Top Bun

In the interest of creating more room in the Smart Pen, the house/lounges became a two story affair. Sydney was the first one to enjoy the top floor. Although not as brave as Tyler when it comes to interacting with humans or breaking into forbidden zones, Sydney is fearless with the vacuum, and   has a greater appreciation for a room with a better view.

Here you see, however, although Sydney is comfortably ensconced,

 she has a visitor and it's getting mighty crowded.

Tyler has his way and chins the edges of the doorway; 

this penthouse is mine.

Tyler installed.

Sydney reminds Tyler 

 she has more spots 

 and always will.

Never Gone

You know that your blog has been neglected when you get Email solicitations from people wanting to write for it. The most recent offered to write for free, if she could put a link into the text. Get you own blog. And there are people wanting to advertise, or have me write something they suggest. Nope, nope, nope. The Qi Papers is a non-profit, free speaking blog.

Sydney concurs

The latest improvement here at the warren is the introduction of the Smart Pen, not my name for it, Paula from Pensicola called it that, and frankly it has a snappy sound. Since our move more than a year an half ago I have been unhappy, nay miserable, with the Xpen on a shower curtain, washable wool and sheet enclosures. They are fussy, the shower curtain moves in mysterious ways baring the rug to teeth and claws. Also the shower curtains are objects of rippage and potential GI blockages if consumed. Even the most careful placement of the pieces never insured full protection. They seemed to take forever to clean and set up.

A bird's eye view of The Spot's Smart Pen unit outfitted with all amenities. 

The Smart Pen is constructed with a Pure Bond Plywood floor with Marmoleum flooring. Purebond is a formaldehyde free plywood and is sold at Home Depot. It is a little more expensive than regular plywood, but a small piece to pay for safe product. Formaldehyde has been linked to cancer risk. Marmoleum is linoleum made from cork. It is a sustainable and non-toxic product and they use a rabbit in one of the banner headers on the website. Again an expensive product, but I got a good deal on  some over stock at a local store. All and all I paid less for materials than for some vet visits I could mention. The railings are pine scavenged, with permission, from a local construction site.
The railings hold the X Pen sides stable over a sheet that is pulled tight through corners left open. It takes less than ten minutes to clean a pen. The other system could take half an hour or more. Mind you that ten minutes does not include dumping and cleaning boxes or laundry. In addition to time savings the Smart Pen safe guards the landlord's carpet better than the previous system.

Corner of Smart Pen, just yank the corners of the sheets though,
drop and the fence and maid service is done.

I made two Smart Pens that are about 40 inches by 60 inches, any larger and moving them would difficult without help. The bunnies are NOT confined 24/7 to their pens, but rather it is home base for litter boxes, hay racks, food and water. Tyler and Sydney's has a couple of cardboard houses. They are confined to their pen at night as Sydney will box with Amelia at 2 a.m., if possible. The other pen is divided in half for Amelia and Harriet, I am hoping this is a prelude to being able to share without a fence between. In future  I plan to extend each unit with module porches and two story boxes.

Adventures in Housing Final Part

On Monday I had two property owners call me about the badness of rabbits as housemates. They bad, they stinky forever, no like 'em.

On Monday I was sure I had a hearing problem because all three of my patients were complaining of right shoulder pain. Words are funny, right and shoulder seem so specific and yet the actual etiology and treatment of each of the shoulders was so different. The first was a patient I'd been treating for a couple months for neck and should pain. He was getting much better between acupuncture, gua sha, cupping, ear seeds and chiropractic adjustments. His shoulder pain stemmed from arthritis in the lower cervical vertebrae caused by a life time of bending over to work. S is an artist, sculptor, welder, fabricator of high degree. I ear seeded him and needled and gau sha'd and sent him on his way. His issue was mainly skeletal.

Next was S's wife C, also a wonderful artist. She is usually a pretty easy fix and her shoulder pain was just a week old. I put in some general "these are are good for the whole body" needles, cranked the heat lamp and let her nap. Later I returned with my gold and silver touch needles. I tried to find a point on the top of shoulder that would release the pain and inhibition of the joint. Usually I can find these points in the first 3 or 4 tries but nothing was helping. She had her shirt off and I had access her whole back. On a whim I pressed on a point at the waist where the trapezium ends, and yes that released the the shoulder. She regained full movement once this point was touched for a couples minutes with the gold needle. She has been working very diligently on her posture through Yoga and using a foam back support/trainer, once again, like S (her husband) repairing a life time of bad posture. It would seem that in the process the muscles have gotten a bit confused. Her issue was based in the muscular system. I've never read or been told about UB23 for shoulder issues, but not everything is in a book, in fact I wonder if most things aren't.

