Tuesday, 1 January 2008 03:54 pm
(no subject)
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deckardcanineOn Christmas 2006, there was a pervasive theme of environmental gifts in my family. It wasn't quite as rampant a year later, but something interesting happened: For once, all four of us unwrapped slips of paper -- mostly to notify us of some kind of contribution in our names, some to notify about gifts that didn't come in the mail on time or that otherwise couldn't be wrapped.
Three of us got gifts signed, "From the Animal Kingdom." My mom was the first to open one. It was a reusable bag containing a stuffed puffin the size of an overweight tomcat, accompanied by a notification that she had symbolically adopted one. My sister adopted a meerkat and got two of those.
I got a Darwin's fox (Pseudalopex fulvipes). According to the card, it is the largest carnivore on the Island of Chiloé, also inhabiting the temperate rainforests in nearby southern Chile. It is also, of course, endangered.
You may recall that I more or less named my adopted red fox Val last year. Now that I have a physical representation of the animal with me -- my first plush toy in many years -- the naming seems more important. I'll say Tony, after a patron saint of animals.
Three of us got gifts signed, "From the Animal Kingdom." My mom was the first to open one. It was a reusable bag containing a stuffed puffin the size of an overweight tomcat, accompanied by a notification that she had symbolically adopted one. My sister adopted a meerkat and got two of those.
I got a Darwin's fox (Pseudalopex fulvipes). According to the card, it is the largest carnivore on the Island of Chiloé, also inhabiting the temperate rainforests in nearby southern Chile. It is also, of course, endangered.
You may recall that I more or less named my adopted red fox Val last year. Now that I have a physical representation of the animal with me -- my first plush toy in many years -- the naming seems more important. I'll say Tony, after a patron saint of animals.