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 [...]]]>

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 wrote a (hopefully) [...]]]>

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!