RADAR AND HER FAMILY

                                                            

We've had a long love and affinity for BUNNIES.   When we were first married, Chris knew I loved and missed having a pet in the house, and so surprised me with a precious pink-and-white baby rat.   She lived in an aquarium in aspen shavings, with a mylar-silver coffee-sack as her hidey-home, and traveled with us everywhere.   She'd travel in a charming small birdcage, and I'd sweep grandly into whatever motel we were occupying, with a scarf draped over her little house.   She was very easy to support---a tiny leftover from whatever our lunch/dinner was, her licky-water bottle, and whenever we got out of the car for any length of time in the Summer, we'd stand two or three icy cans from the drink cooler in her abode, to snuggle on to keep her cool.   We loved and cared for a succession of those little girls, for when one seemed to be gently easing into her last days, he'd being home a baby---Seven in all we had, over those first years.  

But before Penelope (christened PeePee forever by Daughter Two, when she immediately peed into her hand on first meeting)---there were Bunnies.  We lived in a tiny "mill" house in a charming little town on the Alabama line, and one cool evening near Easter when Chris came home from making calls on clients, our hug included a "Reach into my Pocket."    I obligingly reached into his blazer pocket, and encountered the softest, warmest little creature---she was white with a perfect little raccoon mask on her eyes and lop ears.   Due to the ears and the fact that MASH was playing in the background when he came home, her name was immediately RADAR.  He'd stopped by the local Rabbit Man's farm and picked her up for me.

And Radar loved living in that little house with the fabulous screened porch---she'd spend her days out there in the sunshine, and slept in her bin in the bathroom; the big old clawfoot-tub made a great hidey-space beneath til she got too tall to be comfortable under there.   We almost had to pay for renovations on that house---in the night, she would walk up to the bathroom wall, gently gnaw loose a piece at the bottom of the wallpaper, and start backing up, tearing that inch-sized strip toward the ceiling clean as a carpenter.   And WIRES!!!   Back then only our phones had charger-wires, and her great joy was to nip one in half and just keep walking.   And her HATE for a broom was lethal---she'd grab the bristles in her teeth, I'd swing the broom gently up in the air, and she'd hang on to give it an enormous KICK with her hind feet.  

Chris one day brought her home a Husband---a much larger long-hair Lop, and she had three babies in her bin in the tub.   The first one kinda escaped out into the tub, and was named Houdini; I was such a mystery fan we named the next two WhoDunnit and Sherlop.      And when we moved down to the coast, with a big yard, Radar's five babies with LONG hair like their Daddy were named Samson, Fabio, Rapunzel, Godiva and CrystalGale.   They found nice homes with neighbors and kin when we moved up here, and I 'spect there's a line of long-haired Lop-Ears still flourishing in LA (Lower Alabama in Chris parlance).