Me with Alex (aka Rezoner)

Did anyone ever tell you never to meet someone you know from the internet in person? Gosh, I blew that warning to shreds this weekend! Do you see that photo above? That is me sitting on the couch with my friend Alex, aka Rezoner. Rezoner and I “met” when I was just a baby ‘bara and only had a MySpace page to my name. In fact, Rezoner found me through my owner’s old blog, possibly from the very first reference to me on the internet EVER.

I call Rezoner my Russian stalker. He’s not really a stalker though, he’s just a fanatic–I mean fan. And he lives in Boston, not in Russia. And I have lots of Russian fans when it comes down to it. But since he was my very first Russian fan, he gets to keep the title, caveats aside.

Anyway, Rezoner had to come to San Antonio this weekend for a conference and so we finally got to meet in person! You can see by the photo above that we really hit it off. The photo below shows why.

Rezoner offering me a bowl of blueberry yogurt.

Let it never be said that my affection cannot be bought by treats! Plus, look at this, he brought a stuffed capybara named Carpincho with him.

Me with Carpincho

You may remember Carpincho from my post about capybaras at Moscow zoo. You can imagine how surprised I was to see Carpincho. That toy capybara is a serious world traveler!

You might think that was enough excitement, and it sure would have been, but there was even more in store for me. Two new admirers showed up. Shruti from my owner’s work and Shruti’s husband Vikram came over to my house too! We had a serious party going on.

Me, Carpincho, Rezoner, Shruti & Vikram

You can see the party was (naturally) centered on me.  I loved that. Everyone was petting me and giving me treats. This is the life.  I really thought it couldn’t get any better…but it did!

My owner and Sheldon, who was also there for the party, put my harness on me and the whole lot of us went out to the creek. It rained again and the creek was full to the brim.

The water in Capybara Creek was cold so I had to ease myself in

It was actually deep enough for a serious swim.

Me swimming in Capybara Creek

Look how much room I had to roam around in.

Me in Capybara Creek--and this isn't even the deep part

If it hadn’t been so cold, they never would have gotten me out!

These little plants are quite tasty

The plants on the bank were almost irresistable. They weren’t there a couple of weeks ago. This rain stuff is pretty amazing. It fills the creek with water to swim in and the ground with food to eat. Wow!

So you’d think that would be it, wouldn’t you? What a day I’d had already. But it was getting to be lunch time and we all piled into cars and headed to Austin Java for a quick bite.

You’ll never guess but I met two more friends there. Bob Cooksey is someone I’d been trying to meet up with for a while. He was at work downtown and managed to spend his lunch hour with us.

Me with Bob Cooksey at Austin Java

It was great meeting him! Of course, he loved me. Maybe someday someone will be disappointed when they meet me but it hasn’t happened yet.

And my friend @FabiolaThrasher (aka Etienne) whom I’d met at my birthday party was there too. Wow. My owner didn’t get any photos of me with her so I’m kind-of mad about that.

Of course, I met lots of new friends too.

Me and my owner at Austin Java

I even did a few tricks for them. Can you see that I am standing in the photo above? It’s not a big stand, I’ll only do that for yogurt. But I will do a trick in public for a pear. I also shook hands but only with my owner.

So what a weekend! I hope every one of my readers had as good a time as I did. And maybe someday I’ll get to meet you all. What a party we could have!