Infinite Pet

Since Leo got sick about a week ago (parasitical infection that he probably picked up at the bunny sitter - which has the same kind of health risks as sending your child to live in close quarters with others at boarding school or something), there has been a tremendous change I would not have thought possible: he will not eat carrot. Smart money is on the hypothesis that he associates carrots with feeling sick and so is avoiding them. (I didn't eat olives for a year after having the flu one time, so it seems plausible to me.) So he has been eating hay and greens and food pellets instead. We tempted his appetite when he got home from the vet with golden raisins, which he went crazy for, but he is off the raisins now.

But he has become, if anything, even more desirous/demanding of long petting sessions. Robert sometimes disappears in Leo's room for 20 minutes or more of full-time petting. Leo loves Robert's attention because Robert has perfected an ear-scratching technique that affects Leo like a Jedi mind trick and because he is willing to let Leo be the unstoppable force of nudging. (By contrast, Leo encounters an immovable object when he tries to nudge me around.)

Leo being willingly manipulated into a trance:



Leo demonstrates his agency by pushing the boy human around:



(I don't know what the song "The Infinite Pet" by Austin-band Spoon is actually about, of course; my first two guesses are "a girl" or "a drug habit" but that's just applying the probabilities of rock music. I love the sound of it, though - it has a kind of "gumshoe music" feel about it. Ever since I've been thinking of Leo's pursuit of an Infinite Pet, though, it's totally been stuck in my head. Here, you can get it a taste of the song - click "preview all.")