Rats

I am just back from Myanmar. There probably aren't too many readers of 'Mousenet' there but I did find out one fact that is gratifying to a writer of mouse books. I was born with a natural affinity for rodents.

The Burmese people follow astrological signs that depend on the day of the week you were born, and my sign (for a Thursday birth) is the rat. We visited several ceramic rats, including one at the massive Shwedagon pagoda complex in Yangon. This rat is being watered by a Thursday person who is giving him one cup of water for each year of her life (apparently–as with the candles on birthday cakes–people over a certain age are allowed to cheat, with one cup per decade, but I still didn’t indulge. The rat looked water-logged enough.)

Talking of rats, I recently made a guest appearance on a blog called ‘Ginny’s Friends.’ Ginny Rorby writes splendid Young Adult novels with a deep concern for animals, and I related the tale of Fido, the rat I rescued from a grocery store for my son Charlie. See the post at http://grorby.blogspot.com/2012/10/fido-rescue-rat-by-prudence-breitrose.html. 

Fido turned out to be one of the most successful pets we ever had.