Guardian Dragon: Mushu

Picture time. There much more interesting than my rambling lol.

Mushu checking out his new window sill.

Thor around the time we got him.

We wouldn't let him eat my hoodie...

Sweater Thor.

Last week when we went to see him.

Bella when I got in from my days off. She was happy to see me lol.

Eating. It's weirdly cool to watch.

The day we brought her home... yesterday.

Lake Saguaro in Phoenix.

Just a thing that made my day...

I'm glad you and AJ are back together, what a drag you couldn't stay in Phoenix, though. Life happens when you least expect it and it's not always good. I'm so sorry about your baby, but glad they found the cyst. Thanks for the update!

I'm also glad you still have Mushu and Bella (that's the name of my dog). And hopefully you get your dog back soon, too.

Can't wait to see pictures!

Wow. :shock: It sounds like your life has been really chaotic. I hope things will get better for you now.

Mushu looks none the worse for wear, and seems to be enjoying his new window. Bella is beautiful, and Thor looks very sweet too. Hopefully you will be able to bring him back to live with you soon.

Our first (and so far only) snake was almost a ball python, but we ended up getting a corn snake instead. He managed to survive our inexperience with some difficulty, and he's 15 years old now.

Having your own place and a job you love should help. I know that's made a huge difference for my husband and me, although I'm the disabled one in our case. I hope AJ will be able to figure out what's wrong and get himself some real healing and recovery -- it may actually be a blessing in disguise that Vicodin doesn't work for him, because too many people seem to be getting addicted to those narcotic pain meds these days.

I was born in Arizona, but I was only about 2 years old when my family moved back to California where most of my mother's side of the family lived, and I spent the next 30-odd years of my life there before moving to Alaska. We still have some friends in Phoenix, but I've never been back there since then. We'd compare notes about the temperatures in our letters, and triple digit temperatures in the summer sounded just as outrageous and inhumane to me as temperatures well below freezing in the winter sounded to them. :wink:

sweetiepie9":jqa7u067 said:

I'm glad you and AJ are back together, what a drag you couldn't stay in Phoenix, though. Life happens when you least expect it and it's not always good. I'm so sorry about your baby, but glad they found the cyst. Thanks for the update!

I'm also glad you still have Mushu and Bella (that's the name of my dog). And hopefully you get your dog back soon, too.

Can't wait to see pictures!

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Me too, I honestly couldn't tell you what I was thinking when I left. I did love Arizona, but Phoenix wasn't for me. I'm a country girl. I hate people being able to tell me what pets I can and can't have. My current landlord is throwing a fit over Mushu (something about him scratching the floors) and I HATE it. I just posted all the pictures I have at the moment but I'll take more soon.

SHBailey":jqa7u067 said:

Wow. :shock: It sounds like your life has been really chaotic. I hope things will get better for you now.

Mushu looks none the worse for wear, and seems to be enjoying his new window. Bella is beautiful, and Thor looks very sweet too. Hopefully you will be able to bring him back to live with you soon.

Our first (and so far only) snake was almost a ball python, but we ended up getting a corn snake instead. He managed to survive our inexperience with some difficulty, and he's 15 years old now.

Having your own place and a job you love should help. I know that's made a huge difference for my husband and me, although I'm the disabled one in our case. I hope AJ will be able to figure out what's wrong and get himself some real healing and recovery -- it may actually be a blessing in disguise that Vicodin doesn't work for him, because too many people seem to be getting addicted to those narcotic pain meds these days.

I was born in Arizona, but I was only about 2 years old when my family moved back to California where most of my mother's side of the family lived, and I spent the next 30-odd years of my life there before moving to Alaska. We still have some friends in Phoenix, but I've never been back there since then. We'd compare notes about the temperatures in our letters, and triple digit temperatures in the summer sounded just as outrageous and inhumane to me as temperatures well below freezing in the winter sounded to them. :wink:

Click to expand...

It's been an adventure to say the least.

I'm actually a bit worried about Mushu right now. He's been super dark and cranky for a few days now. I'm hoping it's just the time of year or the new place, but I have a bad feeling. I want to take him to Cornell to see the vet, but we barely have enough money to feed ourselves right now.

We have a Cinder Corn snake at work right now who's the sweetest thing. I'd take them all home if I could. I told AJ working at a pet store is simultaneously the coolest and hardest thing EVER.

We think it might be sciatica he's a big guy and tends to over work himself. 12 hours shifts and all. I'm supposed to be the unhealthy one and I'm really worried about him.

Alaska?! I couldn't do it. Snow is the devil. And I actually really enjoyed the heat as long as I could go home to air conditioning lol. But our first day there was 120 degrees out, and I think I could do without the sunburn (my first one!)

I just fed Bella yesterday and complete forgot to take pictures! Oops.

I sure understand about not having any $. I did a GoFundMe when Castiel got really sick, turned out to be a bruise but at least I was able to get him to the vet with the funds I raised. You should do that, too. I put it on my Facebook page as well as a few rescue sites I belong to on Facebook. It worked and I got enough to get him to the vet.

I really enjoyed the pictures. Is Thor staying with a friend. The landlord doesn't allow dogs? I'm sorry he's not able to be with you but glad that he's close enough to visit.

I hope AJ gets better soon. I've had sciatica and I know how much it hurts. Heat helped me alot and then it went away. Hopefully that's what happens with AJ.

Being retired I know all about NOT HAVING MONEY .... being retired and fortunately effectively debt free and not having to give money away to a landlord , you have to budget and make sure there is always a bit stashed aside for emergencies .

My pet lizards get the best of everything - I spare no expense wrt to high quality food for them (ie silkworms as well as their crickets & greens for the beardies , and live French cultivated eating snails + silkworms + crickets for my bluetongues + greens and veg and berries) , and I have some money set aside for emergencies (of the vet kind JIC).

Mushu would probably be abnormal if he was not experiencing at least a little bit of "relocation stress" after all the moving around that his family has done recently. Hopefully that's all it is, and if so, he should get better once he's had a chance to get used to his new surroundings.

I've noticed that vet techs and pet store employees often seem to acquire a small zoo of their own. It seems to be an occupational hazard. :wink: I guess it's pretty hard to resist the temptation to fall in love with the special ones and take them home with you.

Corn snakes come in so many different colors and patterns now that it's hard to keep up. Ours is a "red albino" (aka amelanistic). I think he was probably the product of a so-called "double het cross" because when we got him at the pet store he was in an enclosure with at least half a dozen other little hatchlings the same size, and some white with a faint normal pattern and some dark, and at least one other the same color as he is. I didn't know much about corn snake genetics at the time, and I saved that chapter in the book for last because I was more concerned about learning what I needed to know to keep him happy and healthy (temperature, humidity, food, etc.) than I was about what color he was. But knowing now what I didn't know then, and assuming he was with his siblings, that's what I figure, although we didn't get a pedigree or anything like that.

Funny thing about money -- it seems to be a whole lot easier to spend too much of it than it is to earn enough of it. We try to save as much as we can, but we try to do the best we can for our reptilian "babies" (we have no human children). I'm no longer able to work, and my husband's career got off to a late start and then got derailed a couple of years ago. He now has a job that he loves, but he works for a non-profit and they can't afford to pay him what he's worth. So far we're able to just barely make ends meet as long as we're careful.

I think snow is beautiful, but only just so long as I don't have to go out in it. Out the window, sitting in front of the heater with a cup of hot chocolate -- that's how I like to enjoy snow. And I like my hot chocolate real thick...
It's nice to cuddle a sleepy beardie on a winter day, too. :love5: