Super Saturday Part I

Me and a squirrel eating birdseed

I don’t know whether to love weekends or to hate them. The good thing is that Melly doesn’t have to go off to work in the morning. The bad thing is that Melly doesn’t have to go off to work in the morning. I’ll attempt to explain why I have such conflicting feelings using this Saturday as an example.

The photo above doesn’t really have to do with Melly, it could have happened on any day. Or maybe not. Melly gets things in order around the house first thing Saturday morning and one of the things she did this Saturday was replace the seed in the bird feeder. It seems that Rick, through good intentions and an unqualified penchant for bargains, bought Melly some new, but cheap, birdseed. Only problem is, the birds didn’t want to eat it. It’s not such a great bargain because Melly ended up pouring most of it out on the ground and mixing the rest with some higher quality seed. I guess the squirrels and I aren’t as finicky as the birds because the seed was like a feast for us.

In case you’re wondering if I get along with all the hundreds of squirrels that roam our property, the answer is yes. They are fellow rodents, after all. And they are cute. Sure they flaunt their ridiculously fluffy tails (similar to Stripe, the kitten from an earlier post), but I guess if you have it you might as well flaunt it.

This video is an example of just how sharing I am with the squirrels.

I am going to bite this life preserver into little bits

Sheldon came over a little before noon and he, Melly and Rick took me for a swim in the pool. I was the only one who got in the water because the humans thought it was too cold. Can you believe that? They should have gotten in with me for my first swim of the day at 6:30 am! It wasn’t even cold then!

Rick is pretty fun to have around the pool even if he doesn’t ever get in with me.

This video shows how I play with Rick when I’m in the pool.

We play a game that Melly calls roughhousing. I don’t know what that means; there is no house involved, smooth or rough. The whole thing takes place in my pool out in the backyard. What I do is swim up to Rick underwater and let him grab me. Then I struggle furiously while he holds onto me. Eventually I get away or he throws me backward into the water. I’m not sure which ending I like better. Either way we repeat the whole thing over and over. Sometimes I get a little too excited and bite his arms but it’s not a real bite, only a scratch.

So what’s not to like about Saturdays? I’ll tell you what! That darned Melly isn’t content to just stay at home anymore. Now every single Saturday — and Sunday too — we have to go somewhere in the car.

Me in the car

I know I look regal in the car but that is not the point. I do not like drives and I do not like going places. It used to be that we’d just go to East Dogistan, the land of dogs east of our house.

Me in East Dogistan

Melly says she is teaching me my way home in case I ever get lost. I hope I never do because East Dogistan is scary. There are lots and lots of dogs there and they all bark at me and threaten to eat me.

The past two weeks Melly has raised the bar. Now we got to East Dogistan only on Sundays. On Saturdays we go out to lunch. Out to lunch! Do you hear (or rather, read) that? We get in the car and go to a restaurant. There are people at the restaurant. And cars. And horns. Luckily, there are no dogs, at least not that I’ve seen.

I met two girls at the restaurant

When People come over I am expected to be polite and friendly. I do my best, as I did with the two girls above, but it is not easy. The whole thing scares me and I shake from head to toe. Of course, Melly, Rick and Sheldon all talk to me, pet me and feed me treats to try to calm me down but it is impossible to be calm under these circumstances.

Walking helps me call down a little.

That's not happy poofy, that is scared poofy.

I met quite a few people, more than eight but then I ran out of toes to count them on. I wasn’t scared of the people but the whole situation scared me. We capybara are a bit territorial and who’s to say that the restaurant is not in the territory of another capybara? Worse yet, a dog?

I let myself be pet. Actually, it wasn't too bad.

I guess I might get used to being pet by strangers, after all, no one is stranger than Melly. I am just not sure I can get used to strange places.

Help me, Sheldon!

At one point I practically begged Sheldon to help me. Luckily, lunch was almost over and soon we were back in the car.

What happened to the back of the car?

I thought I could talk about my whole day in one blog post but apparently I was wrong. There’s still a lot to cover but I think it will have to wait until my next post. I hope y’all are excited to hear about it!

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