These are a few of my favorite things...

The rest of the day was pretty typical, as well. I even got to greet some of my "favorite" creatures that co-habitate with me in the guesthouse.

As we were eating our lunch, our friendly kitchen rat perched himself on the side of the basket where we keep the potatoes and started munching on something. Zane was snoozing under the table and took a while to stretch and yawn and wake up enough to realize there was a free meal waiting for him... if he could catch it. I just don't really like these bold rats that come out in broad daylight when we're sitting right there having our lunch!

After lunch, Zane decided he would try out a new Spider-cat routine. He climbed all the way to the very tip top of the screen and climbed out a hole to get onto the roof of the guesthouse! Later, I found him climbing the bars of the kitchen windows, just like he was climbing a ladder. And just now, he started climbing my shelves, trying to get to the very top. I really do think he's entering his adolescence and is engaging in reckless behaviour, thinking he's invincible or something. He was also hungry the WHOLE day today. He kept coming to me and whining for food! Maybe he's going through a growth spurt... or maybe he was just practicing what was to come later...

So after cleaning up after the rat at lunch time, Jackie and I got to work cooking dinner for our guests that we had invited over tonight. What a feast we prepared, and I have to admit, it was quite a lot of fun preparing it!

As soon as our guests came over (the ones who are moving out of the house that we're moving into next week), the bats started flying around in the verandah, zooming in and out amongst where we were sitting and having our pre-dinner chitchat. Not cool.

So we quickly moved into the dining room, hoping to get out of the way of the bats. To Zane, of course, bats are just flying rats. Which means they're something to play with, and it's fresh meat, if they can be caught. And with his new found climbing skills... man, Zane was good entertainment tonight! Of course, he didn't catch any bats, but he sure did try hard. Even Spider-cats need a little practice before they can catch the bats.

Dinner was great, and we had some good laughs. There are some great people around here. Really interesting folks with good stories!

Once we said goodnight, Jackie and I started rinsing the dishes and tidying the kitchen a bit. And then I found the third of my favorite creatures: a huge cockroach and his little buddy. I mean, this was the biggest roach I have ever seen. I didn't quite know what to do... didn't really want to squash a giant roach in my kitchen sink, yet I wasn't fast enough to run for my Doom bug killer spray. In the end, we eyed each other up for a few seconds, and then they scuttled away under the counter, leaving me with a truly disgusted look on my face. Zane has been known to catch roaches in the past, too, but he was off stuffing his face with the leftovers from dinner.

So in the space of about 6 hours, I came face to face with all of my most favorite creatures here: a rat, a bat and a roach. And Zane wasn't any help at all!!