After the Holidays. . .

Here I am resting after the holiday season. We are very lucky, because while everyone around us is taking down their decorations we have one

visitor left to come from the mainland, so we're leaving ours up for a few days until she can see them. So, I get a few extra days of Christmas cheer.

The holidays did interfere a little with my schedule (the one I mentioned briefly the other day). But it was lots of fun to have pretty lights and music, fun movies to watch with the family, and loads of extra treats to sample. So I really don't mind if the fun continues for a while longer.

But I want to tell you a little more about my schedule, because it is such an important part of my life, and I try to adhere to it every day.

As I said, the day starts at 7:30 am when I toss my little dish and inform the family that I am ready for breakfast. After I finish breakfast, I toss it again and they usually let me have a few more pellets. And if I am very lucky and work very hard at being very cute, sometimes I get a third helping. However, I can't be too upset because I also get a tiny leafy green salad at breakfast time, and that is always a welcome treat. So I'm on pretty good behavior until the salad is presented at my station under the end table next to the couch in the living room.

After breakfast is Exercise Time: it is when I do the Around the Living Room Dash, or Jump onto the Dining Room Chairs; I also have fun Running Through my Plastic Tube, which I think is my favorite. And I am currently working on a new one, the Standing High Jump, in which I stand perfectly still and then jump as high as I can. The humans were astounded when I almost cleared the top of the couch two days ago.

Incorporated into Exercise Time is another little game I love to play, which bears a little explanation. You know, I really love my family and they are very generous with me, but sometimes it's so much fun to aggravate them I can't resist. That's why at some point in the morning we always have Irritate the Humans time. It usually consists of jumping on top of the credenza near the dining room table, munching the palm tree in the living room when I know I should leave it alone, or (and this is loads of fun because they really get mad) I climb up on the glass-top end table and push the box of Kleenex off onto the floor. Then I settle in on top of the table for a well-deserved rest.

Here I am, having pushed the box off

and having a bit of a snooze.

After Exercise Time, I have my first of several Hay-Munching breaks. I sit in my box and nibble as much hay as I can. And then I put myself to sleep for my first nap of the day, and that lasts until the Lunch Salad.

I have to get up about a half hour before Lunch Salad Time, because I like to sit and watch through the pass-through in the kitchen to make sure the family is actually preparing the salad. I don't take any chances - I don't want them to forget! So I sit in plain view of the kitchen and try to look as intimidating as I can.

After lunch is a very, very important part of the day: it is Flop On My Side Under the Chair time. After lunch, I do this every day, and I nap on my side for about two hours. It is very restful, and when I get up, it is time for the Second Hay Munch time of the day.

Around 4:00 pm, C.J. Rabbitt goes into his room to play his keyboard. I have heard countless stories of how Blackberry Rabbitt, my esteemed predecessor, used to follow him into the room and sit at his feet for two hours while he played and played.

I, however, do not share in Blackberry's appreciation of music, and so I head for the dining room chairs, climb up and close my ears and try to sleep. "Try" is the operative word.

But then at 6:30 it is Big Salad Time, and after I groom myself thoroughly, I sit and watch dinner being prepared. I like it at exactly the same time and same place every night. The thing that is really exciting about this time is that I get an Extra Special Treat: we live in Hawaii, so I get a little piece of fresh papaya or mango, sometimes a little apple or cherry, and I also get a flower from either our hibiscus or our jasmine plants that grow right out on our own balcony.

Then we have Improve Your Mind time: the family watches a game show, and we all try to guess the answers. I guess my mind is improving, because I'm getting much better at it. I'm also trying to show my humans that I like them more and more, because sometimes I sit at their feet, and for the past few nights I have actually jumped up on the couch with them for a few minutes and I've allowed them to pet my forehead.

So that brings us up to the end of the evening, and there has been a very remarkable development since New Year's: first, let me explain that on New Year's Eve, everyone stayed up late, there were late night snacks and the house had lots and lots of pretty candles around, and the light was very beautiful. Well, the candles are still there, and the humans have decided that I can have an extra candle-light salad at bedtime, so now when I see the candles being lit at night, I know I'm going to get a little extra salad, and I get very excited and romp around the room kicking up my hind legs.

So now, right before I put myself to bed under the end table every night, I get to have a nice salad with pretty candle-light all around. As I put myself to sleep, it's hard to imagine a luckier bunny than I am.

Bonne Année from,

Desirée de Rabbitt