[The bad parent diaries]
Phil took the ferrets to his clinic yesterday and found out that Felix has a bladder stone the size of a grain of sand and has probably been in pain (when he pees, at least) for a while. And Gonzo has two dead teeth (one that chipped off when he took a fall from the balcony a couple of years back). Other than that, they're both healthy for their ages (almost four, which is middle-aged in ferret years). Felix can be treated with fairly unobtrusive antibiotics, luckily.

The really weird thing is that ferrets don't act sick when they're sick, which is part of the problem, I guess. Felix has acted completely normal since we've had him. He always plays, he's alert, he never makes pained noises or anything. Right now, for instance, they're both going nuts on the couch, and we have been playing non-stop for the past half-hour. Our clue was that Felix's urine was sometimes dark, which Amber said was probably blood. We waited longer than the we should have to get it checked out. Money has a little to do with that; we were saving up for the big move. And then, when we got here, we just weren't sure which vets to trust with ferrets. Just because a clinic says they treat ferrets, doesn't mean their doctors necessarily know much about them. Lucky for us, one of the vets at Phil's clinic really has dealt with ferrets and is knowledgeable, so that's a relief.

Anyway, I'm sure he'll be fine.

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The friendly neighborhood mailman just brought Lighthousekeeping to me. I'm a chapter in, and it's superb. No killing bugs with this one.