Inspector Japp under the weather

Our tiniest bunny, Inspector Japp, who weighs only about 1,2 kilos and is over 8 years old, has fortunately been free of illness and worries for the past six years. (Rowan's never been sick at all, but Japp got headtilt - an often fatal infection in rabbits - when he was young and miraculously survived because he was able to get treatment fast enough.)

Buuuuut Sunday night he was sitting weird and acting weird - lounging oddly with his belly stretched against the floor and putting his forepaws right in his water bowl. It seems this is a sign of GI stasis, ie that the bunny digestive system has stopped, and this is fatal to bunnies in under 24 hours typically; they are designed to be moving all the time in small amounts as they graze. So we cleaned out his cage and put the bedtime salad in with his favorite treats (sprigs of fresh basil) and he didn't eat it overnight, which meant emergency phone call to the vet at 8 am! I duly carried him there on the bus since their first opening was at 10.45 and Wax was at work already and couldn't drive us.

Bunnies are such nervous little prey animals that traveling out in unfamiliar sights and sounds is already quite upsetting for them and he had an elevated heartrate the whole time, but the doctor found his abdomen was soft which indicated no serious blockages. This leaves the possibility that he ate something which disagreed with him somehow, or else failed to eat because he was in some minor pain that we couldn't find (he was examined and found free of wounds and obvious joint and muscle stiffnesses). It's not a great idea to do a bunny ultrasound or x-ray unless the chance of success is thought to be high, because it's so stressful for them and bunnies can literally die of fright (usually from predators in the vicinity - this happened to some of Japp's relatives when they were safe in covered cages out of doors! But of course they don't know that the hutch is a sturdy enough barrier against hawks or foxes or whatever).

So our vet gave Japp subcutaneous fluids, a light painkiller, and a digestive stimulant to hopefully get him eating again under his own steam, and then we drove to the nearest vet hospital big enough to keep bunny and rodent recovery food in stock (it's a powdered nutritionally balanced grass that you mix with water and can dribble into their mouths with a syringe when they're sick as long as they won't eat themselves. Japp had to eat this way a whole week when he had headtilt. Ughhh). That was a bit more than half an hour away. After another dose of the digestive stimulant, he was happy to nibble his favorite herbs - basil and thyme - and eventually even agreed to eat some lettuce leaves, but he seems to have not eaten more than a few little bits of hay. Leafy greens and herbs aren't BAD for bunnies - ours get a bowlful as a treat at bedtime every day - but hay or grass should make up the vast majority of their diets; their fiber and protein requirements are quite specific. So eating of his own will is GREAT news, but if he won't eat hay or grass that's still a problem and we'll still have to syringe feed him. He got another dose this morning and a pile of herbs to eat, but we're going to have to buy some better syringes at the pharmacy this afternoon, and if he hasn't eaten more hay he's going to have to eat more grass soup. Here is the patient (he's a very very good boy) in a bunny burrito, plus a picture of him convalescing in bunny loaf shape on his favorite spot, an old potholder.



I can't help thinking we're lucky that Inspector Japp inherited such a docile and laidback personality from his dad. Rowan is much more nervous and highstrung and he would have been in a panic all day after a trip like yesterday's.

Queerness in Mapp & Lucia

It's interesting that although they are pretty much free from romance, the Mapp and Lucia novels present some unusual queerness. My posts of quotations before included description of one of the main characters, Georgie, who is the primary narrator and the gay best friend of comic antiheroine Lucia. (The one in this post about his Oxford bags, for instance. The plot isn't present in the film version I've been watching since it belongs to the earlier book, but he's worn the Oxford bags onscreen.)

I've posted a few more quotes describing the garb of the tomboyish lesbian painter Irene Coles, a young woman with an Eton crop who always wears knickerbockers and stockings with men's shirts and waistcoats or with knitted jumpers. (See this post.) Irene, a modern artist who does expressionist stuff on canvas and lots of naked models and also paints a bunch of little stripes and squares on the front of her own house, is in her mid-twenties, and develops a crush on Lucia and becomes her slavish fanpoodle.

Georgie has been Lucia's bff, right-hand man, and lieutenant in all her scheming for decades stretching back to during her marriage, before her husband died, and they both move at the beginning of the book Mapp and Lucia in order to remain close to each other; but later circumstances cause them to become more codependent and they decide to get platonically married. There's a couple of whole scenes about the negotiation of their separate bedrooms and dressing rooms and sitting rooms in the house and the amount of time they need to spend alone per day! I really don't think I've run into a comparably platonic marriage in literature or media before.

Have a couple of passages of interactions between outrageous Irene and Georgie:

“My life-preserver!” cried Irene fervently, as she dismounted. “Georgie, I adore your beard. Do you put it inside your bedclothes or outside? Let me come and see some night when you’ve gone to bed. Don’t be alarmed, dear lamb, your sex protects you from any frowardness on my part. I was on my way to see Lucia. There’s news. Give me a nice dry kiss and I’ll tell you.”

“I couldn’t think of it,” said Georgie. “What would everybody say?”

“Dear old grandpa,” said Irene.“They’d say you were a bold and brazen old man. That would be a horrid lie. You’re a darling old lady, and I love you. What were we talking about?”

“You were talking great nonsense,” said Georgie, pulling his cape back over his shoulder.

Irene was doing physical jerks on her doorstep as Georgie passed her house on his way home.

“Come in, King of my heart,” she called. “Oh, Georgie, you’re a public temptation, you are, when you’ve got on your mustard-coloured cape and your blue tam-o’-shanter. Come in, and let me adore you for five minutes—only five—or shall I show you the new design for my fresco?”