It looks like rain, let's stay home.

I know I am a Capybara Ambassador (Capybassador)(in training) but I don’t know why that means I have to leave the comfort of my own home. Can’t I do everything through social media and TV? (More on that in my next [...]]]>

It looks like rain, let's stay home.

I know I am a Capybara Ambassador (Capybassador)(in training) but I don’t know why that means I have to leave the comfort of my own home. Can’t I do everything through social media and TV? (More on that in my next blog post!) But no, Melly is all, “Sure, Gari would love to come visit your school!” I’m not saying I don’t want to visit, just that I’m scared.

Do I look miserable?

One of the things I really don’t like about going places is my harnesses. I don’t like getting them on and I don’t like wearing them. To add insult to injury, Smelly has now decided that I need to wear a bandanna along with my harnesses. Sure, the bandanna shows off the fire in my eyes, but I wouldn’t have any fire in my eyes without those stupid harnesses. I’m just lucky Melly only makes me wear two!

Don't drive so fast!

Car rides are also scary, especially when Sheldon drives. I think he goes too fast. The wheels practically come off the ground when he takes a corner! Do you see how blurry things are out the front window in the photo above? The world is not supposed to blur like that. It is unnatural.

I don't know how the car got so dirty

Seriously, you cannot blame me for how dirty the car is. Let’s just say that I don’t think Smelly has ever cleaned it. At least not since I’ve known her. My paws, my teeth and my treats have nothing to do with it.

In the above photo we had just arrived at the school. I thought maybe we could just turn around and go home if I stayed in the car but Melly wasn’t having any of it.

Dead capybara walking

I followed Sheldon into the school with Melly picking up the rear. It actually looked pretty nice from the outside.

Sheldon does not know how to wear his shoes. The ones he has on in the photo above are not slip-ons. They have a back part that he is pushing down with his heel because he is too lazy to put them on right. I’m glad I don’t have to wear shoes.

Sometimes I'm so brave I scare myself

Once inside I followed a person named Gail down to where I was to meet the kids. The school was nice and clean and the walk wasn’t too far. Only a few people stopped to marvel at me.

Settling in

I got there before the kids so I had a chance to check the place out. Melly brought me a towel from home but I didn’t need it. Anyway, I would have rather had one of my beds.

A capybara connection

Soon the kids came filing in and plopped themselves down on the floor. Once they had settled down, Melly started talking. Oh my gosh! I never realized what a talker she is! Or maybe she just talks a lot when she is talking about me. Actually, I think that’s it. She knows a lot about me and about other capybaras so she’s got a bunch of material to cover. These kids knew a tremendous amount too! Melly was shocked when they knew the words amphibian and incisors. Two good words. I’m not an amphibian but I am amphibious and I have great big rodent incisors. Even though Melly told the kids that my teeth are razor sharp, no one was too afraid to pet me.

Did you notice that Melly is wearing a tshirt with my photo on it? Normally she wears her 3-Capybaras shirt but I am proud that she finally wore one of me.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Me and Melly teaching kids about capybaras

That is kind of a long video but if you watch the whole thing I think you will be surprised at how well I did. Sure I was sweating a bit. Let’s say it was hot in there, not that I was nervous. But look how I let all the kids pet me without even thinking about biting any of them! In fact, all eighty kids got to pet me!

Aren't we going to play a bit first?

All too soon our school visit was over. I think I might be up to doing it again sometime. Not soon, but sometime.

When we got outside, I realized it had rained. There were some very appealing puddles but Melly would not let me go roll in them. Why don’t we ever do what I want to do? Well, such is the life of a Capybassador (in training).

Want to kiss my nose?

Anyone out there want to meet me? I am going to be at Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine in College Station, TX on Saturday April 14, 2012!

I outgrew this cape before I was even born!

Don’t panic! [...]]]>  

Want to kiss my nose?

Anyone out there want to meet me? I am going to be at Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine in College Station, TX on Saturday April 14, 2012!

I outgrew this cape before I was even born!

Don’t panic! I am not sick!

