Critters...

If all the beasts were gone, men would die from a great loneliness of spirit... ~Chief Seattle of the Suwamish Tribe, letter to President Franklin Pierce

I adore animals of nearly every shape and size. I'm afraid of few living things outside of the human species (people terrify me, frankly). But lately, it seems that odd creatures are visiting some well known authors.

Paperback Writer was visited by the kind of critter that slithers.

And Jenny Crusie had something even stranger show up at her back door (and, of course, she made me laugh out loud when talking about it).

Makes me feel a little sad that the only relatively odd thing that's shown up around here lately was the threatened green snake. Yeah, we have bears and fisher cats and lots of birds and toads, but nothing so cool as Jenny.

In the new beginning to my WIP "TPOF" about Camilla, she makes an unkind reference to a hedgehog. One of the ladies in my group mentioned that she has a hedgehog as a pet, and that it is a wonderful creature. I'm tickled about that... because I know what my odd pet of the book is going to be in my next story now! Yay! I usually have a dog as well, although in my current WIP "SBCM" there is currently NO pet at all! And, to be honest, I haven't got a clue whether there will be one or not. This book is completely different for me.

With my luck, it'll be the one I get pubbed first and then, when I try to get my more off the wall stuff out there, no one will want it because it's different than they expect.

Incidentally, yes... I'm babbling. I had little to talk about this morning, and my DD woke up with a nightmare at 3 a.m. and I really never got back to sleep because my brain woke up, even if my body was still desperate for some zzzzzz's. So I have a feeling I'm going to be a bit dingy (dingier than usual?) all day long!

In closing: What was your favorite pet in a book?