Entropy Reducers Amalgamated

...UNTIL the fateful day when my dearest wife Elana found a craigslist posting for a free chinchilla late last week. She "applied" for it, and on Tuesday, got a call from the pet's owner that the chinchilla could, indeed, be ours.

So off to Flushing dearest wife traveled with son #2 to fetch the newest member of the household, Snoopy the chinchilla:

Chinchillas, as you may or may not know, are somewhat crepuscular (not nocturnal)--so Snoopy tends to sleep a lot during the day, almost as if she were narcoleptic, so the most often way I find her is either snoozing

or running around in her exercise wheel.

I'm reasonably certain we're not sure what we're getting into, as chinchillas are not the low-maintenance pets we're used to.

Our aformentioned rabbit is curious about the new family member, but was quite nonplussed this morning when we opened Snoopy's cage door, and she scampered out, ran circles across the hardwood floor (Shafan is skittish about the hardwood floor because he can't get a good grip on it) and under and into our sofa, prompting Elana and me to spend 20 minutes literally shaking the sofa up and down to extract Snoopy, all while son #4 was trying to be helpful by directing Snoopy away from the loud noises Son #4 was making. (At least we got some exercise.)

A chinchilla's expected lifespan is a little longer than a typical rabbit's lifespan (which is longer by a few years than we originally thought, and longer still than the lifespan of a guinea pig), and given that Snoopy is 2 and Shafan is at least 4 (we got him before the birth of Son #4), we're definitely in this for the long haul.

And we're looking forward to it.