I am going as part of my duties as Capybara Ambassador. It is part of the Vet School’s annual open house. I will be there from around 11:00 – 3:00, or maybe 12:00 to 4:00, depending on how hard it is to get my harness on that day. I hope I am in a good mood because it is going to be a long drive.

There will other animals there too, like kangaroos and birds and dogs and cats and whatnot. The real Super Capy will be there too and Melly will even have some for sale, along with her book, Celeste and the Giant Hamster.

As a special added bonus, Stacy Winnick, my best capy-friend Dobby Winnick’s owner, will be there. Special people may be allowed to kiss my nose…or Stacy’s if they’d rather.

If you come to visit with me, Melly & Stacy, make sure you let us know that you read the blog! And everyone who visits with us gets one of my new fancy-schmancy business cards. Each card has 1 of 50 photos of me so make sure you pick out one you really like.

Leave a comment if you’re coming! In any case, take the poll on the right sidebar.

If you know me, you know I take my job as Capybara Ambassador pretty seriously. And I should, it is a very important position. I have a big responsibility to capybaras and rodents throughout the world to represent them well and to make [...]]]>

Me, my owner and some of the kids

If you know me, you know I take my job as Capybara Ambassador pretty seriously. And I should, it is a very important position. I have a big responsibility to capybaras and rodents throughout the world to represent them well and to make sure people like us and appreciate us. There couldn’t be a more appropriate day for that than Earth Day, especially this year since it was the 40th anniversary of the dedication of a day to our beautiful planet.

I couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate the Earth and to promote capybara awareness than to visit an elementary school to teach tomorrow’s leaders, environmentalist and consumers. They always say that the children are our future and they really are. If they grow up loving the Earth and its inhabitants then there will be room on this planet for all of us, otherwise…well, it’s my opinion that the world won’t be a nice place to live without animals and wild places.

me and my owner with some more kids.

My owner and I had to get up super-early to get to San Antonio for our 8:30 am appointment at Sinclair Elementary School. The drive is about one hour and forty minutes, which is farther than we’ve ever gone before. And we didn’t have Sheldon to accompany us this time so it was just me and my owner having some quality time together in the car. The day was misty and overcast and constantly threatening to rain but we just pretended that wasn’t going to happen.

We got to the school just in time to get everything set up for our first few classes. My owner put my bed down along with a bowl of guinea pig food and some grass, both of which I ignored. I liked the bed though, it gave me a spot to call my own. Ms. Tena Pilcher, the school librarian, organized the whole thing and she did a great job! The kids all came and sat down in rows, then Ms. Pilcher introduced me and my owner. My owner basically did all the talking, the kids weren’t really quiet enough to hear anything I said because my voice is not very loud and it is hard for elementary school kids not to be noisy. So my job was just to be cute, which I excelled at, if I do say so myself. I sat or lay on my bed a lot but occasionally I would walk up to the kids and lick someone’s face or chew on their hair. You should have heard how loud they all got when I did that!

Oh my gosh, those kids had so many questions! And all of them really good ones too. Plus my owner asked them questions. Like if capybaras have four toes on their front feet and three toes on their back feet, how many toes do capybaras have altogether? It’s pretty hard to do that kind of math in your head! Every time she asked it I had to think of that dumb song she made up about me. She also made the kids stretch their brains by trying to figure out what kind of terrible predatory animals eat capybaras in the wild. The kids got really excited about that but it made me nervous.

Wow! Even more kids!

We took a break between each group of students and a really nice woman took me for walks in the yard while my owner gave copies of our book and pawtographs to kids and teachers who had bought them. It is so great to think of all those kids reading my book! And they’ll already know more than Celeste the Cat does at the beginning of the book because they’ve seen me in person and know just how big a “giant hamster” really is! Gosh, I hope they all read the book and love it!

We had about six or seven sessions so that almost all the kids in the whole school got to come spend some time learning about me. Ms. Pilcher said that was about 600 kids! That’s more kids than I have ever seen in one day. That probably would have been good enough but guess what! I let every single one of those kids pet me! Yup, it’s true. After my owner finished talking–actually after Ms. Pilcher told her she was out of time–the teachers lined their classes up and each kid got to walk by and pet me.

A line of kids who got to pet me.

