Onions, Ferrets and Outright Thievery

I have a thing about onions, and not in a metaphorical sense regarding their many layers. It seems lately I love to eat them in almost anything. Thankfully I have a plentiful supply of toothpaste. If I ever have occasion to indulge in a make-out session, I will be sure to utilize it. That and chewing gum. Cinnamon. Not just because I like the taste, but because it's the strongest flavour and it lasts forever. I'm not actually supposed to chew gum, since I have TMJ and it wears down the joint even further, but for a make-out session? Yeah, I'll make the exception. Hell, I do anyway.

I've been sautéing my onions in extra-virgin olive oil, with a bit of curry and garlic thrown in, and you'd be surprised what can be made palatable by adding these onions. Unless, of course, you have a palate that hates onions. My daughter hates them, but then she's only 23. I used to hate them, too, and couldn't understand it when my grandmother used to say they were sweet. Now I get it.

I add onions to noodle soup packages, omelets, any kind of spaghetti or pasta, boxed macaroni and cheese dinners, potatoes, etc. Nothing escapes the onion! Well, except for dessert-type stuff, of course. I'm not quite that weird.

Maybe it's genetic. My aunt used to eat peanut butter and onion sandwiches. I love peanut butter and banana, despite not being a particular Elvis fan, and I also love peanut butter and sweet pickle sandwiches, but I've yet to try the peanut butter and onion thing. I might have to one day if this predilection keeps up. Right now it kind of makes me shudder.

Earlier today I even added a bit of vinegar into the mix, and then put it together with a chicken-flavour noodle soup package. While I was cooking my one ferret, Pepper, was feeling really left out, though, and decided that if he wasn't getting any of what I was cooking for myself, then he would happily partake of my sock, which just happened to be encasing my foot at the time. He didn't manage to get a real bite in, because I know my boy pretty well. He finally subsided after some mild scolding, and proceeded with additional mayhem in the form of thievery.

Ferrets are natural thieves, and their name is derived from furittus, which is Latin for little thief. They have a long history of criminal tendencies and behaviour, so there is little surprise in my house when something gets swiped. However, since Pepper was neutered he's more crazy than ever. I know the anatomical reasoning behind it, but it sure makes things interesting around here in the meantime, while we wait for his brain to catch up with the fact that his testicles have been removed.

Suddenly Pepper has decided that the cats' food dish belongs to him, along with everything else he's been hoarding the last week or so. This is a big, dog-size dish mind you. The ferrets have their own which is exactly the same - I have four (two for food and two for water). However, Pepper obviously feels one dish simply isn't enough. He doesn't seem to care about the food that's inside it. He just wants the dish. So he clamps his teeth on the bottom edge and drags it off, food and all, into a little playhouse I made for the boys out of empty boxes.

This morning was my first notice of the food-dish thievery, actually. He's never done it before. I went to change the water for the cats, as well as top up their kibble, when I noticed there was no kibble and no kibble dish. I looked everywhere for it, thinking that Pepper might have shoved it around somewhere while he was playing. I couldn't find it. My daughter suggested that he might have stolen it, and I think she was actually joking, but it turned out she was right.

I put the dish back, filled it up really full to give it extra weight, and hoped this wasn't some new habit of Pepper's. My hope is now gone. He's stolen the dish at least twice since then. Of course, being as full as it was, he managed to spill a bit of the food. So, there I was with broom in hand to clean it up. Now, anyone who has ever had to clean with ferrets in the house already knows where I'm going with this.

Try sweeping your floor while having a small animal attacking the broom. Everything you sweep up gets scattered again. Then there's the laughter-factor. There is nothing funnier than watching a ferret go crazy over something. It doesn't matter what it is. Standing there, laughing my head off, sweeping and re-sweeping the same bits of food, it made me realize that the only thing I actually like about cleaning is when my ferrets make it so difficult for me. I don't get much done, but it's a blast while it's happening.