Attack of the river otter

We are building a new exhibit in the aquarium called the Ozark Stream. We will be putting mammals on display for the first time. One of my friends was appointed the lead over mammals. She has worked for wildlife rehab places quite a bit. We have two raccoons, two beavers and just received our second river otter, a male. We purchased him from a wildlife supplier for $3000. He is 3 years old and was living in Canada working for a carnival. Apparently he was taught how to snow ski!

We received our female in September. She was captive-born, but not tame. She was just getting used to handlers getting in the tank with her. But, when she wanted to play she would nip them. Otters have big pointy teeth! Like a bobcat. They started wearing lower leg guards made for snake protection.

When the male arrived from the airport we put him in a tank that was converted into a kennel. He played and was so happy. People could pet him and he was so friendly. A chain link fence divided the tank so each otter was separated. This week they removed the fence for a short time so they could get "acquainted". They had been playing with each other by running along the fence and swimming in the water tank.

Greg filmed their first visit. The first thing the male did was hump her. We think it was his first experience being around a female. She growled and fussed at him. After a few minutes they separated them.

Penny is the mammal handler. Since then when she would go in his side to clean and feed he would start nipping her. Then he reached up and took a huge bite of her inner thigh. She screamed and blood was pouring out. It took a month for the bite to close up and the bruise to fade. The second time she got in wearing a wet suit and he put his mouth on her knee. They told her to stand still. She did and he bit her foot. They thought he was curious about her wetsuit. Now each time she gets in he runs to her, "mounts" her leg and bites her. He won't be distracted from her. Even when feeding him his favorite food: horse meat. She was stuck in the tank today and couldn't get out because his mouth was on her leg. She said she started hyperventilating and freaking out.

I've been upset for her, but I don't think the two head biologists take it seriously enough. They haven't seen it happen. Today she told them she refuses to get in the tank with him. I told her she should tell THEM to get in with the male. Except he doesn't bite men.

We've told her she is the male otter's bitch.

Surprise and BIG SURPRISE

My cousin, Joanna, who inspired me to start this blog emailed me to say she had a 30 hour layover in Tulsa. She is a flight attendant on American; her blog is Tales from a Sky Mom and is hilarious. Her sister, Deborah, came along with her. Deb teaches English at Jasper HS in Plano and recently won Teacher of the Year. I can't be more proud of these women. That's my first surprise, getting to spend the day with them.

The first thing they asked me after getting in my car was, "What's the big surprise you mentioned in your blog?" When I get busy, I get tired and even posting on my blog is too tiring. That's the sucky part of being 54. However, I probably would have done the same thing if I were still 34 or even 24. Stamina has never been one of my strong points. So, the BIG SURPRISE!

I'm going to be a mother-in-law. I'm getting the best daughter you could ever ask for!

Greg finally asked Jennifer to marry him over Thanksgiving. It is such a cool story. I'm so proud of Greg for being so romantic and clever.

Here's the story:

Jennifer is absolutely nuts about Disney. Her parents took her to WDW every year. She worked a semester at Epcot selling turkey legs and pop. (BTW, don't eat the ice at those food stands). We asked them to go with us to WDW over Thanksgiving so Greg decided that was the place to ask her. He thought and agonized over how to do it. He asked Jennifer what her favorite place was: Planet Earth at Epcot. He decided he didn't want to ask her with crowds all around. That was out. (But Jennifer told me and Allie that she thought something was up when Greg asked her that. I had to keep silent because I knew his plans). He consulted with Darin, our catering mgr at work. Darin worked 16 years for Disney and suggested the restaurant on top of the Contemporary Resort.

Greg came up with the idea of a boat cruise and was amazed that they still had boats available since it was high season. He rented a pontoon boat with a driver for the fireworks finale over Magic Kingdom.

The first day we went to Epcot and as we passed Planet Earth and nothing happened Jennifer was disappointed. After all, she had not worn any rings on her left hand for a couple of months. She was prepared for this proposal!




Jennifer has a cheapo Princess crown she wore at her last visit to WDW in May. She and her friend got lots of free stuff because of their crowns. Greg told her Wednesday would be at Magic Kingdom and it would be princess day. Allie and I bought crowns. Mine was an expensive crystal crown more like the queen I am. When you are with Jennifer you skip through the parks, and sing and cavort, et al. We got lots of stares. Kinda like those are stupid people. Little kids were fascinated though. It was loads of fun. Greg was really cranky.

