Christmas has come and gone ...

Good morning Cindy and Kiwi! The little creatures received their Christmas presents belatedly because grocery stores were not open on Christmas day.

Shannon decided the Cindy and Kiwi would have to wait until the morning of December 27th to receive their respective kale and peppers, because Kiwi cannot have veggies in her cage overnight, and Shannon did not think that it was fair to give treats only to Cindy. So both girls received their gifts the following morning and were very excited. Cindy hopped over and began nibbling the leaves of the kale.

Kiwi at first was not eager to go back in her cage, as she very much enjoyed her perch on Shannon's shoulder. But once Shannon coaxed her to go inside, she had a magical surprise inside in the form of a spicy jalapeno pepper. Oh how Kiwi was excited!! She began ripping the seeds from the pepper, just flinging the flesh of the pepper to the floor of her cage. Shannon will surely have a mess to clean up, but it was good to see Kiwi so happy.

Shannon must report that Kiwi has not been nippy with her at all this past week, except with her feet. Kiwi does not seem to distinguish that feet are the same as hands - i.e. covered with sensitive skin. She does, however, enjoy scurrying down Shannon's legs when Shannon is laying in bed or on the couch. After a few minutes, she may begin pecking at Shannon's ankles, at which Shannon scoops up the little green creature and deposits her back on her shoulder. Kiwi is persistent though, and soon after she will journey back down towards Shannon's feet to begin anew.

One morning, while Shannon was stretched out on

top of her bed, Kiwi began walking down Shannon's pink pajama-clad leg. Now Shannon's foot was hanging off the edge of the bed. Kiwi decided to crawl into the leg opening at the bottom of Shannon's pajama pants. Kiwi proceeded to remain hanging there for quite some time, enabling Shannon to capture some prime pictures and a short video of the green monster perched with her tail feathers peeking out from below Shannon's foot. Eventually Kiwi tired of this game, and thought that she would enjoy hopping around on Shannon's bed. She thought that this was great fun, because now she could peer into Cindy's pen with a much better view. Shannon also tried to capture a video of Kiwi on the bed. At first, Kiwi did not want to do much, but if you look in the background, you can see Cindy in her litterbox, munching away on her hay. Shannon thought that the movie would be made better if Kiwi occupied more of the screen, but as her camera will not zoom during a film, Shannon resorted to bringing the camera closer to Kiwi. Given Kiwi's demonstrated frustration with cameras, she fluttered off and perched on top of Cindy's pen, thus ending the video.

On Sunday afternoon, Shannon and Tracy journeyed by train to San Francisco where they enjoyed a fabulous satire of Alfred Hitchcock's "The 39 Steps." Part of the satire "inwolved" inserting references to other Hitchcock classics, and a cast of four switching quickly between a multitude of bit characters. The Loch Ness monster even made an appearance in puppet form. When Shannon and Tracy returned to the apartment, Kiwi had devoured her entire jalapeno pepper; the only thing thing hanging from the pen was the stem. It was very good.