has soup, rice cakes, and honey almond butter.
(With a frozen, vegan gluten-free chocolate cake in the freezer!)

Please do NOT send us "What Would Gandhi Do?" bracelets when
we go to vet to have the mites mitigated! We don't KNOW what Gandhiji
would do, but we gotta pretty good idea what the vet gonna do...PARTITION
those mites from our fur! 

No Comment.

After discovering "the MITE-Blight" mom nicely asks if I'll help her clean up a little.
She didn't feel too good before the vet called and now she a goner...so, she makes me this "to do"
list, SEE, with little hearts on it...HEARTS! Seriously, mom?

I ate it.

No further comments.

"That was NOT me on that TWITTER picture either, you know how people can "hack in" and..."

Oops, wrong press conference, my bad.

{LEGAL DISCLAIMER: NO NOTES WERE CONSUMED IN THE FILMING OF THIS EVENT. THAT WOULD BE TOXIC. WHICH IS NOT TO SAY YUM-YUM DIDN'T TRY....}

OH BLOODY HORK THE VET JUST CALLED AND...

Mom is retching in the bathroom. All six of us got to go in and gets shots, then get shots again in two weeks. She asked if she could get them (thanks for that, Ms. A, seriously, THANKS!)
...he said no. Did we mention she is retching in the bathroom?

Is that, like, an EYE on the top? Is it SMILING?
What all that black stuff... THAT what mom found on our comb? Seriously!
We have hit a new low, actually grossing ourselves out with ourselves.

OMG! It's a "GAG-A-RAMA-LAMA-DING-DONG!"
we just lost our appetites. forever. Cophragia here we come.
ACK!

EMERGENCY MEETING: WASH THE COMB!

Yesterday, the Fourth of July, mom woke up after sleeping for about 3 days, taking care of us, eating and drinking a little bit, but mostly sleeping. She wanted to give each one of us individual attention, so placed us, one by one, on her tummy while feeding us fresh, organic spinach and gently running the flea comb through our beautiful tresses. How sweet.

UNTIL...she looked at the comb! It was covered in something. Somethin' NASTY!

She is getting the next microscope she sees at the thrift shop, but in the meantime has diagnosed us with mites. We don't have mites! She should have washed the comb! We are not all going to the vet to be examined for mites, and are holding a "sit in" PROTEST to avoid it. That went O.K. until she announced: "Hey, you guys know I can jump to conclusions." To which we all nodded and squealed.
MacNutPie got so excited he started popcorning into the air, spinning 'round with a squeak each time!

She then announced that before taking us to the vet to be examined for mites we would each be bathed and she then left a message asking the vet what she could put on a washcloth and how she could bathe us without actually putting us in a little tub of soapy water. None of this is going down well here at the Caviary and we are waiting for Calvin the small and YumYum before deciding how to proceed as the PIRATE PIGS WE ARE, CAN BE, AND ARE ABOUT TO BECOME: AAARGH! We ain't got mites, we ain't gettin' no bath, and we will let you know what happens next because it gonna happen to mom once we figure out how to build a gangplank - Captain JACK SPARROW, CALLIN' CAPTAIN JACK SPARROW! ALL PIRATEPIGS ABOARD-SHIP!

Our First Love...

Panda Pig came complete with mites, ear mites, matted fur, filth, neglect, and a feeling he would never be wanted or loved.
His tender heart opened upon his arrival until one day he smiled his very first smile, pictured here.

He befriended our sick Bengal cat and compassionately, patiently nursed him through a near-fatal summer illness; after Chai moved to Seattle, PandaPig took on the feisty, wee one we know and love as our very own YumYum: nursing him, snuggling him warm at night, initiating him into the world of runabouts, popcorning, escaping, playing chase, and wheeking until every vegetable in the fridge was served as a fresh organic salad and mom even started growing our own fresh wheatgrass at home!

A rodent smiled at mom.

Now we are six who purr, popcorn, wheek, and know the difference between a bag of carrots being removed from the fridge and a bag of fresh spinach...we love and live with one other and mom! We all smile. We also laugh, for we have found our way Home, at long last, and we are so loved! What's not to smile about?

She thought: "I Would Never Love A Rodent!" tsk, tsk...

The Guinea Pig Shop Is Born

A funny first-person expose from a woman

certain that she could never love a rodent.

At least guinea pigs don't have tails...

if that helps.

We started out here with just one...

We fell in love with that rodent. How
could we not?

Yet, we live in a world few

understand because who could comprehend

a complex, playful, emotional, social, intuitive,

trickster, comedic personality all contained within

2 1/2 pounds of...a rodent.

Until you fall in love with one. 

So BE AFRAID, BE VERY AFRAID! A guinea

pig somewhere loves YOU: If you accept your
fate, know you are doomed to a life of laughter,
fun, giggles galore, love, soothing comfort in times of woe
...and unimaginable discoveries:

for we are extraordinary rodents.

(Without tails. If it helps.)

Put simply: GUINEA PIGS RULE.

As if you didn't already know!

Love,
YumYum