My last patient, who I know from Rabbit Haven, could not move her arm for the shoulder pain. An MD diagnosed her with "Frozen Shoulder" and couldn't elaborate more than that. It had come on her suddenly when reaching backward about a month ago. My understanding is that FS is an adhesion of the shoulder capsule caused by overuse or injury. Since it is also a an insurance code it would seem that it has become a catch all phrase for shoulder pain and movement inhibition. As you may have guessed Rabbit Person's problem was strictly energetic, I treated her very gently, like a rabbit and she got almost %75 movement back. She may regress, but another treatment in a few days will, I hope put her on the path to full recovery. Fingers crossed.....

As it turns out the other part of the duplex that RPs inhabits was vacant and going up for rent. I expressed interest and the next day got an Email saying that the landlord was there and that she had told him about me and he wanted to rent to me. Yes, he knew I had rabbits, just like the RP. I dashed over. The place was perfect, two BRS, a quiet backyard with lemon trees, even a perfect Tai Chi practice area (a heretofore unheard of luxury in my life). It was even built in my birth year and had the the kind of tile I've lived with often over the years, it was like coming home. The landlord was very open to my ideas of non-toxic flooring and carpet, he'd seen Dr. Oz. He knocked $100 off the rent for me. There were washer dryer hook ups and a garage. I had a built in bunny sitter. I rushed off to get the DS. He said it was nice and I introduced him to the RP and one of her amazing bunnies, a crazy looking lion head from another dimension. But when the tire hit the road, DS wouldn't do it, he couldn't make the change, since he is 21 and 6 foot 4, there is no forcing him. I had to let it go. A Pyrrhic victory......with broken heart on the side.

PS Still no word from Clint, his wife Dina or their bunny August.

Adventures in Housing Part Three

You get the general picture inflated prices, greedy prejudiced landlords/property management companies and plenty of competition. I saw a cool little place yesterday, just a couple hours after it had been listed. It was in one of those funny little micro 'hoods that seem like the middle of nowhere in the middle of urban sprawl. Small white unassuming wood house with no less than THREE (3) giant (REALLY BIG) palm trees and a a weeping willow in the back. My rabbits will love eating that willow (not all of it), I thought....Next morning I called to have a look see inside and BOOM it was already spoken for. Not even one day and it was gone. I've seen some horrors in the drive-bys. One place bragged 2BR/2BA, quiet, enormous deck (I imagined bunnies binking amidst an extensive container garden). Ha! the place was socked in the redwoods, never saw the light of day and examination of the deck revealed the beginnings of disintegration. I didn't go inside but am pretty sure I could smell the mould. In a fit of righteous indignation. I Emailed the property company back, just a single word, "shocking", they were asking $1750. Others had more subtle but none the less insurmountable problems. Little house, cute inside, both bedrooms open onto a small yard, both have big sliding glass doors. Looking down onto the little house and really right into the bedrooms are the window eyes of the two story next door. Creepy, no can do. A tall townhouse literally cut like scissors by a two streets meeting at a 30 degree angle. House at the bottom of a ravine, potential landslides and no sun.

There are other factors involved in location, beyond sun and Feng Shui. There is Megan's Law which makes it possible to look up to see if and where the sexual offenders are in the neighborhood. One landlord had the Megan's Law link as part of his app requiring all applicants to be aware of it. When I looked up the address I found a sexual offender just two doors away from the rental. I remarked on this to the landlord and he said it is actually law that ALL landlords inform their tenants as regards Megan's law. So far he has been the only one. I decided not to apply for that rental, but having looked at the sexual offenders map several times checking other properties I seem to have the thing close to memorized....

A couple times I have found possible housing and filled out the app and one time I didn't fill out the app. It asked for the actual numbers of the bank and credit card accounts. This was at an open house and the landlord was there.

"You want the numbers of my accounts?"

"Yes, it's on the form, it was the only one they had at Staples."

"Can I hand it in without the numbers?"

"It would incomplete, I cannot accept incomplete forms."

"OK, well I hope you find the perfect tenant, I really can't give you my numbers."

"OK, well, good luck finding a place."