Backtrack a few days. Greg took his dad with him to shop for the ring. He found the perfect one and paid a deposit. Harvey hired him to do web design and he made enough money to pay for the ring. I went with him to pick it up. I wrote the check for it and he wrote a check to me so Jennifer wouldn't notice the money gone from the checking account. Greg had been bragging about how nice it was to have so much money in his account. Jennifer was disappointed because she thought "the proposal" wasn't in the near future. Greg had to lie to her about his whereabouts and that about killed him, lying to Jennifer! I offered to bring the ring with us so she wouldn't find it. Then, Greg asked Jennifer if she wanted to pack together. She was sad because she thought again, no ring.


So Greg was cranky trying to hide all his plans from her. He dropped us off at Downtown Disney and they took the car to the condo to change for dinner. He kept having to make secret phone calls to us because he didn't know the ring was in the safe. Then he couldn't find the safe. Then he had to ask Jennifer for directions to the Contemporary. Then the guard gave away the secret that they were going on the Fireworks cruise.

During the fireworks finale he asked her to stand up. He got on his knees and asked her to marry him. The ring box had a little light in it so she could see the ring.
The rest of the trip she kept showing off her ring.



And we talked about weddings the rest of the trip. I'll be writing about The Wedding the rest of the year. It's October 12th.

Dad's Christmas Present to Me

My dad will be 80 years old in 2008. He was married to my mom for 55 years before she died. He always struggled buying her a Christmas present. Sometimes I just told him what to buy, or I took him shopping. Buying any kind of present was not a priority in his life. Until he became a widower.

His first Christmas alone we started walking together at the mall. He agonized over what to buy each family member for Christmas. I shopped with him to help him with his ideas. The second Christmas was a little easier for him. After that he shopped on his own and seemed to enjoy the process. Except the spending his money part.

He says the hardest present to find was the one for me. Two Christmases ago he bought me and Allie beautiful diamond necklaces. I was so touched. He didn't spend a lot of money on them, but it was a lot for him. Last year he bought me a diamond tennis bracelet with a real garnet clasp. I try to wear it around him as much as possible. The diamonds are tiny chips clustered together to make them look bigger.

This year was the best present yet. He drives by a trophy store every day and wondered what it was like inside. He went in and got the idea of giving me a trophy. The picture above is the present. Isn't that the sweetest thing! I love it and treasure it.

Big Puffer and little puffer bites that hand that feeds them

Honeycomb moray eel

It has been such a long time since I posted on this blog. I have so much news, but I will have to take a little time, sit down and write!

The Friday, October 26th post was all about puffers. I talked about diving the next day in the Reef. Big puffer bit me. It hurt so bad I screamed under water, then looked around embarrassed and realized that no one could hear me. It hurt so bad I could hardly clean. I was trying to feed our new moray eels. You have to entice them with small fillets of fish, wave them around in front of them to get them to come out and eat. As I took each fillet out of the food container I would wrap them in my hand to keep the big fish from swooping in and grabbing the food. Big puffer came up from underneath me and grabbed my index finger thinking it was food. He doesn't have teeth or a beak, but grinding plates that allows him to crush shells. My finger was numb for a week and sore for a month.

There was a little girl (about 4 yrs old) that watched my dive through the whole 45 minutes. I kept waving at her. I could tell she was fascinated. After I finished the dive I walked down to the door in my wet, cold wet suit. She came running over to talk to me. Her grandmother told me she saw me get bit.

Yesterday I was diving and was told to hand feed little puff. I had two mussels in the shell. I was fumbling trying to take the meat out of the shell and he got too excited to wait and bit the tip of my left thumb. It didn't hurt that much. Now the only thing left is to get bit by a moray. Don't won't to experience that because they have to cut open the bite and leave it open because of infection. Makes an ugly wound.

Harvey says he hates the thought of getting bit by something. It doesn't bother me much. I haven't worked with the water snakes and anacondas yet. I do have a little fear of their bites. After I get bit (if I ever do) I won't be as concerned with it. There are some people who get bit, cut, hurt, etc. I'm one of those people. Just stupidly unafraid. Wait till I post the story of my two broken finger tips that are now healing.

