Bibliotherapy

Pets die, darn it.  And when you happen to have very small pets, they die fairly often.

I was particularly fond of our dwarf hamster Tina, who passed away a couple months ago.  She spent all her time sleeping, eating, and exercising - if you throw in reading, those are my favorite things, too, so we bonded right away.  Someday I'll be ready for a new hamster, but for now, when I need a dose of Hamster Love, I read Hot Rod Hamster by Cynthia Lord and watch some footage of Tina doing what she loved best.


And then one of our venerable hens died.  Angel had been languishing for a while - the wet winter was hard on her - and finally quietly drifted away while nestled in her nesting box.  In this clip, filmed just a few weeks before she died, Angel is the one standing on the porch by herself, looking longingly into our house.


I brought Interrupting Chicken by David Ezra Stein home the other night - and read it to my 16-year-old.  She thought it was hilarious, and I found it comforting in more ways than one.  Reading a picture book to my big, purple-haired teenager reminded me of when she would grab a book and back her diaper-butted self onto my lap at the slightest opportunity.  My little book-addled girl has grown into a big book-addled girl!


And we still have 3 hens who are doing very well.  They aren't particularly spunky, though.  In fact, when we let them out recently during a family gathering, it was a toddler who did all the interrupting.  Those poor hens couldn't get a beakful of bugs without getting all loved up.