Hamsters And A Carol+Alphie Neutered

So here is the hamster update (for anybody who really cares): Monty got out three times including two weeks when I caught her scrambling across the bedroom floor, pitter patter. During the missing, tell tale clues: nuts and wall scratchings.  Foxy now awol for one week and not a trace. I think she's gone.  When Monty disappeared, Madeleine devastated so we got Foxy then Monty found and two hamsters or one for each kid. All good. Then Foxy gone and Monty's cage second to the Habitrail, pictured, so Monty back to the Habitrail from Eitan's room to Madeleine's room. See the problem?  Oh, boy. The simple solution, as I indicate from time to time: "chuck 'em in the street." 


Last night kids carols at the local and Eitan and Madeleine and their school chums belt out Christmas cheer. The teachers, too, dress up in red and colour to serenade us, the parents of the neighborhood.  I try to keep a low profile while Sonnet chats and makes eye-contact with the Shakespeares (Madeleine in particular peeps over rows of uncombed heads).  Between songs,  the chosen read about baby Jesus or the Holy Mary or Bethleham or whatever. Eitan's name probably disqualifies him since otherwise he participates in the "Challenge of the Books" with three others chosen from his year. Jesus was a Jew, wasn't he?  We are entertained by the recorders and, in a coup de grace, the trumpets conclude the evening. Oy, vey.


Madeleine: "Alphie is getting neutered tomorrow."
Me: "Do you know what neuter means?"
Eitan: "It is when they cut your balls off."
Me: "Poor dog, he'll never be the same again, will he?"
Eitan and everybody cracking up: "You said 'willy'!"