Now that I look back for attribution, I can’t recall if it was  Ron himself, or the baritoned MissouRasta Jesse who used the onomatompoeia to describe the phenomenon, but fitting it was indeed.

As if on cue, several rabbits come popping up to the ground floor to check things out.  As many as seven at a time.  They just go ploop, ploop, ploop up the top of the skywalk.  And then, what I like to do is pretend I am some kind of post modern Snow White.  You four rabbits do the dishes.  And you two take these empty beer bottles back for the deposit. 

In reality, though, rabbits are terrible at housechores.  Even the most simple tasks.  And also unlike the woodland friendlies in the Disney films, they lack any voyeuristic curiousity about your lovelife.  They can’t even feign interest to be polite. 

What they do like to do when upstairs is mostly two things. 

One is to use the extra space for spontaneous rounds of Rabbit Grabass.  The rules are unclear, but it involves lots of running and sharp turns on the rugs, cool spinouts on the parquet, and lots of spastic jumps for joy (binkies, I hear they are called).

The second is to see if ole Twolegs has some leafy greens to doal out.  G.R.E.A.M. They love the tops of carrots more than the root itself.  And a real frickin treat is the green leaves of kohlrabi.  “It’s like Gold,” said Ron on a “dumpster diving” mission.

Ron and his sense of drama.  Before he left, he showed me the finer points of rabbit grocery shopping.  Because there are 9 buns, 2 bunches of carrots, plus a broccoli are bought daily, and given out throughout the day.  This leaves us with a lot of excess orange, and not enough greens for the little ones, who seem to like it the most.

So then there is a wastebasket nearby, where shoppers can strip off the excess greenage from their veggies.  Some people do this for space, but mostly I suspect some people are just dumb and they think it will make their veggies cheaper.  Most veggies in question are sold by unit, not weight.  So you can fish out those parts and take them with you, no questions asked.  That was what Ron Referred to as dumpster diving.

• Mimoe — Black. Female. The oldest of the herd.
• Hagen–Brown. Male
• Florence–White with spots. Female. Mother of the litter
• Jimmy–Brownish with whiskery sidetufts
• the brown one
• the other brown one
• the grey one
• the light grey one
• reebear — white with spots, named because he first looked like a ree, and then later like a bear.

Ron is like a brother to me, so I was honored to be asked to housesit for him while he and his wife are away for the week.

It’s not so much the flat that needs looking after, but rather the sprawling megalopolis that is called Rabbit Skywalk, home to 9 rabbits. 6 of those, thanks to the ramps of the skywalk, have the run of the entire flat.

It’s pretty cool. And although I don’t really have time for this crap, stay tuned; I’ll try to write about it or at least share some photos during this next week.

Why not? A quick bunny wallpaper.

Last Saturday, I am told by Ron, Najimo passed away after several weeks of illness. He was buried on Sunday.

You can view several videos with him and the other rabbits on this channel and of course there’s the Rabbit Skywalk.