Diving in a Shark Tank

The best part of my job is diving. Each and every time I dive I think that I can't believe I'm getting paid to do this. We dive every Thursday morning in the shark exhibit tank to vacuum and clean. I'm off on Thursdays but I love diving so much that I volunteer as a diver each and every time I can.

We drop a big net into the tank and move all the sharks to the far side of the tank. There are two people on each side of the tank holding the net against the walls and watching for sharks. One person holds a long PVC pipe to move the sharks away from the net. If a large shark gets over or under the net the dive watch bangs two metal weights together to alert the divers.

I was by myself cleaning next to the tunnel when I heard a strange metallic sound. Any type of noise alerts you to stop breathing (the bubbling from your regulator is very loud) to look and see around you. I looked up to see the 300 lb lemon shark rolling in the net. She was about 10 feet away from me and had caught herself in the net with her teeth. There is always an adrenaline rush when you realize a shark is in the tank. I swam up and over the net to alert the other two divers when I realized no one on top had noticed. I surfaced and yelled that a shark was in the tank then descended to find the other two. By that time they had swam over the tunnel. We sank to the bottom to wait and see where the shark would swim. She swam past us, at the edge where we get out. Just as she passed we started to swim to the edge just as she made a sharp 180 degree turn toward us. We stopped swimming, sank back down and waited for her to pass. Usually someone on top takes a pole to maneuver her away from the divers. We swam across the tank and surfaced. We take off our equipment one by one while one diver stays below to watch the shark. We are all calm and cool. But it is so exciting when this happens. We ended the dive then because we were mostly finished.

I love my job!

Navy Yeoman

Received my first real letter from Nick today. He is doing quite well and seems happy. He was made Yeoman in his division. He's in charge of making appointments, paper-work, filing, etc. This cracks me up because he is not a detail person. He loves it because he has more freedom. He said boot camp was not too hard so far, you just have to listen to instructions and pay attention to detail. He says his glasses are horrible. Big black ugly things. Also, he is second oldest in his division of 76 men. Another guy from Tulsa is the oldest at 30.

Porcupine Puffer Fish

We quarantine all new fishes in a separate building before putting them in the aquarium tanks. We treat them for parasites and diseases. We have a large Caribbean Reef with some large fishes including one huge puffer and one small puffer. Big puffer bites little puffer and even took him into his mouth while trying to take his food away from him. Little puffer had to inflate before big puffer would let go. Little puffer's eye was injured and is now blind in one eye. He has been in quarantine for several months. We received a baby puffer recently and has been in quarantine along with little puffer.



Each department has their own name according to what animals they care for. The puffers are cared for by "Warm Salt" (there is cold salt, fresh water, inverts and shark quarantine). Warm salt decided both puffers were ready to be back on display and put them together in one small tank (80 gallons). Baby puffer was happy and swimming around. Little puffer was anxious and breathing hard. He sunk to the bottom of the tank and just lay there. We were all worried about him. He started swimming and kept bumping into the glass so we knew he didn't see well. Until he saw baby puffer. Off he went, like a rocket, and bit baby puffer on his back. We all know what puffers do. He blew up and little puffer had to let go. When baby puffer finally deflated it looked like his hair was ruffled and sticking up, except they are spines. He kind of looked cute, you wanted to stroke his spines down. The biologist intervened a couple of times using a net to keep them apart. She finally had to take little puffer and put him back in the big reef tank and just hope big puffer leaves him alone. He seemed so happy to back in his big tank and away from the boring quarantine tank.

When I dive in the Reef I have to be aware of the big puffer because he is such a bully. We have to feed him at the top before divers get in because he is so aggressive towards food. His favorite food is live crawfish. Once I was moving my hand in the water and it felt like I had touched a cactus then I realized big puffer was following me around. It taught me not to wave my hands around. One of the volunteer divers decided to dive without gloves and insisted he wanted to wear his gold wedding ring. Puffer bit his ring, smashed it and the volunteer had to have his ring cut off.

I'm diving in the reef tomorrow. I'm thinking of taking my underwater camera with me and taking pictures of the people on the outside who will be taking pictures of me. Just think, these visitors have pictures of me in a wetsuit. Yuck! I've got to remember to take my swimsuit back to work so I can wear it under my wetsuit. All of the 20 year olds are buck naked under their wetsuits. They still have these perky boobs and flat stomachs. I have to take an old swimsuit because it has to go in a bleach bath along with my wetsuit and mask. More about this later