The song is "You Are the Sunshine of My Life"

Television is something so outside the ex-ferals' experience that they're fascinated by it. They'll sit in the middle of the floor and stare at the TV in rapt attention. It cracks me up every time.

Recently, I was watching some election results and there was a scrawl across the bottom of the screen updating local races. Mesh-Mesh went up and sat right down in front of the screen with her nose about 3 inches away. When I saw her head moving from right to left in a regular pattern, I realized what she was looking at. Then she got up on her hind legs to get a closer look. Then she moved to the left side of the TV and started to pat at the moving ticker. When that didn't stop it, she went around the side of the TV to find out where the words had gone. Back and forth, from the front to the side and back again, patting at both the scrawl and the left side of the box.

When she noticed I was chuckling at her, she straightened up and sallied off regally, pretending she didn't notice I was laughing at her.

I already knew about Mesh-Mesh's fascination with television. All summer long she watched baseball with me. If I was watching in the living room, she'd sit in the middle of the floor and watch. If I was propped up in bed watching the game, she'd hop up on the bed and lie directly across from the TV, watching each pitch intently.

Peek-a-Boo, on the other hand, likes soap operas. I have a sleep-timer on my TV, and also an on-timer. I'll put the sleep timer on for half an hour and listen to the TV as I fall asleep at night, and then the TV comes on in the morning, on the same channel. If I fall asleep listening to Nightline on ABC, I end up watching Good Morning America in the morning. Sometimes, I forget to flip the remote control over when I leave for work in the morning. When I come home, the TV is on again. For a while there, I thought I was forgetting to turn it off in the morning so I made a special effort to make sure I'd turned it off, but I'd still forget to flip it over, sometimes, and the TV would be on when I came home! The station had not been changed, nor had the volume level, so I knew it couldn't be a cat walking on the remote control.

One morning I forgot something and had to return home to get it. When I walked in, I saw Peek-a-Boo deliberately step on just the red "On" button on the remote control and then settle down on the bed to watch TV! I left it on for her, and when I arrived home that evening I went straight to the bedroom to take off my work clothes. The spot where Peek-a-Boo had been lying watching TV in the morning was still warm! That little stinker had been lying there all day watching The Rosie O'Donnell Show, The View, the ABC soaps, and Oprah!

Now, if the TV's on when I come home, I chide Boo-Boo for being a lazy little lie-about, watching TV all day!

The night I brought Bubba and his brother Fritz home, they were crawling with fleas. I isolated them both in the bathroom, and gave them each a thorough flea bath. I kept them in the bathroom for 4 days (the tub made a perfect enclosure - they were too little to climb out!) until I flea-bathed them again, then I transferred them to a large cardboard box in my living room (which has a wood parquet floor) for another 4 days. Then I flea-bathed them again (they were really infested) and after I towel-dried them, I put them in my bedroom with a gate blocking the door. First I did Bubba, then I did Fritz. Of course, as soon as I put them down on the floor in the bedroom they both scooted immediately under the bed and hid.

After I'd cleaned up the mess around the kitchen sink, I went in to the bedroom to see if I could coax them out from under the bed. Fritz was having nothing to do with me, but Bubba cautiously emerged from under the bed and took several tentative steps into a clear area of carpeted floor.

All of a sudden, he threw himself flat on the floor with all 4 legs splayed out in different directions. He levitated, and came down hard again, in the same position. Then he started to spin. First, 180 degrees clockwise and splat! down flat with legs splayed, another 180 and splat!, another 180 and splat! He was really hitting the floor hard! Then he started to spin the other way. I knew he wasn't chasing his tail because it wasn't long enough for him to see, yet, and I couldn't figure out what was going on! Then he stopped spinning and flipped over onto his back.

He began wriggling wildly, his body twisting first one way then the other and to top it off, he began digging his hind feet in and scooting on his writhing back across the floor. I had been a little worried that I had flea-bathed these two little guys a little more often than I should have, and I immediately thought "omigod I've poisoned the poor little thing and he's having seizures!" In a panic, I reached for the phone to call Doc, and then the light bulb went on. Bubba was "experiencing" carpeting for the first time in his life, and was throwing himself into it wholeheartedly! He continued to wriggle for another 5 minutes while I laughed until the tears rolled down my face. I knew right then and there that the way to reach this baby was through touch, and I was right - he's the most sensual little fellow I've run across in a long time.

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