I walked out dazed, unsure if I had fallen into a Kafka novel or just needed some chocolate.

Another time I found a decent place and the former tenant was running the open house, turns out she had lost her job as a Civil Engineer and was moving into a house her parents had. I had asked her two days before if pets were allowed and she said she had called and not gotten an answer. It cost $30 just to submit an app, I filled it out and paid my money, though in the back of my mind I knew it was throwing pickles down a rat hole.

Not all potential landlords have been anti-rabbit. There was one guy who talked my ear off every time I called who pro-rabbit because his mom had had a house rabbit and she said it was the best pet she ever had. That house was really too far out in the boondocks. Then there was the guy who was a sustainable landscaper and rode a sort of bike cart to all his jobs. He'd turned his yard into a permaculture demo complete with chickens, bees and worm bins. He lived in an apartment in the corner of the house and was eager for rabbits contribute to the worm bin. Unfortunately the DS nixed that place as being too close to where he lives now and wanting to live somewhere more different. One listing I charmed with my Emails and the guy actually called me to say I sounded like such a nice person, just right, but they had decided to take the property off the market for the time being. That one had a persimmon tree in the front, I love looking at persimmon trees when they've lost most of their leaves and fruits hang, orange, sweet and promising........

Adventures in Housing Part Two

California and Santa Cruz in particular, though maybe not as much say New York City, is a housing nightmare. Real estate prices are intense to say the least. To buy an small empty lot by the railroad tracks on the lower Westside costs $419,000. There is a house around the corner going for a million bucks. It used to painted purple but got a color lift to mauve for the sale. There is nothing special about it, it is on a small lot and the basement has been renovated so it could be rented to students or person sans green card. Renters can expect to pay an average of $900 per bedroom. For a single studio type situation it's about $1200. There are up sides though, while most of the country is paying for AC and heating one can actually live uncomfortably without either of these modernities. Having lived without heat for a couple years I can't recommend it, but it is entirely possible. Most landlords feel it entirely within their job description to let you know, without you even looking at the residence whether or not it would suit. I emailed a listing which bragged an office that could be a second bedroom laying out the human and rabbit situation. The response was that there would not be enough privacy for myself and my son. I guess it is only suitable as a second bedroom if it is for the same person as the first bedroom. I would be easy to become despondent, but on the other hand it's hard not to have bit of fun with this. What follows in an actual Email conversation, word for word. Having requested and received a description of a townhouse reduced to $1695 that considered 1-2 well behaved neutered cats OK. I wrote:

I have four well behaved rabbits, all fixed, they are house rabbits......are rabbits considered OK? I can put down extra deposit for them....

thnx

dmoll

The response was:

Four rabbits!!!?? That is the funniest thing I've heard!!!

Rabbits eat wood and wires! This is a very nicely maintained property.

I can't exactly speak for my parents but I believe that while renting people typically have to restrict the number of pets they acquire. How is your income, your credit, and your references for yourself and your rabbits? Is there anyone else in the household other than you and your rabbits?

Then I wrote:

Actually there are millions of people who keep rabbits as pets not for food. Clint Eastwood and his wife Dina have a house rabbit named August. You can see them here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5faVzWUPLk

This is not Clint's first rabbit either as a rabbit is mentioned in this 2008 interview:

http://www.parade.com/celebrity/2008/12/clint-eastwood.html

Yes, some rabbits will chew on unprotected wood and wires. Of course any wires my rabbits got would be mine, but I "rabbit proof" all my wires just in case. They do LOVE telephone wires. As to wood it is easily protected in a variety of ways. Although my rabbits are "house rabbits" they are confined to X-pens when not supervised. I know four rabbits seems like a lot and I started with just one adopted from our local rabbit rescue organization, The Rabbit Haven. It seemed sad that Tyler would be an only bun and lonely while I was at work, so after a couple months I adopted his sister, who was having a hard time finding a home. A year or so later a rabbit from down the street where they are breeding rabbits to eat got loose. She came almost all the to the front door and let me catch her easily. Once in my arms I knew I could never give her back or let anyone else have her. That was number three, Amelia. Harriet showed several months ago, loose the neighborhood. I took her in so she wouldn't catch cold in the rain, advertised, got no response and she became #4. Although I know people with 6, 7.8,9 and even 20 house rabbits, four is a good number for me.....

