Italian Babushka: No Lions, but.......

Ed and I watched the movie Flyboys last night and one of the characters had a pet lion. I always wanted a pet lion - a male with a full mane. But my Mom said no. She wasn't much into pets. When I was two we rented a house from Mrs. Otto - she and her husband also lived on the property and they had a dog named Sandy. I thought it was great fun to have a dog with the same name as me! (Hey, I was two!!) We only lived there for about a year and a half but Sandy and I were a team!
Except for Brownie, the turtle, I didn't have another pet until my pre-teens when we got Sheba - a white Spitz. She had one puppy who we named Solomon. He was, by far, the dumbest dog ever! The birds would chase him across the yard! This is a picture of Sheba taking a rest on our 1960's butterfly chair. Looks peaceful, eh? When my brother, Tony, was born in 1964, Solomon and Sheba were jealous so we had to give them to a couple we knew who had a big house on a lot of land. They loved it there! Of course, there were times when Tony was a kid that we wished we'd sent him to the farm and kept the dogs!! But over the years we realized that we probably made the right choice!

Jenni always wanted a pet, but living in an apartment pretty much prevented that. Except for the occasional snail, lizard, or June bug. Finally the kids convinced me to get them hamsters. I was thrilled - who wouldn't love having furry rats around the house! So one Christmas I got two hamsters along with their little plastic houses and those dang running wheels. Those rodents ran the wheels all night long!! But the kids were happy. Until Joe's hamster got "wet tail" (don't ask!!). He apparently died while the kids were at school. I was at work and my brother called to tell me that the kids found Joe's hamster dead, and it had rigor mortis. His little claws were stuck to the bottom of the cage. Since I was at work, it wasn't clear what Tony and the kids expected me to do. But I finally told them to bang the cage on the dumpster in the back until the feet released - Hey, that was the best I could come up with!!! Charlie, Jenni's hamster, lived to the ripe old age of 1- 1/2. When he turned one, we had a birthday party for him! Complete with cupcakes and a little hat! As we were sitting there watching Charlie eat the cupcake, my mom said, "Oh, my god, I'm at a party for a hamster - and I brought a gift! I really need some friends!!!

When Charlie finally died, we were getting ready to go on vacation. We put him in a sandwich bag in the spare freezer in our garage so we could have a proper burial when we returned. Except we forgot! That is until my brother and some friends were over a couple of weeks later and wondered if we had any ice cream in the outside freezer. I told them to go look. As soon as I heard the scream, I remembered little Charlie...........

But finally Jenni got a real pet - Toby the cat. He was a really cool cat (!!) - very calm and very loving. He was also pretty big and Joe's friends used to call him a "hairy puddle" because he was always laying right in the middle of the floor. As I said, he was cool. Loved to sit in his recliner and catch a few Garfield cartoons.