I didn’t even bite anyone, even though they sometimes kind-of mobbed me! Not that I would. I did step on one girl’s feet though. Sorry about that.

We were at the school from 8:30 am until 2:30 pm and had a great time. I was pretty tired at the end of it. After the drive home, my owner and I both took a nice, long nap.

Not a week goes by where something exciting doesn’t happen to me. You might think it is exhausting (I believe this is my owner’s opinion), but I love it! Last week was an especially big one for me. You’ll recall that my Russian stalker, Rezoner, visited. Well, Rezoner [...]]]>

Me at Hill Elementary School

Not a week goes by where something exciting doesn’t happen to me. You might think it is exhausting (I believe this is my owner’s opinion), but I love it! Last week was an especially big one for me. You’ll recall that my Russian stalker, Rezoner, visited. Well, Rezoner wrote a (hopefully) nice post about our meeting. Only it’s in Russian. I have a lot of Russian-speaking fans so if one or more of you could read it and leave a comment here about whether it is nice or not, I would appreciate it. Only I’m sure it is because Rezoner loved me so why would he not write something nice?

I also got to meet a local stalker Bob Cooksey. Bob posted this video of our meeting. Check it out and leave Bob a comment. He’s only gotten two as of this writing and that video surely deserves more.

But that was last week so let’s get to the new news. This week I did two school visits.

Monday I went to the San Marcos Montessori School in San Marcos, Texas. In this visit I met about 30 students, mostly pre-school but some 1st and 2nd graders since Monday was a holiday for a lot of folks. Gosh I had a good time! The kids sat around me in a circle and were very well mannered about taking turns asking questions and petting me.  I have to say, I wish adults were always so well behaved!

The preschool has a pet guinea pig named Sugar and they brought her out to meet me. She is absolutely the cutest thing ever (next to me). After a bit of nose-sniffing, we were like best buds. That is until I stepped on her! I think guinea pigs can squeak even louder than capybaras because you should have heard the noise Sugar made! I didn’t know what was going on and my owner had to pull my paw off of Sugar. I can’t tell you how embarrassed and worried I was. But a few days later we got an email from the school and Sugar is fine. Whew!

Me with Jeff Djayasaputra

Friday I went to Hill Elementary School. Outside the school I met up with my Houston stalker, Jeff Djayasaputra. You can see me with him in the photo above. I guess I could have been friendlier but I really wanted to explore my surroundings. It’s not every day that I go so far north; I wanted to see if there was any of that white stuff called “snow” up there. For better or worse, I didn’t find any.

JJeff is a graphic artist and he brought a gift for me. Look at this wonderful capybara quadrille he created!

Jeff Djayasaputra's Capybara Quadrille

Isn’t that great? I wish capybaras really came in all those colors.

One of the dumb things Sheldon always says is that all capybaras look alike except he can always tell a photo of me. Even so, we were surprised that looking at Jeff’s work, we could tell he didn’t model it on me. Turns out he used a photo of a Japanese capybara. I’m going to take credit for being his inspiration anyway.

Then my owner and I gave a presentation to the entire first grade. Zowie! About one hundred kids all in one room.  But the teachers, especially Jill Clark who invited us and organized the whole thing, kept the kids neatly seated in rows on the floor in front of me and they (generally) very politely raised their hands to ask or answer questions.

Me and my owner talking to kids at Hill Elementary School

I must say, I loved those kids. They totally got my sense of humor. And they already knew a lot about capybaras and rodents in general because their teachers had been covering us that week in school. This video shows the first few minutes of the presentation.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Jill Clark feeding me frozen blueberries

The kids loved seeing Ms. Clark feed me some frozen blueberries. And I thought they were going to explode when I did my “stand” trick for a piece of pear from my owner!

Is there no limit to my cuteness?

I left them some coloring pages and a copy of my book, Celeste and the Giant Hamster, along with a copy of Capyboppy by Bill Peet. Sure would love to see how they colored me and hear what they think of my book! Don’t forget, the winter holidays are coming up and my book makes a perfect gift!)

As I’ve often said (or, more acurrately, as I plan on saying often), being the world’s most famous capybara is a the hardest job I’ll ever love!