My income is stable, I recently ran my credit check and there was one negative for a credit card bill that had not yet been received. It has been fully paid at this writing. I work as an Admin. Assist., acupuncturist, and I sell my artwork on-line. Joining me and the rabbits is my son who is a Cabrillo student. References can be obtained for all of the above.

I rather suspect you will not want to rent to me and my rabbits, after all there are some just plain people out there who need housing. If you do decide to to take the chance I think you will not regret it. Having been a landlord myself I feel that I am a timely and respectful tenant.

All Best,

Diana

PS: see the buns here: www.theqipapers.blogspot.com

Of course I haven't heard back, I totally understand why. Since I was in a writing mood I wrote the following letter to the Eastwoods, Clint, Dina and August (the rabbit). Also it was a lie about them being confined to Xpens.....

October 17, 2010

Dear Eastwoods (Clint, Dina and August),

I live in Santa Cruz and have four rescue house rabbits. Recently I have been looking for housing for myself and my son and the rabbits, too. We have encountered a certain amount of prejudice as regards the rabbits and, I suspect, ourselves for having them. Would it be much trouble for one of you to write a letter that supported house rabbits and their caregivers? Or something to that effect, whatever you feel is appropriate. It might really help and would most certainly make the house hunting process a lot more fun.

Thanks so much for your time and consideration,

Diana Moll

PS If you’d like to see pictures of my bunnies check out my blog www.theqipapers.blogspot.com

Adventures in Housing Part One

It may not have helped that while I was in my first house, my mother's womb, all she could think of, or so I imagine knowing her and placing that transparent overlay of history over the past, was moving and going to California. No one from either side of the family had ever even been to California and now my father was going to teach at a university there. Factor in that in the first two months after birth female children have a period of imprinting from the mother's nervous system. I know that when I was two months old my family drove across the country in a brown Rambler station wagon. I can only imagine how hectic the two months before the trip were, a new baby, a new life and the unknown awaited. Excitement, fear, hope....a gamut of emotions poured into my hungry infant nervous system.

Moving indeed seems to have been ingrained into my being, I have lived in 27 different houses. Of course there are people who are connected with the army or other peripatetic cultures who can claim many more, and certainly I acknowledge that I have never been homeless. I marvel at my friend Emily, whom I have known since the fifth grade and who has lived in the same house for her whole life except for 4 years. And then there is Boyfriend who has lived in the same house for 30 years. Admittedly owning a house certainly keeps the moving factor at bay. For a few years I did own a house, but as my house Karma would have it, with the divorce he got the house and I moved on.

And I am moving on again to live with my son while he attends college here in town. It is a bit more complicated than that, but simplicity will have to suffice in this case. The last time I house hunted there was no Craigslist or apartmenthunterz.com or any other internet housing sites. Craigslist lives on toolbar now and it is not uncommon for me to check listings every 20 minutes, just to see what's come up. Certain patterns are beginning to appear. Listings will disappear for a month and pop up again, these I conjecture have something seriously wrong with them, like a rats or creepy neighbors. The language of listings calls for interpretation or a salt shaker. Cosy means small, quaint is rundown, spacious means bigger than a postage stamp. But No Pets means no pets. This last one is a particular stumbling block for a person with 4 rabbits. A couple times listings that said "cats are purr" and "dogs are woof" have informed me that rabbits are not welcome.

I found one really interesting house just around the corner, from the outside it looked strange and awkward, a smallish rectangular footprint, two stories, deck out front and bright blue outside. Inside it was magical with arches and rounded corners, charming windows and and nooks. A stream ran through the back yard and there was space for a good sized vegetable garden. I was in love. It was a little more than I could afford, but big enough so that I could see patients at home and drop my office downtown. The landlord, whose son I had taught in Art class seemed amenable to this latter idea and even suggested I could have a neighborhood Tai Chi class which she would absolutely attend. I could feel the hint of victory just around the corner. Conversation meandered a bit and crashed, she had rented it last weekend but the future tenants hadn't been able to get rid of their pets. Oh, no pets? Turns out she cannot stand the smell of any animal, even after it has vacated the house for say a year. I remember that every time I've seen this women over the years she has just taken a shower, perhaps there is a, err, problem here, I wonder how she bears her teenage son, talk about animal smells!

"Well, that's too bad, my rabbits are very clean and smell really good."

"No animals"

"OK well good luck finding just the right tenant."

I turned adding over my shoulder "You know, Clint Eastwood has a house rabbit." It was the best Parthian shot I could come up with given the circumstances......